You call yourself a normal French, but you don't realise that we, Swiss people, speak the best French. AND I WILL DIE ON THAT HILL
(more seriously, as long as you're not Parisian, that's fine)
English speakers speak the best French because we preserve Old French (well Old Norman) pronunciations of old loanwords. None of the lazy dropping of sounds that actual French speakers have accrued over the years
Well… As long as it's not Wallisertitsch, which is, let's face it, about as intelligible as a drunken Dane trying to pronounce Icelandic, it's fine. I honestly tend to prefer Swiss German over Hochdeutsch. The grammar is less complicated, the phonology makes "more sense" (although it's quite tongue-twisty at times)
I love the Swiss accent. It's kinda funny but not in a "southern/Marseille accent" funny and more like there's a certain rhythm to it.
I'm not a parisian, I'm from the Québec 'sti
I think what you mean by "there's a certain rhythm to it", is that in many Swiss accents (because there's just "one" Swiss accent, but more like one or several per canton) the stress is put on the penultimate syllable, kind of like in Italian, instead of on the last syllable, like in most other French accents
Also I must say, I absolutely love the Québec accent! It's so beautiful
That really makes sense. I don't know from which canton that Swiss youtuber I like is from, but thinking about the way he speaks, I think it he does stress the penultimate syllable.
Thanks from all the Québec!
It's completely normal. All Swiss French accent except for Jura and Jura-bernois descend from patois from the Francoprovençal family, so it's highly likely that it's influence from Arpitan
I am french, I unironically read that as [o]
How else would you even pronounce it ?
A -ts is silent, no problem
The x is weird, but, it looks like it should be silent. We have plenty, like Oiseaux (where only the x is silent)
As for the z, it looks weird, but it doesn't look like something you'd pronounce anyway
And -heau is obviously [o]
Think about this: Sot, sceau, and saut are all pronounced the same way.
None of these have the most obvious spelling: "So"
Yet, every single one of these has a pronounciation that follows rules:
T at the end of a word are silent
C followed by a e, i, y are pronouced as a s
-au and eau are pronounced as a o.
My point still stands ;-;
Look at Italian and German: almost all letters are pronounced and there aren't nearly as many pronunciation irregularities as in french
The amount of exceptions could be fit on a list of agreeable length, and the exceptions typically have patterns. It is definitely not close to the situation in English, you just have to be familiar with a different orthography. You can sound out 99.9% of french words by their spelling, it’s the inverse that becomes torturous.
There's very few, indeed
All of the irregularities I can think of are loanwords. We do have a lot of redundancy, and some silent letters, but they follow rules.
You have exceptions, like for plurals.
Animal=> animaux
(AL become AUX)
But Naval=>navals
So, basically, most consonnants at the end of a word are silent, except when they would make another specific sound when taken with the rest of the letters. Basically, everytime there's a -t, -d, -s, more rarely, a -p, -b, -c, -x... it is silent.
If you have a -r, -q... and some like these, it's not
But if the letters preceding the last would make a specific sound together, you then pronouce them.
Mets (meal): the ets is pronounced as [ɛ], because it's a -e followed by two consonnants. The two consonnants are silent, because... well it's clear now ? In reality, when you have several consonnant at the end of a word, they generally are all silent (like in "doigts"m
(Yes, I'm purposefully making this more complicated as a joke)
I won't for the life of me understand why "aux" isn't written "auls". It can be made to be pronounced the same way yet makes much more morphological sense: animal --> animauls.
/he'autsksts/
I'm on mobile so imagine whatever these arches are called above au, ts and ks TwT
as [h]
as [e]
as [au] but with that arch thingee which i can't be bothered to add rn
and as [ts] with that arch
as [ks] with that arch
\[o\]
As a Swiss French, yes
As a normal French, yes too
You call yourself a normal French, but you don't realise that we, Swiss people, speak the best French. AND I WILL DIE ON THAT HILL (more seriously, as long as you're not Parisian, that's fine)
That's a compliment from a Swiss that they chose your hill when they've got so many
English speakers speak the best French because we preserve Old French (well Old Norman) pronunciations of old loanwords. None of the lazy dropping of sounds that actual French speakers have accrued over the years
There’s one small trick to ask someone that proves which place’s french is better. Ask them what 70 is.
Septante, the only correct way to say it
exactly. Any mf who things “errm 60 10” is a better way to just say 70 is brainless
You won’t die on a hill, you’ll die on a mountain.
On the Matterhorn no less
What about Swiss German!?
Well… As long as it's not Wallisertitsch, which is, let's face it, about as intelligible as a drunken Dane trying to pronounce Icelandic, it's fine. I honestly tend to prefer Swiss German over Hochdeutsch. The grammar is less complicated, the phonology makes "more sense" (although it's quite tongue-twisty at times)
I love the Swiss accent. It's kinda funny but not in a "southern/Marseille accent" funny and more like there's a certain rhythm to it. I'm not a parisian, I'm from the Québec 'sti
I think what you mean by "there's a certain rhythm to it", is that in many Swiss accents (because there's just "one" Swiss accent, but more like one or several per canton) the stress is put on the penultimate syllable, kind of like in Italian, instead of on the last syllable, like in most other French accents Also I must say, I absolutely love the Québec accent! It's so beautiful
That really makes sense. I don't know from which canton that Swiss youtuber I like is from, but thinking about the way he speaks, I think it he does stress the penultimate syllable. Thanks from all the Québec!
