British words the French are pronouncing incorrectly

[alittlebitfrench]

Following on from Minty's thread, what British words do the French pronounce incorrectly ?

My surname is one (I have accepted that my surname and the kids surname) will never be pronounced correctly in France....I have even resorted to adopting their pronunciation when making appointments or whatever. You just have to live with it.

So what other British words can the French not pronounce ? For starters...

- Ships

- Chips

- Sheep

They can't do them. Or differentiate between them.

Any others ?

[mint]

child and children

[andyh4]

My surname also and basically all words with an aspirated "H"

[Gardengirl]

My surname proves difficult for French people too, which starts with 'Th', plus other such words, like thumb, think, Thursday etc.

[idun]

I remember my kids friends having difficulty saying 'apple', right tongue twister that was for 7 year olds...... but they could do the 'th' sound at that age.

[andyh4]

I remember a night in Yugoslavia (as was) exchanging a night teaching a student trying to correctly say "the" , for a bottle of slivovitz (and a mighty hangover the next morning).

[Loiseau]

Some French friends who otherwise speak excellent English just can't do "guard" or "Guardian". They always stick in a W:

gward/gwardian

[Chancer]

Which shows that English or French most prononciation errors are caused by knowing the spelling of the word and seeing it mentally, the words that I correctly pronounce I will often write incorrectly, sometimes for years before I see them written.

 

I recall the children of my French teacher, they were 3 and 5 when we first met, teenagers now, the boy who was at school did very well, no surprise as maman was an English teacher but when we practiced English words he would struggle with pronouncing those that he already knew and critically knew how to spell, his little sister would pick them up instantly and was not hindered by "seeing" the words, she could not even read or write at that time.

 

Now as teenagers she has far far better prononciation than him proving the value of early learning.

[Loiseau]

"angry" and "hungry" - amazing how they will put an H on the wrong one and leave it off the right one.

Going back to idun's "apple", maybe there is difficulty for French people pronouncing two consonants together? "Apple" being one, but of course "Southampton" is a classic - that combination of "th" with another h following is near-impossible.

[idun]

Chancer, as I learned on the hoof too, sometimes I try and look french words up and have no idea how to spell them. And I really do try and pronounce properly, but have no gift, so my best is all I can do......

Sadly, I am also useless at english spelling and can have the same problem in english.[blink]

[Chancer]

Just had a mid term renter leave after 3 months, we got on well and he would often try pronouncing English, his younger brother is very accomplished.

 

I tried him with Southampton and he did OK but was initially saying Selfhampton, once over that he was not bad, then I showed it to him written and he could no longer pronounce it, completely tongue twisted, sort of proved my theory.

 

He gave me some boîtes de conserves and to my dismay I find that le géant vert says "oh-oh-oh"  and not "hoh-hoh-hoh" there are so may words that are in my mind deliberately mispelled or mispronounced when they enter the French language that I think its deliberate when they either dont have a French word or the one insisted on by the Académie is not taken up in common speech, even French newsreaders who speak superb English will mispronounce terms doing an item to camera yet when interviewing someone in English they will pronounce them perfectly.

 

And when a French person throws in some English words or even a phrase it completely throws me, all of a sudden I cannot understand what they are saying, the words sound familiar but make no sense, I am completely unprepared for it given that I have not been able to speak English in France since 12 years. The younger brother of the tenant arrived, I did not reconise him so thought he was yet another person looking for hébergement, he spoke to me in English with a mix of French and erman accent and prononciation, initially I had no clue what he was saying or even what language it was, took me a while to reset, its not so bad in summer when I have a constant flux of different nationalities speaking either French or English with strange accents but one very quickly falls out of practice.

[idun]

I remember a woman I used to know quite well saying that I must know 'michael field'. She did her best to say it in english, but her accent was very strong. So she put tubular bells on, and I said 'Mike Oldfield'.......... which with an astonished expression she said that that was what she had said! Now I have not got the ear, but she didn't[Www]

I remember learning lots of I suppose infantile terms from a neighbour....... ie splash was for her schplouf..... although others say plouf....... maybe that was colloquial to her original region. And Beee for Baaa  and cows 'meuh' and cocoricoco for a cockeral's crowing........... as french people tell me, their national emblem is the only animal that sings it's own praises, as stands in it's own mer de![:)]

[alittlebitfrench]

Bournémouth.

