As a native (swiss-)french speaker, some of my nightmare words in english were: rarer, error and mirror. But I noticed that, in general, a good deal of the difficulties we face lie in the spellings that don’t "properly map" the actual pronounciations; my life got a whole lot easier for instance when I noticed that I was fine saying "reh-er", "eir-er" and "me-er" (another good example of this is the word "squirrel", which will make you miserable, unless you realize that "skwerl" is all it is). Likewise, notice that "coquelicot" is simply pronounced "cau-cli-cau", and "cueillir" is "keu-ir". So every time a you bump into one of those, try to forget the letters and focus on the sounds instead (if a source is available of course) ;)
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Yes It was fun to see you both together since I follow your channels. And so fun also to see my fellow citizens jump on your cuillère mistake in their comments, so much in line with french reputation to complain before embracing the joy of the moment 😂
You got it ! Double L sounds like "ye" Bouilloire - bou yoi re L'oeil - leu ye Cueillir - keu yir > to pick Cuillère - Ku i yère > spoon Yaourt - ya our te Quincaillerie - kun ka ye rie Bravo !
I’ve been living in France for six months now learning French. Been kicking myself for not learning so many stuff. You guys give me hope being there for years 😅😅
Cueillir = harvest. Spoon = cuillière For me, in English is "i" and "ee" that are a nightmare like ship and sheep, I won't say how manytime, I said "Ho, look at the ship in the field".
Totally, the i and e in english has got to be a nightmare. Beach and B*tch often sound the same when a french person says them! And thanks for the spoon comment, i'll never confuse those two words again!
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified That for sure seeing that every single French person comented about it. I wouldn't write it if I did read the previous comment before. But I wrote as soon I saw it.
You did good (I won’t point out again the cuillère /cueillir thing, it’s been explained in many other comments). The only thing I could say that might help you, is to be careful with the different sounds between “in/un/ein/ain”(probably many other spellings too, it’s French after all lol !) , the sound “an/en” and the sound “on”. They’re very subtle but in French they are very different sounds. Get them right and your French will improve instantly. The same with the sound “eu” and “é”. “u” and “ou”, etc... Subtle for not French speakers but very different in French. So get them right and you’ll be sailing through! Last but not least, the hardest part I guess is the R. The French R, that soft restriction sound from the base of the throat. It’s extremely difficult to be able to say it naturally and softly if you’re not native. That’s why words like fourrure or serrure might become nightmares. My last tip : don’t let the QU frighten you !! It’s mostly pronounced like “k”. Quincaillerie looks scary but really it’s just “kin-kaï-ri”. Anyway, just my 2 cents, I hope it was helpful, well done to the both of you ! Being able to speak French as well as you do is already such an achievement. 😁 I’m French, I used to live in London and now I live in Japan so believe me when I say I sympathize with struggling to speak a foreign language perfectly. You’re both awesome. (Jordan’s “heureux” was perfect but you win the coquelicot one 😉). Bonne continuation !
Thank you! And thanks for the little tips! They will be helpful for other people besides just me. :) And good luck learning japenese. That must be really different from french and english!
When you learn a new pronounciation, cut the word into syllables and say it outloud more and more quickly. For instance the word : coquelicot is pronounced slightly different than the written word : coklico that's the sound you hear when you say the word in a conversation. Also , the fact that you pronounce a letter or not depends on its roots. Some french words may come from another language, or from greek or latin or from ancien french.
Heureux and content are not really interchangeable. Heureux would be used for a more permanent state vs content for a temporary feeling. It was really fun watching you. My Danish boyfriend has similar struggles as well as not hearing the difference between some words such as dessert et désert or poisson et poison.
Really! I didn't know the two couldn't be interchangeable. I almost never use heureux. And i completely agree with your boyfriend. Dessert et désert are rough! :)
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified They can... that depends about people. Just that lol this person does not say that maybe but personally I do you totally can say "je suis heureuse" or "je suis contente" in the same situation.
I'm an American in France & have had to work pretty hard to get words like this! I'm able to do it really well according to spontaneous comments from Frenchies, but it's so much more of an effort than Spanish was for me.
