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Porthos

Germanic accents in French

For those of you who are native French speakers, are you able to easily distinguish between the accents of Germanic speakers when they speak French? For instance, can you tell a German, a Dutch, and an English accent apart? Or do they all sound the same to you?

For instance. As a native English speaker, I can easily tell a French accent apart from a Spanish accent, and I could easily tell a French accent apart from an Italian accent. I can tell an Italian accent apart from a Spanish accent but not as easily as the former.
fab

English accents are very recognisable thanks to the "r"s which are very specific of english (Idon't know if it exist in other languages)


At work one of my bosses is an American who live in France since 10 years, but he still continues to pronounce the english "r", which give a "signature" of being an English-speaker.
Porthos

Quote:
English accents are very recognisable thanks to the "r"s which are very specific of english (Idon't know if it exist in other languages)


Similarly, that is one of the main giveaways for detecting a French accent in English. The French "r" is a dead giveaway, as are the nasal sounds and the uniquely French "ouh" sound.
Porthos

But you can't tell Dutch and German accents apart from each other when speaking in French?
Benjamin [inactive]

I don't really understand why some English-speakers have difficulty pronouncing the French 'R' sound; I personally don't have any problems with it at all.

You should be aware however that there is not one homogenous 'R' sound in the English Language. In Scotland, for example, people tend to speak with a rolled R, similar to in Spanish.
fab

actually most of us are not really aware of the Dutch or Scandinavian accents, since they don't have a strong mediatic coverage.

Actually before I went to Netherlands or Sweden and heard the people speaking I had not a real idea of the accents and could easyly mistake them for been German.
This is different for German, which is very recognisable because it is a very known accent.
Deborah

Benjamin wrote:
I don't really understand why some English-speakers have difficulty pronouncing the French 'R' sound; I personally don't have any problems with it at all.

Because some people don't have a gift for imitating sounds and others do. And some people (namely, me) used to be able to pronounce it but then had the laser surgery to cure sleep apnea and had their uvula removed and gosh, for some reason a uvular R suddenly became impossible to pronounce! (I hope I don't sound bitter... )

What I don't understand is why I should have trouble now with the rolled R following back vowels, since I had no problem with it when I studied Italian in high school.
Porthos

Well, I'm actually very good at imitating sounds and foreign pronounciations. In fact, I pretend to be French all the time, and people completely buy it. My friends find it hilarious. My name is sometimes "Sebastian" or "Pierre", lol! I'm very good with accents. I used to have problems with the French "r" but now it's a piece of cake. But I know several people who have actually studied French for years who can't come close to the accuracy of my pronounciation. I think you have to have a special talent for it, and the rest is all effort.
Benjamin [inactive]

I sometimes wonder if my ability to pronounce the uvular and rolled Rs easily was because I started learning French and Spanish when I was quite young. Although I can produce the voiced uvular R which sometimes appears in German, I don't find it as easy, possibly because I only started learning German more recently.
greg in noord-frankrijk

Re: Germanic accents in French

Porthos wrote:
For those of you who are native French speakers, are you able to easily distinguish between the accents of Germanic speakers when they speak French? For instance, can you tell a German, a Dutch, and an English accent apart? Or do they all sound the same to you?


Unless the person speaks French fluently — but there would always remain a huge if (if that person is able to get rid of English pronunciation) —, it is very easy to spot an Anglophone at once. In no specific order : overdiphthongising, aspirated <p>, <t>, <d> (etc), wrong stress-pattern, confusion between [Ã] [̃ɑ] & [Õ] [̃ɔ], difficulty to produce [R] [ʁ], faux-amis, syntactical calques, trouble with grammatical gender etc.

Of course some of the hints mentioned above may affect Hispanophones and Italophones too : the [R] [ʁ] for instance, which might be less of a nuisance for uvular Germanophones.

Anglophones with higher proficiency in French or greater exposure to French-speaking environments might not display the same traditional signatures as the layman would be expected to.


Porthos wrote:
Well, I'm actually very good at imitating sounds and foreign pronounciations. In fact, I pretend to be French all the time, and people completely buy it. My friends find it hilarious. My name is sometimes "Sebastian" or "Pierre", lol! I'm very good with accents. I used to have problems with the French "r" but now it's a piece of cake. But I know several people who have actually studied French for years who can't come close to the accuracy of my pronounciation. I think you have to have a special talent for it, and the rest is all effort.


