Forte est utilisé en musique, sur la base de l'italien Forte (jouer fort) qui se prononce "Forté". Les deux mots sont homographes et font donc partie de la langue française, et se prononcent "Forte" et "Forté"
“Entrepreneur” comes to my mind and still makes me laugh remembering Georges W Bush saying about French “They don’t even have a word for Entrepreneur”.
Another French term often used used and always mispronounced is hors d'oeuvre, pronounced oar-derve, with two of the consonant sounds in reverse order: RV instead of VR. Again I suggest that saying it the French way may sound affected or even unrecognizable. This reminds me of once many years ago at a restaurant up on the Tour Eiffel I saw a menu posted at the entrance that helpfully translated hors-d'oeuvres as "outworks." Yum-yum!
Born and raised in the mid-west, where foreign languages are butchered, and many of the words I have pronounced properly somehow. I even cringe when people pronounce them wrong. My French friend was shocked at how well I did with some words but still laughed when trying to learn new words 🤦♂️
In French, while "niche" can mean an area of focus or a very specific audience ("c'est un film de niche") it also means a kennel, as in "mon chien dort dans sa niche".
Hi everyone I'm french and still love to watch this kind if videos ( especially Not Even French 😁 and Loïc Suberville because he's hilarious 🤣 ) Keep going Rosie !
I'm french but in some way, I'm learning again how to prononce my own language, so thanks (but maybe it also comes from the fact that I'm drunk, who knows)
In British English we pronounce clique and niche the French way but I have heard the American versions of click and nitch so often through films etc that I was starting to question if I was saying them wrong so thank you for clarifying.
Fun fact: un résumé in French is a summary in English which cognates with french sommaire which is a kind of table of content. Bref, it goes back and forth!
So true 😀 Not agreeing with « pain au chocolat » though, we do not make the liaison there, we never pronounce the « n » as we would not pronounce the « s » if it was plural.
@@TreenaBeena I doubt that. I'm French and I lived in many different parts of France including Paris and I can assure you nobody does the liaison when saying "pain au chocolat"
With the liason it sounds like panne au chocolat...which has a very different meaning 😂 Street French also say there's no liason there, they gave the grammatical reason but i can't remember what it is unfortunately.
a "niche" is a very small area of focus, a sort of exception. For example if a company is in the agrifood business and produces a very specific product for a very specific market where there are no competitors (of just a few), this is a niche. Another example very often discussed in France is the "niches fiscales'" (tax "niches"). It means that some people that only meet very specific criteria, working in specific areas or very specific activities can have a tax reduction; we say then that they benefit from a "niche fiscale". In any case, a niche is not just an area of focus.
This is so strange for me, as a french native Woman, hear french words pronounced incorrectly but it's funny because in france we use english worlds too and it's something we dont even think about ☺️♥️
It is said that to speak english as a foreigner you need 2000 words for starters but to speak French as a foreigner you need 6000! We have so many ways of saying what would seem like the same thing but it's very nuanced. I am Scottish but French by adoption for over 40 years and I have often heard that my french is better than most french people. In Scotland it is also said that french was spoken before english as gaelic was our national language. In Scotland there is a biscuit called 'petitcoat tails' that actuall comes from ' petits gautelles' meaning small biscuits.
I was struck when visiting Scotland (from Canada) how many French references and words there were in use. And very good French restaurants. it seems the two countries had a common enemy?
@@maryokeefe5351 As Scotland and France had a common enemy in the English they were strongly reunited. This led to a law stating that any French person has automatic Scottish nationality and protection. It also meant that any Scottish person had French nationality and protection. This little known law remained in place until late in the 20th century when it was revoked. The North Sea dolphins that swim around the bay of my home town are called 'Dauphins Francais', another nod to France.
