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A few French homophones


NormanH
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But we do say them differently, even me who has no 'ear' at all for languages.

And that is because when my tots were learning their alphabet, that is one thing I had to learn properly, AND I have had to spell things out all the time in french.

And OH, excellent french and son who speaks perfect french, both say these like me.

How to describe

well with a french accent the difference between 'sea' and 'say'.

I agree with the rest of the list though.[:D]

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Most people pronounce c as "sea" in English and "say" in French, don't they? And the others on the list are all "say" as well, so I'm still confused what the difference is.

Vert as well, for the vers/ver/Vergt list. I had never heard of Vergt, I would probably have gargled at the end.
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Yes, I agree, and I said it was the difference between sea and say, but if I wasn't clear, I meant in french

c'est for me is definitely more like 'say', but almost cut short in pronunciation, and I suppose the french sound for c is more like 'si' as the spannish would say it rather than the french.

Complicated I know, but there is a difference.

And I have looked up how to pronounce and listened to 'c' and 'c'est' and there is a difference.

Go to recto/verso dictionnaire and look up them up and further down the page you can listen to them.

I have all too often wondered about how well other posters speak french. I know my own limits,  and my poor 'ear' but maybe I am no better or worse than many other posters. [:D]

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Loiseau, you are right in that proper nouns can be tricky.

I daresay that you will know the town of Pons in the north Charente.  All of us locals or near locals say Pon and then, lo and behold, one day I was meeting none other than our own Cendrillon at some train station or other and the announcer said quite distinctly that the train from PonS would be arriving at......

So, just to be certain of my grounds, I asked Cendrillon how the town was pronounced and she said all the locals pronounced it WITHOUT the S.

We also have a village near us called St Just and I had heard it said with and without the S.  I used to ask, do you pronounce it like you would the name of "the revolutionary" but, of course, all those well-known revolutionaries (Danton, Robespierre, etc) were from the north of France and they didn't pronounce things like we do here in the south[:)]

ET, yes, I forgot the vert!!  How could I, as I live in the Périgord Vert[:$]

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ie Chamonix

Haute Savoyards I know sound the X. And I do.

And not just there as I do for Aix Les Bains and Aix en Provence too.

Yes there are regional differences, shouldn't really be what with republican values etc, but there are.

I reckon if I had moved to the SW then I would have picked up the local accent quite well?
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When we first moved here from the Charente Maritime (only 1 hour door-to-door), I was bewildered by the local place names as pronounced by the locals.

As soon as I could, I found a French class and begged the teacher to go through the names of all the local towns and villages with us.

But still trying to find a teacher to help with pronunciation of OTHER than place names![:-))]  I have my quarry in sight but have to think up ways of persuading her to come out of retirement to teach me.

Now for a little anecdote to bring a smile to faces......

I was in the kiné's waiting-room earlier this week and an English couple came in so I said "bonjour" as we all do in these parts.  Then the woman began fussing as to where he should sit.  Being my (usual) helpful self, I offered him my seat which had arms that would help him to get back on his feet when his name was called.  I spoke in English upon which they thanked me in French and then the woman said "But you are not English and you speak our language so well!"

I nearly choked over the magazine I was reading....... 

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 What about walking group friends  or neighbours mint, won't they help.

I used to try and do the same, with pronunciations, ask  and inevitably make them laugh with my efforts. Some are still a bit ropey, but there you go, find it hard to get my mouth round some sounds.

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mint wrote :

But still trying to find a teacher to help with pronunciation of OTHER than place names! I have my quarry in sight but have to think up ways of persuading her to come out of retirement to teach me.

Help might be at hand .. I use this online dictionary http://www.wordreference.com ..

as often it has 'écouter' so that you can hear the word spoken by a genuine French person or by a genuine Canadian person/speaker. A valuable tool I have used for years.

Also :

https://translate.google.com/m/translate

has improved exponentially over the years and also gives a listening option on the bottom lhs of the translation box.

Edit : sorry cannot make live links on my tablet .. it's a copy and paste job I'm afraid.
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mint says .....

vers as in vers Bordeaux (in the direction of.....)

vers minuit (around midnight...)

ver (worm)

........ you can also add

vert (as in green)

verre (as in glass)

vers (as in poetry)

vair (as in the fur)

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And yet, when the € came in, the french government insisted that the cents were called centimes, because you could not have a word sounding like another word that did not mean the same thing. It would be tooo confusing......... as if hundreds of french words don't sound the same as others.[:D]

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