Take heed that imitating sounds and rendering a pronounciation are not quite the same thing ! The real test to be passed is deluding (quasi-)native speakers successfully. I too could fake an Aglophone speaking French atrociously and be easily considered a foreigner by French people. I could also fake (among French-speaking company) a native Anglophone speaking English. However, I will never be able to delude a native Anglophone, not even one single second : that's the very definition of non-native. I'm not even sure I could mislead native English-speakers while faking an Anglophone slaughtering French !!!
Benjamin [inactive]

Re: Germanic accents in French

greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
However, I will never be able to delude a native Anglophone, not even one single second

Why not? I've come across quite a few non-native English speakers who have spoken with a perfect native-sounding English accent. For example, I was talking to an older female teacher at a university open day earlier this year — I assumed that she was English as she spoke RP perfectly, until she told me that she was actually from Switzerland and wasn't a native English speaker at all about 10 minutes later. The same is true for a younger Spanish woman in a similar situation.

Likewise, I have sometimes been deluded by non-native English speakers who seem to be native English speakers of an accent different from mine. For example, I have sometimes mistaken Germans speaking English very well for Americans. Likewise, I once mistook a young woman from the Czech Republic as a rather posh white Zimbabwean.
greg in noord-frankrijk

Re: Germanic accents in French

Benjamin wrote:
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
However, I will never be able to delude a native Anglophone, not even one single second

Why not?


Mais tout simplement parce que dans mon cas je ne ferais pas illusion très longtemps ! Mes performances langagières sont susceptibles d'amélioration — surtout en cas d'immersion linguistique totale ou prolongée. Il n'en demeure pas moins qu'on ne m'a jamais pris pour un anglophone de naissance... On m'a déjà pris pour un Allemand, pour un Russe — pour un Français bien sûr —, mais jamais encore pour un Anglais...
Irrintzi

In the south, occitan influented French accent, also, the R is rolled as the old french
Porthos

Irrintzi wrote:
In the south, occitan influented French accent, also, the R is rolled as the old french


I don't think that is very common these days. In the olden times, it was more prevalent, but as far as I know, amongst all but the older generation, the rolled 'r' has dissappeared in the south of France. I will defer to Greg and Fab on that one though.
Pauline

Porthos wrote:
Irrintzi wrote:
In the south, occitan influented French accent, also, the R is rolled as the old french


I don't think that is very common these days. In the olden times, it was more prevalent, but as far as I know, amongst all but the older generation, the rolled 'r' has dissappeared in the south of France. I will defer to Greg and Fab on that one though.


I think that Irrintzi comes from the south of France ( Basque Country).
Irrintzi

Porthos wrote:
Irrintzi wrote:
In the south, occitan influented French accent, also, the R is rolled as the old french


I don't think that is very common these days. In the olden times, it was more prevalent, but as far as I know, amongst all but the older generation, the rolled 'r' has dissappeared in the south of France. I will defer to Greg and Fab on that one though.


C'est vrai que ce roulement du "r" est en voie de disparition, mais c'est encore "common"...
Bizarrement au Pays Basque, le [ʁ] uvulaire est même plus longuement prononcé que le français par les jeunes générations (alors que cette prononciation est inexistante en Basque) car eux ont pour la plupart le français pour langue maternelle et donc ils savent bien la manier, je pense que ce phénomène, influencé par le basque est caractérisé par la prononciation plus prononcée de tout les voyelles et consonnes ainsi on peut dire que Arrive-tu? devient Arrrivveu-tuu? (le surlignage correspond aux accents toniques) aussi la phonétique est plus chantante que le français standard de ce fait.
Les anciennes générations, elles roulaient le "r" car la plupart d'entre elles avaient pour langue maternelle le basque, l'occitan, le corse, etc...

Cependant ce "r" roulé peut être constaté au Québéc, où le français est prononcé comme celui du XVIIIème siècle.
N'oublions pas aussi les francophones d'Afrique qui eux aussi le roule naturellement.

Voici un site interactif intéréssant:
http://www.accents-de-france.fr.st/
Porthos

Pauline, could you please translate Irrintzi's post for me, in English or Spanish. thank you.
Deborah

Porthos wrote:
Pauline, could you please translate Irrintzi's post for me, in English or Spanish. thank you.