@@leonmiguel459 Hi, Murray is an old Scottish clan but of course many Scots immigrated in the 18th and 19th centuries mainly because of the 'highland clearances' so you can find them everywhere. My great uncle moved to New Zealand in the 1920's and created a farming business and family there. Murray is my mothers family name, I changed to Murray after my parents divorce. Beste Wünsche Mucha suerte
@@TheFiown oh danke schön! für deine ausführliche Aufklärung :), je parle plutot francais qu' espagnol alheureusement, i've never been to the UK and the beautiful Scotland, my english is quit weak let alone to unterstand scotish-english...:)
LOVE your channels, Rosie! Would you please consider doing a video on French PUNCTUATION? And maybe writing business letters in French? And are they still hand written when applying for jobs?
since nobody reacted.. "connoisseur" is not a french word. If a french speaker was to pronounce "connoisseur" he would say "con - oo - a (like in father) - Sir" .. but it's not a word. The french word is "connaisseur" (litteraly "knower".. somebody who "connait" verb "connaître" - to be familiar with). and that would be pronounced "con - hey (like the english letter "a")- Sir" Fun fact "niche" actually mean a reserved particular confortable place for someone (originally a hole in the wall for a statue). Somewhere where someone fit well. That's why the dog's miniature house is called "la niche du chien".. and so it came to mean a good and rare business opportunity or career where one fit.
@@JeanChordeiles No, those are two different words. "Forte" meaning strong point is not supposed to be pronounced like the one you're describing. It's supposed to be just one syllable.
@@Rachel-rs7jn : Well, I checked it out and the meaning is indeed of French origin, but the mispronunciation resulted from the influence of the Italian form of this word, that has the same meaning.
@@JeanChordeiles Yes that's true! I think this is one of those ones where, while the one-syllable pronunciation is *technically* correct given the origin, it's evolved to the point where the two-syllable pronunciation will be the standard one, "correct" or not.
@@Rachel-rs7jn : And I assume that the infamous silent letters of the French language have always been a headache to the English speakers. So _fort_ is necessarily mispronounced _fortttt,_ then _forte_ by the influence of... something already heard somewhere.
In London there is a street called Beauchamp place but the English call it Beecham place. I would always say Beauchamp as in French and was always corrected. I never understood that.
It may depend on how old the street is. The aristocracy spoke French in England after William The Conqueror arrived and the French they spoke then was very different than todays. English was not the same language then that we speak now either. I'm sure there is some language history at play here...
Once again a very nice and very interesting video. You have, dear Rosie, a very good pronunciation most of the time except on the 'R', the 'ou' and the 'u', like almost all Anglo-Saxon speakers. The R comes from the back of the throat with that little 'scratch' that makes it very French. I'll give you two words with nightmarish pronunciation: turlututu and couroucoucou, both being more onomatopoeias than thing names. For my part, I am watching you to continue to accustom my ear to the English language. Once again, thank you for your work and your good humor. I wish you to be able to come back to France soon if it is your wish because your analysis of our habits and our little quirks I really liked. Stay safe. Encore une fois une très belle vidéo très intéressante. Vous avez, chère Rosie, une prononciation très aboutie la plupart du temps sauf sur les "R", les "ou" et les "u", comme la quasi totalité des locuteurs anglo-saxon. Le R vient du fond de la gorge avec ce petit "grattement" qui le rend très français. Je vous donne deux mots à la prononciation cauchemardesques : turlututu et couroucoucou, les deux étant plus des onomatopées que des noms de chose. Pour ma part je vous regarde pour continuer d'habituer mon oreille à la langue anglaise. Encore une fois, merci pour votre travail et votre bonne humeur. Je vous souhaite de pouvoir revenir en France bientôt si c'est votre souhait car votre analyse de nos habitudes et de nos petits travers me plaisait beaucoup. Portez-vous bien.
Absolutely! Et les ‘a’ sont difficiles pour nous les anglophones natales aussi. Peut-être vous avez remarqué sa prononciation du mot ‘salut’ ce qu’elle pronounce toujours avec un A bref au lieu d’un A longue. C’est une faute très commune parmi nous.
Quelques petites remarques : - le premier mot est malheureusement faux ^^' c'est "connaisseur" du verbe connaître => "connaisseur" = celui qui connaît (the one who know) - si "niche" peu effectivement avoir ce sens là, le sens le plus commun du mot "niche" est : "la maison du chien" (the dog house) ^^' - fort/forte peu également signifier qu'on est doué dans un domaine : je sus fort en math = i'm good in math - on dit également "petit pain au chocolat", et certain français disent "chocolatine" (there is a kind of little war between french wich say both words XD )
This is great! I remember visiting a gift shop at an Australian tourist attraction a few years ago. I noticed Bonne Maman confiture/jam, which we also have here in Canada. I remarked, Oh look, they have Bonne Maman here. her response was, is that how you say it? We call it bonny mammin. I guess they don't teach French as a second language in Australis! My husband and I killed ourselves laughing. Love your channel BTW.
