FrenchPod101.com Blog

You are learning French, but aside from grammar and vocabulary, you feel challenged by the pronunciation. What is the key to making all those uniquely French sounds?

There are different categories of French sounds, and these the most unique ones to the language, and therefore, challenging. They are the following:

Voyelles orales (”oral vowels̶

• Voyelles antérieures (”front vowels̶

You produce them by placing your tongue to the front of your mouth, as in the English word “feet” and “stylo” (pen) in French.

• Voyelles centrales (”central vowels̶ Place the tongue in the middle of your mouth, as in “pure” and “lune”(moon) in French.
• Voyelles postérieures (”back vowels̶

 Place your tongue in the back of your mouth, as in “tourist” and “goûter”(”to taste̶ in French.

Voyelles nasales (”nasal vowels̶
To make this sound, use the air passage through the nose and lower the soft palate while the air goes through the mouth; like in the French word “parfum” (perfume).
The Vibrante (”Vibrant̶ “R”
This French sound is usually challenging. It is used for the letter “r” as in the French word “roue”(wheel), or butter in English. Remember that for this sound, To pronounce the letter -r in French, try to reproduce the sound of an angry growling dog. Harden the rolling -gr sound to reproduce a nice French sound!
As you keep trying out, you will be discovering muscles you never knew you had! While learning French, you’re discovering your own anatomy!

It is widely known that France has a beautiful culture and language, but did you know the historical reason why French is a ‘Romance Language’ is a result of wars and invasion?

French language primarily descends from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans, and thus belongs to the ‘Romance’ Language Group.

The Romans were a strong empire that once invaded the actual French territory, which was known as La Gaule; where numerous tribes speaking le Gaulois (’Gaulish̵ composed of Celtic dialects inhabited La Gaule. Some traces of Gaulish influence are still present in the French spoken today; for example, these traces include the Gauls’ ancient and unique way of counting people by twenty.
(In modern French, we still have quatre-vingt {’80′}, but there were also six-vingt {’120′} and quinze-vingt {’300′}.)

Once the Romans conquered the Gauls in the second and first century BC, vulgar Latin (which the common people spoke) rapidly dominated, as it was similar to Gaulish, and was deemed fashionable and good for business.

However, the Gauls were invaded yet again, this time by the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes. Later on though, the Franks were also Romanized and accepted the Roman Empire.
As the Franks melted into the Romano-Gallic population, a new multicultural population was formed: Les Francs.

At the beginning, French language was called le Francilien. It was born in Paris and spread all over Europe through poems and literature telling the adventures and loves of heroes.
These stories were known as ‘Romances’ after the French language, which became in modern French the word ‘roman’ meaning ‘novel’ and in English the word ‘romantic.’

Because French has been spoken for more than two thousand years, has spread across its border, and today it is spoken all over the world-mainly in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Monaco. Who knew that invasion and politics would end up creating one of the most popular and loved languages in modern times!

Just as an engine helps a car move, mastering basic grammar helps you express yourself and communicate your ideas clearly. The more you know about the engine parts, the more you can improve your engine’s capacity. Similarly, the more you know grammar, the better your French will be!

French grammar has the reputation of being boring and complicated, but it’s not so terrible. The main difficulties are the word genders and the conjugation system (shared by all Romance languages). It is just a matter of remembering some basic rules that will reduce your chances of making the most common French grammar mistakes. The most common one is gender.

In French, all nouns have a gender, either masculine or feminine.
A basic rule for nouns and gender, is that nouns ending in:

• -ance, -ence
• -ée (except le lycée, le musée)
• -eur (except le bonheur, le malheur)
• -ie
• -ion, -sion, -tion,
• -xion
• -té
• -ure

Noun genders, though a difficult concept, is unavoidable to learn! Getting the gender of a word wrong can lead to confusion or worse; completely give a different meaning to your sentence. Keep in mind that it is just a matter of learning and perseverance. Like a car engine, learn the parts and how to use them for a smooth ride!