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified By the way, in France we mainly use the word "yaourt", but the word "yogourt" exists in French and could be used too - it is more usual in Belgium, Switzerland abd Québec - and it may be easier for English speaker.
english speakers try to make the french "r" sound with their tongues, so it become a "w" sound, or a rolled "r"... the french "r" sound is from further back in the mouth : you should be able to make it with the tongue anywhere (out of the mouth or else)... try to gently fake snoring, but exhale instead of inhale
You picked some good ones! It's interesting to see which words are hard to pronounce because they look strange and which ones are easy to read but difficult to form the sounds.
Very amusing vidéo. Bravo to both of you for being willing to expose your pronunciation challenges. For me, "fourrure" is much harder than "serrure" because of the transition from "ou" to "u" with the "r" sound in between. Just this week I was talking to a French friend and completely butchered "chirurgie". In my defense, it was the first time I've ever said the word. It took me 5 tries to get it right. Ne vous inquiétez pas. À mon avis, les Français ont un problème similaire lorsqu'ils prononcent un mot comme en anglais.
I recommend the textbook “Savoir Dire” for a technical/linguistic perspective on pronunciation. It’s written in French for the advanced intermediate level.
Hi! I've watched about 20 of your very ineresting videos and this one made me laugh a lot ;-) Both of you were really brave with some of our hard to prononce words. Congrats for the challenge ,-) I especcialy appreciate your videos 'cause I find really interesting to discover how people from other countries (OK, you're also french now. Btw, welcome) look at us and feel in France. Keep on the good work. Merci et à bientôt.
Si vous aimez les mots compliqués en français, il y en des tas ! Une petite liste pour s'amuser : sollenel, paon, exergue, gabegie, infarctus, inextricable, quinquennat ! Bravo pour vos efforts de prononciation. J'apprécie votre bonne humeur !
There are many reasons to have silent word in the end... logical grammatical reason for most of it, that French brain can understand after learning it at school. I’m sorry it’s hard to explain in a comment but you can find ressources if you are really motivated 🙃 sometimes it’s the rule of accordance to gender and number, sometimes you have to look at the etymology to understand why it’s end like this... etc Good luck 😇
The trick is in french, you must take as many letters as a rule exists. For your first word (bouilloire), in fact you must take ouilloire in one sound... yes tricky i know. Miss, sorry but you must learn to make your 'u'. I do not speak about 'r', this one is hell for a lot of foreign people ^^
So a classic problem for native English speakers is the U sound. I would say it's your biggest point to work since it can be very treacherous (the infamous dessous vs. dessus). Try to keep do a very pointy "e" sound like in "see" and round your lips like an "o" but without changing your tongue's location. Other than that, I think your accent are both pretty good ! Jordan's can do some pretty good "r" sounds, that's impressive !
quelle chance je suis abonné a vos deux chaines. Félicitation pour la prononciation. Je sais que le francais est une langue dificille à l'écrit comme à l'oral Continuez dans vos efforts et svp garder votre accent .
@@JordanPatrick well, I realized not for everything. When it comes to looking up meanings and translations of words, I tend to go to Wiktionary. But my husband (French) swears by Word Reference. And they rarely have been wrong, like when I say some weird phrase in English that he's never heard of before (and he's a fluent speaker of English), he looks up key words in French on Word Reference and low and behold more often than not that weird phrase I said was there with the French equivalent, hahahah
Grammar tip: a regular "e" is pronounced "é" while it's before a double consonant (like serrure), it's a common rule. And split the syllables while you are speaking !! We learn French pronunciation this way at primary school ^^. A common exercise in french primary school is to identify the syllables, for making good connections between reading and speaking in French, maybe try this method. Last tip: the "r" sound is not coming from the throat but from the back of the palate! even if it sounds hard you should feel a rolling effect on your back or top palate (depends on the guys and accents, if you know Sète...). The "r" sound from the throat is actually used in Arabic, and even french struggle to do it ^^so don't try to reach your "r" so far! French is made of very manifest sound, so don't be shy!
Yaourt and the spoken T wouldnt follow standard french pronunciation because it is a borrowed word from turkish. Try google translate from Yaourt in french to Turkish and listen to the pronunciation ;)
#Cueillirgate lol Cuillère can also be written Cuiller, like few words in French with more than one correct way to write it.. Ex : Clé/Clef.. I personally go for clé (but not that much) and cuillère (and not the other)
Not so bad friends ! The main issue for you I think is the prononciation of the "r". I 've tried to pronounce yaourt with the american rolling "r" and I can't do it. With the american "r" prononciation, the tip of the tongue is put up toward the back of the mouth. You shoud try to keep the tong flat and move the back of the tongue towards the palate. Sorry for my laborious english ! I do love your videos. They open roads between US and France because thanks to you I've understood the reason of differences and given up some stereotypes about americans.