They pronounce the e.

Idiots

[idun]

But that is how french is learned, so not really a surprise.

Remember the first time my son saw this written down, and in spoken english was fully aware of these people and could say their names properly.

He said:

More ray Comm bay and Vee Zay

Know who they are???[I]

[Loiseau]

Nope, got me stumped there, idun!

I was mystified when French friends said I must know "Benn-eeel" though.

[suein56]

Idun wrote : More ray Comm bay and Vee Zay

Morecombe Bay I can do, but Vee Zay is puzzling.

Sue

[idun]

And this is how my french educated son read this, all with french pronunciation:

Mo re com be and  Wi se   ..............ofcourse a double V as is said in french, is a V sound.

I suppose the way the kids learn, helps me pronounce written french, as long as they sound the letter(s), it sort of makes sense.

[Chancer]

There is a word that I think iIpronounce correctly but as I have never seen it written, dont know the spelling and cannot find it in a dictionary then I could be way off.

 

I know that en travers(e) is for something on its side but for something plutôt on the diagonal I hear and say en billet or maybe embillet.

 

So what is the correct word please?

[andrew44]

En biais

[Chancer]

Wow!!!!

 

There never was a better example than that! Can you imagine how thick I would have appeared had I written it the way I hear it and pronounce it!!!!!!!

 

Yes, to my ears .....et and ais have the same sound.

 

Never in a million years would I have found that in the dictionary.

[idun]

I am so glad that it is not just me who tries to look words up, words that I use, but have no idea how to spell them........... and my searching, proves fruitless and frustrating.

If I really need to know, I usually get there in the end by going round the houses......... but I have literally wasted hours and hours in doing so.

My feeling about it is, that I would rather be able to chat to anyone in France about just about anything ....... it is after all a language...... ie using ones tongue to speak.  My literacy, well as many french people do, I can always get a scribe[;-)]

[Chancer]

If you want to bolster your self confidence regarding literacy just look at a page of ads on Leboncoin, it is absolutely shocking and I say that as an immigrant who makes more than his fair share of mistakes because I dont let embarrassment hold me back.

 

Of those that I have bought from they were all French born and (poorly) educated, not literacy but I bought a suspended cieling on Leconcoin recently, enough for 50m2 it said, the tiles are 60cm square, I took one look at the pile of tiles and said no way is that 60m2, he said there are 80 tiles, 80 times 0.6 = 48m2 [:'(] when I tactfully explained that we are talking areas which are expressed in metres squared and that the correct calculation was 8à x 0.6 x 0.6 giving around the 30m2 I had estimated he had he gave me that look that I was trying to have him over.

 

We did the deal, I ended up paying €10 less than the  E100 we had agreed for 40 percent less qnd he thought I zqs ripping hi; off<

 

So;ething stupid hqs hqppened to ;y keyboqrd qll the chqrqcters qre co;ing out zrongm dont knoz zhqt I hqve done [:'(]

[andrew44]

'Et' and 'ais' have the same sound. It's just 'biais' as in biased - but not the same sense as prejudiced !

At an angle. Reverso gives lots of translations including 'skew' or 'askew'.

Also, as you can imagine, the verb biaiser - to bias, skew or distort - lends itself to wordplay. It's used in sewing - something to do with hemming, I believe. But I'm not a seamstress or seamster plutôt.

See the song 'La Biaiseuse' by Marie-Paule Belle... that dates me !

@+

Andrew

[idun]

Looks like your key board has gone qwerty, UK.

Mine used to do that mid sentence. I used to do something like Maj+Alt Gr, or Maj+Alt or something like that

[Chancer]

I thought that I was going mad, i tried to do the € sign and I kept getting a drop down menu for something, then as you say the keys were re-assigned, did a reboot and all was OK.

 

Often when I am typing the cursor will leap back and what I type is inserted further back in the text, I am misskeying something maybe hitting the tab key and something else, it happens loads, never been able to repeat it when i try though!