I believe Pauline has stated elsewhere that she doesn't want to write in French on the Internet. I don't know whether she would mind translating, but as long as I'm on my lunch break, I'd like to try translating it. Feel free to correct my translation, everyone.

Irrintzi wrote:
C'est vrai que ce roulement du "r" est en voie de disparition, mais c'est encore "common"...
Bizarrement au Pays Basque, le [ʁ] uvulaire est même plus longuement prononcé que le français par les jeunes générations (alors que cette prononciation est inexistante en Basque) car eux ont pour la plupart le français pour langue maternelle et donc ils savent bien la manier, je pense que ce phénomène, influencé par le basque est caractérisé par la prononciation plus prononcée de tout les voyelles et consonnes ainsi on peut dire que Arrive-tu? devient Arrrivveu-tuu? (le surlignage correspond aux accents toniques) aussi la phonétique est plus chantante que le français standard de ce fait.
Les anciennes générations, elles roulaient le "r" car la plupart d'entre elles avaient pour langue maternelle le basque, l'occitan, le corse, etc...

Cependant ce "r" roulé peut être constaté au Québéc, où le français est prononcé comme celui du XVIIIème siècle.
N'oublions pas aussi les francophones d'Afrique qui eux aussi le roule naturellement.

Voici un site interactif intéréssant:
http://www.accents-de-france.fr.st/


Translation:
    It’s true that this rolling of the “r” is [on the way to] disappearing, but it’s still “common” . . .

    Strangely, in the Basque countries, the uvular [ʁ] is even more lengthily pronounced than French by the young generations (whereas this pronunciation is nonexistent in Basque) as for the most part they have French as their maternal language and thus they know how to handle/manage it very well. I think that this phenomenon, influenced by Basque, is characterized by the more pronounced pronunciation of all the vowels and consonants so that one can say that Arrive-tu? becomes Arrivveu-tuu? (the underscoring corresponds to the tonic accents). Also the phonetics are more singing than in standard French because of this fact.

    The older generations roll the “r” since the majority of them have Basque, Occitan, Corsican, etc., as their mother tongue.

    However, this rolled “r” can be observed in Québéc, where French is pronounced like that of the 18th century.

    And let’s not forget the African francophones who also naturally roll it.

    Here is an interesting interactive site:
    http://www.accents-de-france.fr.st/
Deborah

I must admit that I'm not sure exactly what "le [ʁ] uvulaire est même plus longuement prononcé que le français par les jeunes générations" is supposed to mean.
Porthos

Thank you Deb. I got the gist of it before, but I wasn't sure about a couple of things which you helped clarify.

I've heard from others that Quebecois roll their 'r's too, but I haven't seen that personally myself, and I've met quite a few French-Canadians.
Porthos

From what I can find, there's no audio on that link to the accents of French.

Could somebody provide an audio link to African Francophone speech?
Deborah

Porthos wrote:
From what I can find, there's no audio on that link to the accents of French.

There is, but before I get to that, I believe the recordings are the same ones that Julian provided links to here:

http://langcafe2.myfreeforum.org/ftopic296.php

(There might be a few extra accents in the new link; I didn't stop to count, though.)
Deborah

So the way to hear the recordings is to click on one of the regions listed at the left, then click the button for the text you want, then click to hear either AIFF or RealPlayer format.

There are the same number of regions listed as in Julian's post; however, I think there's an extra Standard accent in this new link.
Irrintzi

I search little exemples of french accents in You Tube:

Amadou & Mariam, great famous music, "le dimanche à Bamako":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8...Ehfc&mode=related&search=

Ben Mamadou Soumahoro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe...2_RU&mode=related&search=

Other african:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFqkaMOtY8

Haïti:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ZJEaKcW70

Québec:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5HIf2HrQbU

Basque Country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB4VFYpklm4

Pyrenean man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGVIlz_II5Q

South france:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cam7QU6krsU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7R8NZjWORY

Corse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ibabh0Azw

Breton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcWAeMHGw48

Wallon dialect (belgium):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNbKjM9Yc3U
Porthos

So I'm going to repeat my question for the additional Francophones. lol. Can you tell us Germanic speakers apart when we speak in French? Can you tell if we're English speakers vs. German speakers, or do we all sound the same to you?