Hello there! English-speakers usually find it impossible to pronounce several of the French vowels, notably the 'u' in words like usage, utiliser, sur, lui, nul. And the 'o' in words like eau, beau, beaucoup, where the 'coup' part is also not pronounced correctly. It's not pronounced like the sound in 'you', but like a closed vowel sound spelled 'ou' in French, but not pronounced as a diftong. Right at this moment, I can't find an example of an English word with this particular vowel, but it is quite common in Swedish ('orm') and in German, for instance in the word 'Du'. The 'eu' as in the ending 'eur', feminin 'eure, euse', is another case in point. It's pronounced more 'open', that is, keeping one's lips slightly more open and mouth more relaxed. There are also three different ways to pronounce the vowel 'a': as sharp, medium and 'grave'... By contrast, English-speakers are already familiar with the sounding 's' and 'z', which we here in the Nordic countries tend to forget to use, although we've been taught to do so at school. The result is that eyes sounds like ice, for instance. French is all about correct and exact pronunciation, otherwise it actually becomes incomprehensible. "Comment?" 🤔?
Bonjour, I just love these videos you do. I like to pronounce words & names correctly in their given language. Looking forward to more. Merci Cheers 😉🌷
I have a struggle when reading in english, because sometimes it says "pardon me" and the people who speak English ussually say it like an r in english when it's completely different in french, you have to do it more like a throat sound
Interesting that in greek, we use pot-pourri (pronouncing the t by the way, usually we get the muted letters right because it's the sound that is usually transcribed into the greek alphabet, not in this case) but it has a completely different meaning, it is when a band is playing a sequence of songs back-to-back without stopping.
Well, Rosie your "correct" French pronunciation is not always perfect either, but you know that, so I absolutely will not criticise. your effort. You're doing your best. However, one subject that I would like to see you address is the way that so many English speakers think that adding a final "e" to words makes them correctly French. "She was a big woman but her husband was very petite." "We met at Palais Royale." "The best kir is a kir royale." "My favourite area is Saint Germaine." This drives me absolutely crazy.
I love this type of videos! I’m half way thorough, waiting to see if you’re going to talk about “masseuse” 😂😂. By the way, I always assumed that “forte” was borrowed from the musical term which, actually, comes from Italian! I don’t really know how to explain it in writing but it would make the pronunciation “fortè” more logical. For example, in French, in the musical field, we use “forte” as “loud” and we pronounce it as you would in Italian, without the rolled R...
Nice presentation. You missed a few of my favorite "fingernail on the blackboard" French mispronunciations: 1. coup de grâce - the "mercy blow" which finishes off an opponent. I usually hear “koo duh grah” from English speakers. The expression should be pronounced, roughly, "koo duh grahss", with a harsh terminal "s" sound, as in the British pronunciation of grass. “Grah” to the French ear sounds like gras which means “fat”. Maybe the mercy blow was delivered with a slab of bacon (just kidding.) 2. bouquet should be pronounced boo-KAY. We hear boh-kay. I guess English speakers confuse the vowel sound “bou” with “beau”, which does sound like “boh” 3. déjà vu is usually mispronounced “day-zhah voo”. The “voo” pronunciation sounds like “vous” to the French speaker. So it sort of means “already you” instead of what it actually means: “already seen”. Admittdly the French “u” sound is a bit tricky, but you would be better off to pronounce vu it as in English “view”. 4. The Swiss city Montreux gets mispronounced as if it were “Montreaux” (Mon-troh). Wrong. There’s a big difference between -eux (Sort of like “ER” without the R) and -eaux which is “OH” more or less, and incorrect here.
I just love 💕 love you and the way you make it so much easier to pronounce French word’s correctly!!! I have a real problem with fluffing French word’s !!!