Il faut y aller par son. Comme dans Quin Caille Rie. Tu prononces les trois sons séparément après tu les mets ensemble et ça se fait tout seul. C'est comme ça que l'on apprend aussi quand on est enfant. *** Fourrure aussi par exemple. C'est deux sons: Fou et rure. Fourrure.
This was enjoyable! (I was doing pretty well.) I find that it is really hard to member the differences in pronunciation of these while talking... deux ,Dieu, du. On cuillère you were both hitting the American 'r' quite hard at the end. In Georgia the consonants are insane. They have the French 'r' transliterating as 'gh' and the 'r' is heavily rolled. And then they have words where they hang out NEXT to each other. I still can't pronounce this, Tsinamdzghvrishvili Street. In French most of the difficulties come with the diphthongs. In Georgian it's the consonant clusters. Thanks Kate.
"Fourrrruooar"... 😁 😁 😁 Good to laugh in the morning. But no worries, I'm married to a Japanese woman. She had the same difficulty with same words. Less now.
Bonjour. I have 2 tips for pronunciation. 1. Get a person that has enough patience to sit with you and coach you on one sound (in a word), at a time. My French hubby is this for me. Many French people would rather let you say it totally wrong than correct you. 2. Separate the syllables. Yogurt might be easier for you to pronounce if you separate it between the 'a' and the 'ou'. It's Ya-ourt. There's a video I saw on that very word and how it's pronounced a 2 or 3 different ways, depending on the area of France. The most common being Ya-ourt. The stuff was introduced to France via Turkey, and that's how they pronounce it, or how it sounds to the French ear. Kate, you thought heureux sounded like erreur, and it kins of does, except the word for error has an 'é' at the beginning, and an 'r' sound at the end which many Anglos can't even hear, and is not easy to say. The French ear does hear it when you don't pronounce it. I like these collaborations and you seem to be having fun with it! Keep 'em a comin'
The worst part is that the pronunciation "yaourt" arrived in french via english, because that is how the English pronounced the Turkish word yogurt. Belgians and other french speakers have kept the word "yogourt". Moreover, singing in "yaourt" means in French to sing indiscriminately to sound like English.
That's funny! You know, that same thing happens to me. My native language is Brazilian Portuguese and I'm learning English. I'm having a hard time trying to learn English pronunciation. Spelling and pronunciation are so misleading and tricky. The same letters or group of letters can be pronounced different ways. Take for example the letters *ea* In the word *meat* they make the same vowel sound as in the word she In the word *head* they make the same sound as in the word red In the word "break* they make the same sound as in the word cake. Another example the letters *oo* In the word food , they make the same vowel sound as in the word boo in the word book, they make the same sound as in the word foot in the word blood they make the same sound as in the word bus In the word brooch they make the same sound as in the word coach. In some cases, the same sound can be represented by different letters. For example, the first sound in the word SHake is the same sound represented by different letters in words like Sugar, oCean, iSSue, CHicago, emoTion, tenSion, anXious. What the heck! Take a look at this video and you will understand why english can be so hard too for Foreigners m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mOw7CdpK44w.html
Biarritz is somewhat difficult for Anglos. I hear Ba-ritz (they will leave out the "i") or Bee-a-ritz (3 syllables). It's actually 2 syllables pronounced Bya-reetz.
I m glad to listen to hear this difficult prononciation but for hardware store I anderstand a global full of things, and with this French word translated it indicates us more a little scraps like screws , Grover's, clamps, ....bisous
My boyfriend loves your channel....he got a good laugh with this one....he said cueillir is not spoon it means gather....spoon is spelt cuillère.... We have been together now 2 years...I am here a lot.....my French is bad....I would like to know more about how you got here and what you had to do in order to stay longer...
