Pronunciation help: all languages

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mightyfelix
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Post by mightyfelix »

Thanks for that tip, I'd never thought to try that! It is really helpful, although still not as good as our amazing and helpful volunteers! :wink: In particular, I know I'll still need help with that last phrase I listed. Google translate just goes too fast on that one for me to be sure I'm hearing it right.
Kitty
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Post by Kitty »

mightyfelix wrote: October 27th, 2018, 6:50 pm I'm back again! There are numerous phrases I'm asking help for this time.
I have just recorded them Devorah, only need to clean them up a bit :) stay tuned

Sonia
I will be on vacation from Wednesday 27 March till Sunday 14 April
and unable to PL during that time. Thank you for your patience.
Kitty
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Post by Kitty »

ok here is the list: https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/french_phrases_devorah.mp3

once very slow, once normal speed and once embedded in your sentence. Do you need the translations too ?

> les petites morales - small morals
> tout seul - all alone
> Maudit amour - cursed love (take care here to make the liaison, so the end-t should be attached to the beginning vowel of the next word, to make it sound more fluent)
> Adieu, adieu, ma tres chere soeur - good bye good bye my dearest sister
> autour de vous - around you
> Mais assez sur ce point - but enough of this (also here liaison between mais and assez)
> et mon pauvre amant humilié et humiliant - and my poor lover, humiliated and humiliating (between pauvre and amant there should be contraction, so even though I said "pau-vrE" in my slow version, better leave out the 'e' and contract it with amant to be more fluent again "pauvramant" not "pauvre / amant"

Hope I was of help :)

Sonia
I will be on vacation from Wednesday 27 March till Sunday 14 April
and unable to PL during that time. Thank you for your patience.
mightyfelix
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Post by mightyfelix »

Gahh, wouldn't you know it, I already found three that I missed. Thanks so much for all your help so far, Sonia. I went ahead and gave it my best shot at these:
  • "Life is not long enough; but were I an antediluvian, I should not think it worth while to seek for a heart that is wrapped up in a hundred and fifty envelopes—Un coeur serré would disgust me, tho' the possessor of it had ten thousand amiable qualities."
  • "I should fancy, from his rueful O que non! that there were traits of character sufficient to mark him by;"
  • "You may also perceive I began my letter with an affected gayeté de coeur, and ended it in real sadness."
Would you mind having a listen and critiquing me? I'm especially unsure about how that second one should be inflected.

https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/best_french_i_could_do_today.mp3
Kitty
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Post by Kitty »

mightyfelix wrote: November 6th, 2018, 1:21 am Would you mind having a listen and critiquing me? I'm especially unsure about how that second one should be inflected.
https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/best_french_i_could_do_today.mp3
sounds absolutely fine to me, Devorah :)

if I had to say one thing that is not French, it's the "que" in the second sentence "O que non". The way you pronounce the ending 'e' is Spanish. In French it would be more an 'uh' sound, as if somebody punched you in the stomach :lol: what would it rhyme with ? :hmm: do the English have such a sound ? ....

Oh I see I did the sound in my last file, it's the same 'e' than in "autour de vous" just swap 'd' for 'k' and you have "que" :)

Sonia
I will be on vacation from Wednesday 27 March till Sunday 14 April
and unable to PL during that time. Thank you for your patience.
mightyfelix
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Post by mightyfelix »

Thanks so much! I will tweak that. I'm not surprised that I pronounced it like Spanish. I'm much more familiar with Spanish than I am with French, having grown up in Texas. Google Translate wasn't much help with that one, either. It went WAY too fast. :roll:
Leni
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Post by Leni »

Hello! I need some help with a few French passages in a book in Portuguese I am recording. I will add here the passages and if some kind soul could record them for me, so I can make sure I am not pronouncing anything horribly wrong, I will be very thankful! :)

1) Souvent femme varie / Bien fol est qui s'y fle

2) Honte à toi, qui la première / M'as appris la trahison / Honte à tois , tu fus la mére / Des mes premières douleurs.

3) Mets ta main, ta petite main / Ta main dans la mienne?

4) Ce don de plaire, en nous plus sounhaité / Que nest' l'esprit, plus sur que la beautè
Leni
=================
Kitty
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Post by Kitty »

Leni wrote: January 15th, 2019, 3:25 pm Hello! I need some help with a few French passages in a book in Portuguese I am recording. I will add here the passages and if some kind soul could record them for me, so I can make sure I am not pronouncing anything horribly wrong, I will be very thankful! :)
1) Souvent femme varie / Bien fol est qui s'y fle
2) Honte à toi, qui la première / M'as appris la trahison / Honte à tois , tu fus la mére / Des mes premières douleurs.
3) Mets ta main, ta petite main / Ta main dans la mienne?
4) Ce don de plaire, en nous plus sounhaité / Que nest' l'esprit, plus sur que la beautè
Leni, I can do a soundfile this evening, if nobody else comes around earlier :)

Sonia
I will be on vacation from Wednesday 27 March till Sunday 14 April
and unable to PL during that time. Thank you for your patience.
Leni
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Post by Leni »

Kitty wrote: January 15th, 2019, 11:59 pm
Leni, I can do a soundfile this evening, if nobody else comes around earlier :)

Sonia
That's fine, Sonia. I added here all passages that appear in the whole book, so there is no rush. Thanks! :D