"Corrict" pronunciation? The "You-iss"? "Makkeding"? "Mint" to be pronounced? The "Frinch"? "Sixy"? We pronounce all the "liddez"? "Forivver"? Oi gevalt.....
Hahahaha! I think it's funny how she mostly speaks as a Kiwi, but when she pronounces something as "most English speakers" would, she turns a little American!
More French words that English speakers tend to pronounce incorrectly: Ensuite Réservoir Ensemble Haute Cuisine Haute Couture Haute Horlogerie Champs-Élysées Bureau de Change And etc...
nice and interesting video. I had some french in school - maybe 3 or 4 - but I'd say it's a lot easier for Germans to pronounce french words. We have the ö and ü (ä as well) that are quite similar to the french u- combinations. But I still pronounced some words and brands wrong either :D French is extrem "soft". I'm sure it's difficult for most ppl, are not talking Italien, Spanish or Latin :)
I don't agree that us anglophones pronounce these words incorrectly, as, yes, they are originally French words but they have been borrowed by English and are now part of the English language, it's a normal linguistic phenomenon. French also had borrowed English words and pronounce them differently. I speak fluent Italian but try not to pronounce Italian words the Italian way when speaking English because I feel it just makes me sound pretentious. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the video, it's nice to hear the original words, but I wouldn't actively encourage people to change the pronunciation.
I agree. It is informative and intellectually stimulating to learn the origin, pronunciation and French meaning of these words and expressions, but as you say, to use the French pronunciation when using these items while speaking English will make you sound pedantic and annoying (un trou du cul, quoi!). The anglophone ear may not even recognize which French word or phrase you are pronouncing with that weird accent.
Imagine French-speakers trying to use an anglo pronunciation of the hundreds of English terms and phrases used in French. It's really none of my beez-ness.
I always assumed "forte" was from Italian, where it would be pronounced pretty closely to the English way. How about La Croix being pronounced "la croy"? That one really irritates me!
OMG! Your comment was exactly what I wanted to leave in my comment, lol! For those of us that read music, forte is pronouned "fortay" as directions given in musical notation is all in Italian. I had always assumed that was the one we used in English. Also, yes about the La Croix thing!!!!!!
I went to a restaurant once in Denver and ordered Pain Perdu. The lady loved hearing it spoken in French so much that she kept asking me to say it. Anyway, I get in trouble here in the states because I pronounce words the French way. For example, croisant. I find nobody will understand me because I say it the French way and have to say it the wrong way. I also get in trouble with my wife because if I read something that has a French word in it, I will say it first in French. Like the name Beauchamps. I will say Beau Champs and she will say Beach Ham.
Great video! I'm so glad I've stumbled on your page. I miss living in France and Belgium so much! Just watched this with my youngest son and we both had fun laughing at English pronunciations! :D Bisous!
Americans mispronounce Foyer as foy-er when in Francais it’s pronounced foyer-yey like they pronounce here in Canada and Britain. Also route is mispronounced as rout when in francais it’s pronounced root. Amerifans mispronoince Della Croix when the r is silent and oi is pronounce like a w. Filet is mispronounced in Britain as fil-let and not feel-ley(like in francais).
Oooh just thought of something - I watched a video on RU-vid about biscuits in the UK and the presenters were calling one brand “nice” and pronouncing it like you would in English. EXCEPT the brand name is actually meant to be pronounced like the French city Nice ... so more like the English word Niece instead.
Totally agree with you about correct pronunciation BUT if you do that amongst American speakers, you will most likely be viewed as snobby. So, it's good to know how to pronounce the words among French speakers but learn how to flip back to relaxed speaking with unlearned friends. Something like speaking Hebrew/Yiddish or Spanish/Spanglish or English/Ebonics.