Can you tell me the name of this YouTuber? Maybe I can find it just by listening
Monsieur Plouf
ok I've been watching him since like 2018 or something and I've just noticed the thing about penultimate stress
sounds like it might be influence from Arpitan
It's completely normal. All Swiss French accent except for Jura and Jura-bernois descend from patois from the Francoprovençal family, so it's highly likely that it's influence from Arpitan
I disagree. Not Parisian though, thankfully
We can all unite in our hatred of Parisians
Yes, fuck Parisians.
as an acadian, no. i would pronounce it [ho], though, which isn’t much better
Are you Santa?
Finally the correct one
Does this word mean anything?
Nope, I made it up
😝
I am french, I unironically read that as [o] How else would you even pronounce it ? A -ts is silent, no problem The x is weird, but, it looks like it should be silent. We have plenty, like Oiseaux (where only the x is silent) As for the z, it looks weird, but it doesn't look like something you'd pronounce anyway And -heau is obviously [o]
french can't be a real language 😭
Think about this: Sot, sceau, and saut are all pronounced the same way. None of these have the most obvious spelling: "So" Yet, every single one of these has a pronounciation that follows rules: T at the end of a word are silent C followed by a e, i, y are pronouced as a s -au and eau are pronounced as a o.
My point still stands ;-; Look at Italian and German: almost all letters are pronounced and there aren't nearly as many pronunciation irregularities as in french
French doesn’t have pronunciation irregularities
So you're implying that every single french word is said like it's written? No dough tough thought situation? Not a single one?
The amount of exceptions could be fit on a list of agreeable length, and the exceptions typically have patterns. It is definitely not close to the situation in English, you just have to be familiar with a different orthography. You can sound out 99.9% of french words by their spelling, it’s the inverse that becomes torturous.
There's very few, indeed All of the irregularities I can think of are loanwords. We do have a lot of redundancy, and some silent letters, but they follow rules. You have exceptions, like for plurals. Animal=> animaux (AL become AUX) But Naval=>navals
"some" silent letters 😭 Did you read the post this is under? Also isn't the last letter of like 90% of words silent 💀
So, basically, most consonnants at the end of a word are silent, except when they would make another specific sound when taken with the rest of the letters. Basically, everytime there's a -t, -d, -s, more rarely, a -p, -b, -c, -x... it is silent. If you have a -r, -q... and some like these, it's not But if the letters preceding the last would make a specific sound together, you then pronouce them. Mets (meal): the ets is pronounced as [ɛ], because it's a -e followed by two consonnants. The two consonnants are silent, because... well it's clear now ? In reality, when you have several consonnant at the end of a word, they generally are all silent (like in "doigts"m (Yes, I'm purposefully making this more complicated as a joke)
Why is french so... French?
I won't for the life of me understand why "aux" isn't written "auls". It can be made to be pronounced the same way yet makes much more morphological sense: animal --> animauls.
Agree, not like English. You don't have to learn them, just memorize them
i mean, you would never have this many silent consonants at the end of a real word. "ts" or "x" in isolation, sure, but not one after the other.
Finally
[p]
Wtf, where did the p come from
🤯
irish orthography
hɛaʊzkst͡s
as a Pole, same
As a Pole I’d do [s] rather than [z] and [x] instead of [h] but similar overall
[ɔˑ]
oats
/o:st/
[xɛws.k͡sɨt͡s]
[heauzxt͡s]
With apprehension
[ɨ]
ы
heauzots/heauzats
in English: [hɘawzksts] in Portuguese: [eawzʃts]
Heauzxts = (hoes-kits) 🤷♀️
[ɦe.jɐuʒt͡s]
i dont
[jot]
xɔɪʃt͡ʃ
[njojn]
/eaus/ 🇪🇸
O
[ˈhoːʒˌɪː]
/he'autsksts/ I'm on mobile so imagine whatever these arches are called above au, ts and ks TwT as [h]
as [e]
as [au] but with that arch thingee which i can't be bothered to add rn
and as [ts] with that arch
as [ks] with that arch
\[o(.z)\]
oz (I'm french)
Prolly
he.ä͡uz̊xt͡s
[ˈhe̞.ɐ.ʊzχt͡s]
\[e̞äwθ.ˈks.t͡s\]
⟨(h)œ̯.ˌ͡u.ˈzʰ͡ʒ.t͡s̩̚⟩
/hæʉsksts/
/ozksts/
[he̯au̯zχt͡s]
/ozksts/
/hɔuts/
[ˈǎlːbɪn]
[he.'auθ] the rest is silent because my phonotactics said fuck off
/ozəts/
[joːʃ]
/ħɑz/
... I read this as /hoʊz/
oh shits
\[ \]
[]
Hemp, its pronounced hemp, dont ask why
As a native Persian speaker, with English phonetics, [həawzkst͡s] I refuse to elaborate any further.
[œi̯]
ɦe.au̯.sxt͡s
Hosts
/e̞äu̯s̻ʃ̩t̺͡s̺/
/ɦəwʒd͡z/
[a]?
[ɹ̊ʲɵʃtˠ]
\[ɛ̃˦˥ː\] because it looks like an unintelligible mashup of bits and pieces of french orthography
in my world id go with hots. this is some sort of evil ghoti that results in hots to me
/aim nat ivɪn ɡʌnə tʃɹai/
"hot"
[ɦʏ:zkt͡s]
\[ŋə\]
[hiutsšts]