In serrure, the "é" is not deep in the throat, and neither is the "u", rather the contrary. It's just the "r". As for the "t" at the end of "yaourt", it's not a french word, but a turkish one. Plus, we have a lot of word ending with a "t" where the "t" is not silent. Like "but", "colt", "coït", "brut", "chut", "blet", "août", "azimut", "basket"... Well, most of them are foreign words, so you have your answer. Old french name ending with a "t" have usually lost the "t" sound over the centuries. Regional accent may vary however. Overall, pretty good job. Your two weakness are the "u" sound and the "r" sound. But rejoice, we have only one "u" sound, while in Sweden they have two ! Now, if you want to become a master of french pronunciation, you have to read those and spot the difference : "Brun" (brown) and "brin" (strand). Don't use google for this one, but rather larousse (google does not seem to know the difference. As most people anyway...) www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/brun/11507#:~:text=D'une%20couleur%20interm%C3%A9diaire%20entre,toute%20brune%20de%20la%20merJeune" (young) and "jeûne" (fasting) "Louis de Broglie", a famous mathematician of (very old) italian ancestry. THAT ONE, most french people are puzzled by the way you pronounce it. But family names can be tricky. "Boeuf" (beef) and boeufs (beefs). This is a real trap. Same with "oeuf" and "oeufs" "Un os" (one bone) and "des os" (some bones). Same kind of trap. And a few "solo" "Joncher" (strew) "Grillon" (cricket) "Cancoillote" (a recipe of melted cheese)
To me you did well ! you just need to get our "R" sound and it will be perfect; the back of the tongue must be a little higher in the mouth and to the front to make the rolling vibration of the glottis (I'm not a doctor or linguist, but that's how I would describe the difference between your "r" and our): maybe you can try to get it by imitating a dog/wolf growling or a cat purring
Hello et "Bonjour à vous deux " ; just for helping you to pronounce this difficult word => "Quin / Ca / ille / rie" (phonetics: "kain / kaï / ry") [Quin/Kain] [Ca - ille / kaï] [rie / ry] ...... Bravo bravo !! Love watching you .. french language is so hard....will subscribe and support your channel ! ;)
Had you ever watched the film. "Roi de Cœur" with Alan Bates, you would have known how to pronounce "coqueliquot" as that is the name of one of the most important characters. Please search out this film, it is amazing.
So true. Why pronounce the T at the end of yaourt lol. Never actually paid attention to it. I have absolutely no idea. I laugh so hard with this video. Thank you it’s refreshing. No language is easy. But at least you give it a shot. N for that you guys are brilliant 👏
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified to make a French 'u' sound, you have to pucker your lips and almost *whistle*. it comes from the front of the mouth, not the back, nor the throat. it should be quite easy.
I think French has been a bit easier for me to pronounce because I know Spanish fluently and the Spanish pronunciation helps. But some words are trop difficile! On another note, Jordan looks like a young Matthew Lillard. :)
Not so bad anyway, some of the words are not easy! My tip listening to you both: work your "R" pronounciation, that's a classic diffulty for english/american speakers =)
@@UnintentionallyFrenchified Yeah, that's the tip to do it, you have to scrape your tongue in the back of your throat/palate. The sound must be close to a growling dog. Of course that's for the training to place your tongue correctly, no need to really growl for each "R"! ^^
Sorry but "cueillir" means to pick or gather (as in flowers), while spoon is "cuiller" or "cuillère" (same pronunciation but the latter is becoming more common).
Nope. "Brico Marché" is one of the many big hardware stores brands. Actually, the word quincaillerie is mostly related to the old fashioned hardware craftman little shops. But only a few still exist now.
Try theses classic pronunciation exercises sentences : "Je suis chez ce cher Serge." "Un chasseur sachant chasser, doit savoir chasser sans son chien." "Ma tactique attaque tous tes tics avec tact."
Bonjour, yeux comes with the z sound at the beginning so yeux is pronounced zieu, and yaourt gets the final t pronounced because it Is not a French word originally but derived from Turkish.
So cute! Yeux begins with a z sound only when there is a liaison with a previous word ending in a silent s (Les yeux) as there most often is. Bravo to the presenters for your courage in showing just how long and hard it is to master a second language. I was disappointed to read the slightest negative comment; it says so much more about the person who made the comment than about you.
Also : this link "- Our second video on Jordan's YT channel: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SW0uLbfKVcU.html" points to this video and not the one on Jordan's channel :(
I thought Jordan was a French guy with an American accent. Wait. Is he actually American?! I was like why the hell is he pretending not pronouncing words correctly???