well, it is in fact a pretty hard word to pronounce correctly, and our children (yes i'm french ^^) will take some time to learn it. so yeah, not surprised here ^^
I just learnt something about my own language 😅 I think we are a lot a of French people to say "CarrouSSel" even if it's true that we should pronounce it "Carrousel", I didn't even know this was a mispronuciation well I'm just gonna say "manège" 😂
petite info pour le pain au chocolat, il y une petite "guerre" entre les régions lol. certains disent chocolatine, d'autres pain au chocolat. et tous prétenderont qu'ils ont raison. ^^
It is very frustrating earing that expression for a positive event while in France it is more likely use for a negative one. Like when we are tired of something :p
I wonder if this is a non-UK thing in general or a New Zealand thing specifically, but I noticed in words like genre and lingerie that Rosie pronounced the "g" like an English "j" when demonstrating the anglo-saxon pronunciation, whereas I've only ever heard it pronounced in the UK more like the French "j" sound, that "zh" like sound. I think using the French "j" sound still isn't accurate, but I think it sounds closer than the English "j". Can anyone shed some light on this difference/ the accuracy of the pronunciation? Edit: having actually finished watching the video, I feel like in general in the UK we pronounce French words more or less correctly, relatively speaking- "eau de toilette" and "pot-pourri", for example, I have only ever heard pronounced "eau de twa-lette" and "po-pourri"
French pronunciation is legendary but does the French language - meaning the French spoken within the borders of France - have a big variety of distinctive accents? I don't speak French at all so everything sounds the same for me. Where I'm from in Sweden we sometimes find it hard to even understand some local, very heavy accents, from some sparse spots in the south and wonder if there's anything similar going in in France =)
Definitely ! French from the North has a very distinguishable accent that most of the country find atrocious. Southern French accent from Marseille is one of the most noticeable too. They pronounce many words differently and also have some different words. Other regions have accents too, but those are the most obvious. Belgian French has many differences too. French from Québec sounds like a different language to most of us. To the point where movies and series from Québec are almost never released in France. They prefer remaking them.
I wouldn’t say the pronunciation of the words change that much from a region to another since french language is very flawing in the way to speak it. But there are some exceptions here and there, mainly in the Southern part of the country where people tend to pronounce some final letters (usually muted) but it’s not a general occurrence. The 2 most evident examples I can think of are "moins" (less or lesser) and "pays" (country) this last one being often pronounced in a way it would be written PAÏS (pah-ee-s) in french. To be fair, "pays" is one of these words of the french language which "right" way to say it defies logic of the language itself in the first place. In Québécois french, the nasal sounds (like on, en, ein, ain, oim, etc...) are even stronger than in the metropolitan France way to say them. Which is a little bit of a challenge even for a french native.
Honey! Americans butcher there own English language ! I can’t believe how many people in this country will use the word “went” instead of saying the correct word, “gone”! Like, “I should have went to to the store”. Instead of the proper, “I should have gone to the store”! It’s one of my biggest pet peeves! It makes them sound so uneducated, imo! 😡
"Eau de toilets" doesn't sound as classy indeed 😁 I haven't finished the vid and, sinc you talk about the "raison d'être", I'm wondering about the "maitre d' " instead of maitre d'hotel which had me really confused the first time I read it ! (In a Friend like me song from Disney's Aladdin) Oh ! And just reminded that "coup de grace" is also one disturbing one when English speaker use it aha (Last thing : i suck at fashion but... can nouveau riche be avant-garde ? 😁)
Beaucoup is not "bookoo" but "bokoo" - "niche": you are right regarding pronunciation but the way you explain its meaning is related to a very recent usage of this word. I'm about 70 now and I heard the word "niche" with this figurative meaning only in the last 20 to 25 years, never before since this word means basically a kennel, a doghouse. - cul-de-sac: it's right but not often used nowadays. We prefer "impasse" - forte is "female" and is pronounced "fort" not "fot", don't forget the "r". - same applies to "genre": don't forget the "r" otherwise it's the name "jean" In fact, basically, the last consonant is never pronounced in French like in your example "croissant" or another famous one: Montréal which means Mount Royal or Royal Mount (réal is old French): it's one word but originally 2 words so that the "t" is not pronounced in French while it's pronouced in English. It's a common city name in Europe: there are several in France, in Italy (Sicily) there is Monreale without a "t" while a mount is monte in Italian. Not mentioning Königsberg which means exactly the same but in German ...
Everyone says I speak wrong if it's a Québécois or if it's someone from France damn having a dialect. I don't care really I'm just a salty maritimer. LOL 😂. Encore ici.
