Pronunciation VariationsCurrently working on my pronunciation and am trying to get it right from the get-go because I know how hard it is to overwrite bad pronunciation habits.
My question revolves around the "ai," "ais," "ait," and "aient" letter combinations and if it's pronounced as è or é (or ɛ vs e using IPA). I found this great article on Lawless French (link below) talking about how the distinction is strongest in Parisian French and not so much otherwise (I'm assuming its very regional and depends on ones upbringing). I get the difference between the verb tenses the article talks about (the difference between future, passé simple, conditional, and imperfect).
What I still hear most of the time in words like lait, anglais, frais is speakers preferring the "e" sound, not ɛ. I've even noticed that in verbs ending in ais, ait, aient, (ie. était, avaient) that they tend to lean towards an "e" sound. Both of these cases should be ɛ according to my dictionaries with IPA and the article.
Should i just go ahead and get into the habit of leaning towards the "e" sound in these cases? I'm totally fine with that and I like the sound a little better, but I just want to get into what sounds the most French (again, I understand there is going to be a whole scale of variability here). Just want to build those good habits.
Appreciate any and all feedback!
Here is the link to the article. https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/ai/
when would you use je deteste over je hais
"Restée" is the correct past participle for a female, right?
You could program to accept both male and female answers, perhaps.
Women and girls need to get in the habit of using the feminine.
Yeah, yeah, I know that genderless is coming down the pike, but for now it is incontrovesial that women use feminite forms in French. How elegant it would be if I could write, "Je suis restée."
It thought that that espérer was followed by the future tense when stated affirmatively, and was followed by the subjunctive tense when espérer when stated as a question or in the negative. Yet, in the writing practice, the following is presented as the correct way to use espérer:
Espérons que cela se rafraichisse dans les jours qui viennent.
Why when that is an affirmative statement? Why isn't this correct?: "Espérons que cela se rafraichira"
Hi there Aurellie, I am just a bit confused about some aspects of this website. I love the way Laura teaches, but this is just really a bit of feedback which you have asked for in the past: I have lived in French speaking Switzerland for fifteen winter seasons...teaching in French, have done a primary school teacher qualification specialising in French and have passed some quite advanced grammer levels within this website system, yet it still baffles me by directing me from time time to quite a low level...for instance, how to say your name...? I can't see that I can have possibly got only 33% in this at any point...is it some kind of tactic of the website it wonder...? or just some kind of shortcoming...? ah well, just thought I'd mention it for feedback in case of the latter.
Best regards,
Michael
Currently working on my pronunciation and am trying to get it right from the get-go because I know how hard it is to overwrite bad pronunciation habits.
My question revolves around the "ai," "ais," "ait," and "aient" letter combinations and if it's pronounced as è or é (or ɛ vs e using IPA). I found this great article on Lawless French (link below) talking about how the distinction is strongest in Parisian French and not so much otherwise (I'm assuming its very regional and depends on ones upbringing). I get the difference between the verb tenses the article talks about (the difference between future, passé simple, conditional, and imperfect).
What I still hear most of the time in words like lait, anglais, frais is speakers preferring the "e" sound, not ɛ. I've even noticed that in verbs ending in ais, ait, aient, (ie. était, avaient) that they tend to lean towards an "e" sound. Both of these cases should be ɛ according to my dictionaries with IPA and the article.
Should i just go ahead and get into the habit of leaning towards the "e" sound in these cases? I'm totally fine with that and I like the sound a little better, but I just want to get into what sounds the most French (again, I understand there is going to be a whole scale of variability here). Just want to build those good habits.
Appreciate any and all feedback!
Here is the link to the article. https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/ai/
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