Edited to add: I have actually studied French in my teenage years and I can read it fairly well. But the pronunciation is what always caught me. :roll:
Leni
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Kitty
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Post by Kitty »

Leni wrote: January 16th, 2019, 5:12 am Edited to add: I have actually studied French in my teenage years and I can read it fairly well. But the pronunciation is what always caught me. :roll:
so you don't need a translation ? Well I write it up quickly, doesn't take long. There were a few typos, so here are the correct sentences (corrections in blue) Often it's only an accent that's wrong, but sometimes the accents can make a different word ;)

1) Souvent femme varie / Bien fol est qui s'y fie - Often a woman changes / quite insane, whoever would trust her

2) Honte à toi, qui la première / M'as appris la trahison / Honte à toi , tu fus la mère / De mes premières douleurs - Shame on you, who first / taught me treason / Shame on you, you were the mother / of my first pains - wow this French sentence sounds like something out of a Racine stage play :9:

3) Mets ta main, ta petite main / Ta main dans la mienne? - put your hand, your small hand / your hand into mine

4) Ce don de plaire, en nous plus souhaité / Que n'est l'esprit, plus sûr que la beauté - this gift to please, more coveted in us / than is the mind, safer than beauty - this is a complicated phrasing of the sentence, I think what is meant is: We desire more to please others with our beauty than with our mind, even though the mind is a safer bet and more important than the beauty

And here my soundfile, I always first read it word by word and very slowly, and then more naturally, like I would say the sentence in context with a bit more expression:

https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/french-for-leni.mp3

Hope this helps :)

Sonia
I will be on vacation from Wednesday 27 March till Sunday 14 April
and unable to PL during that time. Thank you for your patience.
Leni
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Post by Leni »

Kitty wrote: January 16th, 2019, 9:18 am
Leni wrote: January 16th, 2019, 5:12 am Edited to add: I have actually studied French in my teenage years and I can read it fairly well. But the pronunciation is what always caught me. :roll:
so you don't need a translation ? Well I write it up quickly, doesn't take long. There were a few typos, so here are the correct sentences (corrections in blue) Often it's only an accent that's wrong, but sometimes the accents can make a different word ;)

1) Souvent femme varie / Bien fol est qui s'y fie - Often a woman changes / quite insane, whoever would trust her

2) Honte à toi, qui la première / M'as appris la trahison / Honte à toi , tu fus la mère / De mes premières douleurs - Shame on you, who first / taught me treason / Shame on you, you were the mother / of my first pains - wow this French sentence sounds like something out of a Racine stage play :9:

3) Mets ta main, ta petite main / Ta main dans la mienne? - put your hand, your small hand / your hand into mine

4) Ce don de plaire, en nous plus souhaité / Que n'est l'esprit, plus sûr que la beauté - this gift to please, more coveted in us / than is the mind, safer than beauty - this is a complicated phrasing of the sentence, I think what is meant is: We desire more to please others with our beauty than with our mind, even though the mind is a safer bet and more important than the beauty

And here my soundfile, I always first read it word by word and very slowly, and then more naturally, like I would say the sentence in context with a bit more expression:

https://librivox.org/uploads/xx-nonproject/french-for-leni.mp3

Hope this helps :)

Sonia
Amazing, thanks so much, Sonia! They are all citations of other works, I am sure. He quotes a lot in French and English. I am reading from a scan, and sometimes it was really hard to see the accents, so thanks much for fixing that too!

I am downloading the file right now. Thanks again! :9:
Leni
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thestorygirl
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Post by thestorygirl »

Here is a question I've always wondered about (most) British accents:

When there are two words, one ending in a vowel and the next beginning with a vowel
BUT
the speaker pauses between the two words,
is there a pronounced 'r' added between them or not?

When there are two words, one ending in r and the next beginning with a vowel
BUT
the speaker pauses between the two words,
is there a pronounced 'r' or not?

I am looking to improve my accent training.
Thank you!
:D
Peter Why
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Post by Peter Why »

thestorygirl ...

If you could give some examples, I'll record how I'd say them, but it's possible that it's handled differently in other parts of the British Isles. I come from south-east England.

Peter
"I think, therefore I am, I think." Solomon Cohen, in Terry Pratchett's Dodger
tovarisch
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Post by tovarisch »

I think thestorygirl is talking of these two cases:

1. "The idea is that you can say words differently" (there might be an 'r' phoneme between 'a' in idea and 'i' in is, which will be gone if you make a pause between those words)
2. "The matter as I see it, is that people often say it wrong" (the 'r' in matter may be heard if you say those two words "flowingly", and disappear if you make a pause after "The matter")

"Master Alfred, please put on your jacket." vs "Master, Alfred asks your permission to enter." (in a voice of a butler) :)
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
thestorygirl
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Post by thestorygirl »

tovarisch wrote: January 25th, 2019, 2:16 pm I think thestorygirl is talking of these two cases:

1. "The idea is that you can say words differently" (there might be an 'r' phoneme between 'a' in idea and 'i' in is, which will be gone if you make a pause between those words)
2. "The matter as I see it, is that people often say it wrong" (the 'r' in matter may be heard if you say those two words "flowingly", and disappear if you make a pause after "The matter")

"Master Alfred, please put on your jacket." vs "Master, Alfred asks your permission to enter." (in a voice of a butler) :)
Yes, that is what I had in mind and that helps! The last example in particular. If Peter Why would like to record that for me, that would be appreciated for reference but I think that does help solve the question.
Thank you, both!
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