I've asked French speakers that before when I speak to them, and they said that I didn't have an English accent at all, but more of a Spanish type accent, which is probably because I take on the Spanish accent unintentionally, and I sometimes roll my 'r's by accident. It's rather funny actually, because when I mispronounce the uvular 'r', I instead use a rolled 'r' as in Spanish, but an English 'r' never slips out, even though I'm a native English speaker.
Irrintzi

for me, the germanic accent in french and english accent are quite different
(Why do you ask this question?)
Loic

Actually, I think an English or an American accent in French is a dead giveaway. I am not apparently good enough to pinpoint the exact source, but I'd say that their cadence is quite different.

Consider how PM Stephen Harper sounds like when he speaks French. His accent is a little bit of a caricature, I feel. Nothing against his fluency, though. I am sure I am not as eloquent as he is.
Fredrik

I guess it can be rather hard to find examples of a North Germanic accent in French lying around, so I recorded myself reading the first famous line of the beginning of Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu". But bear in mind that I'm not sure wether you can call this French, as my knowledge of French and French pronounciation is highly rudimentary and very autodidactical:
http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=1103335026.wav

The same passage in Norwegian, for comparison:
http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=24796644.wav

The text in French:
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Du_...4t%C3%A9_de_chez_Swann_-_Partie_1

My reading of the Lord's Prayer in French is perhaps more fluent, but I didn't think that was a good example to offer a secular republic:
http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.php?get=840524097.wav

My Norwegian dialect has uvular r, but I guess my Scandinavian two-tonal sing-song accent shines strongly through.

Deborah wrote:
Quote:
And some people (namely, me) used to be able to pronounce it but then had the laser surgery to cure sleep apnea and had their uvula removed and gosh, for some reason a uvular R suddenly became impossible to pronounce! (I hope I don't sound bitter... )

What? I could never have that type of surgery, then I would have to use a rolled r all the time, something which would totally exhaust me. And I guess this kind of surgery is not very widespread in France either....

fab wrote:
Quote:
actually most of us are not really aware of the Dutch or Scandinavian accents, since they don't have a strong mediatic coverage.

I guess Scandinavia could do with more media coverage in France. I recently heard a French woman interviewed on Norwegian TV ask what kind of language one speaks in Norway. For most Norwegians it is quite natural that each country has its own language, but I have heard of citizens of la grande nation being surprised by the fact that les Norvégiens actually have a whole language of our own!

PS The French-speaking Norwegian best known in France was and still is probably magistrate Eva Joly of anti-corruption and Affaire Elf fame. I'm sure her French is very good, but perhaps it still has a slight accent nordique.
Deborah

Fredrik wrote:
Deborah wrote:
Quote:
And some people (namely, me) used to be able to pronounce it but then had the laser surgery to cure sleep apnea and had their uvula removed and gosh, for some reason a uvular R suddenly became impossible to pronounce! (I hope I don't sound bitter... )

What? I could never have that type of surgery, then I would have to use a rolled r all the time, something which would totally exhaust me. And I guess this kind of surgery is not very widespread in France either....

I don't know how widespread it is in France, but when I phoned a sleep institute to see whether they knew how this problem is handled in countries whose languages contain this sound, they referred me to the the medical institute in France where this surgical technique was developed.

I was hoping to find out about some sort of speech therapy, but I never got a reply from the institute.
Fredrik

Wow!

No Francophones who want to classify my North Germanic accent of French or is it just so far out it can`t be called French?
Deborah

Fredrik wrote:
Wow!

No Francophones who want to classify my North Germanic accent of French or is it just so far out it can`t be called French?

I'm no Francophone, but maybe they all have the same problem I have. This is the message I get when I try to open the files:

    Windows Media Player cannot find the specified file. Be sure the path is typed correctly. If it is, the file does not exist at the specified location, or the computer where the file is stored is offline.

(Sorry I didn't mention it earlier.)
Fredrik

Very strange! I can open the files all right, even now when I`m on another computer than the one I posted them from.
fab

Actually your pronounciation could pass for being from any germanic language, included English. I find your way of hesitating in your pronounciation more similar to the one most English speakers have than German one for exemple.
Fredrik

Interesting!
No traces of Norwegian sing-song accent?
fab

I'm afraid I don't identify a tipical Norwegian accent. Maybe due to the lack of exposure of this language. If I heard it I would feel it as a foreign accent, maybe from a germanic-speaking country, but not really more precise.
Fredrik

If you want instant exposure, click the Norwegian sample I posted for comparison!
Benjamin [inactive]

I have to say that I think that Fredrik's accent sounds very similar to an English accent in French.
Porthos

Fredrik wrote:
Interesting!
No traces of Norwegian sing-song accent?


No, I think you do. Your accent to me at least, is obviously not an English one. You sound more like people I know who are Scandanavian. I happen to know a lot of those types.
Loic

Interesting. I'd say that Fred doesn't really sound like the archetypal English speaker trying to wrap his tongue around French vowels and consonants although there is more than shade of resemblance between the two.

What I noticed is the version of Our Father where you presumably ended it with a foreign looking insertion: For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now for ever and ever. [English version, I suppose]

I noticed the way you pronounce 'pa' as in 'pardonner' gives me this impression that the sound is made near your mouth so that it sounds more like a 'pah!' (rhymes with 'bah' as in Bah! Humbug).

If I were asked to identify the background of the speaker without being cognisant of his mother tongue, I'd probably place him as a Scot. I don't know why. This is just a gut feeling - which is apparently wrong.
Fredrik

Relieving to hear that I don`t sound totally Anglophone, but slightly Caledonophone! (Not that that makes my "French" any better!)

loic wrote:

What I noticed is the version of Our Father where you presumably ended it with a foreign looking insertion: For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now for ever and ever. [English version, I suppose]

I just picked a random version on Google, probably not the official one.

loic wrote:

I noticed the way you pronounce 'pa' as in 'pardonner' gives me this impression that the sound is made near your mouth so that it sounds more like a 'pah!' (rhymes with 'bah' as in Bah! Humbug).

Ah, yes. The usual trouble with aspirated and unaspirated p,t,k, the former being more common in Germanic languages like Norwegian.[/quote]
greg in noord-frankrijk

Fredrik : I didn't find your accent particularly English. The way you pronounce [E] [ɛ] in final position is close to a Polish accent — even if I heard it nasalised at times.
Deborah

I finally heard your recordings, and I don't think you sound English. I wouldn't have been able to guess where you're from, but would've been pretty sure it wasn't from an anglophone country.
Deborah

And speaking of German accents, I'm getting acquainted with a German accent in Spanish -- one of the several new people in my Spanish class is originally from Germany. Actually, in the last class, I had the impression he was German, even though I didn't hear him speak much. Tonight he spoke a lot more, and for some reason I thought he was French; I guess I mistook his German R for a French R. He can pronounce a Spanish R correctly, but sometimes the German one sneaks in. Interestingly, sometimes he does a combination RR -- it starts Spanish and finishes German!
Fredrik

Interesting!

But is [ɛ] actually an X-Sampa symbol, greg, or does it just hide something that couldn`t be shown? I couldn`t find it in the X-Sampa list.

Concerning aspiration of p,t,k:
I just read that there is a Sprachbund in Northern Europe, with aspirated p,tk, k, that includes Sami, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish German, English and Scottish and Irish Gaelic! The amazing fact is that Dutch shares unaspirated p,t,k with the Romance languages in Southern Europe.

Don`t you guys also love Sprachbünde that defies normal language classification?
Benjamin [inactive]

Quote:
Don`t you guys also love Sprachbünde that defies normal language classification?

Well I definitely love the word Sprachbund, lol. I have to say that ¨–e is my favourite type of plural in German, especially where a devoiced final consonant becomes voiced.
greg in noord-frankrijk

Fredrik wrote:
Interesting!

But is [ɛ] actually an X-Sampa symbol, greg, or does it just hide something that couldn`t be shown? I couldn`t find it in the X-Sampa list.



C'est normal : [ɛ] est un symbole de l'API (alphabet phonétique international) dont l'équivalent en X-Sampa est [E]. En d'autres termes : [ɛ] (API) = [E] (X-Sampa).

Clique sur ces liens : http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Annexe:Prononciation & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA.
Fredrik

OK!

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