French Pronunciation of "Bonjour" and "Salut"

[Xro306]

Merci!!You deserve more views!

[moonk321]

Thank you!!! Very helpful.

[gisforgary]

Salut! I love the way you teach French. I am bilingual Spanish/English and Americans have a tendency to speak to the other side of the room so your emphasizing works well.

I was wondering if you would consider doing a video of French words common in the United States but mangled -- off the top of my head noir pronounced by Americans is nails on chalkboard and drawn out into three syllables. A friend of mine goes crazy over chardonnay.

Bouquet is phonetic to me -- but not in English.

[frenchsounds]

@gisforgary Merci ! C'est une bonne idée.

[gisforgary]

@frenchsounds i think a big problem for english speakers is they try to pronounce multiple vowels in foreign languages when we don't even do that ourselves -- like boat, perceive, soup, etc. i spent a good 15 mins learning souer, the whole time I was being difficult because I wanted to drag it out and pronounce all the letters instead of make one simple word. people that say noy-yer for noir still make crazy though. aucune tolerance ici.

[Kasia405]

I love your videos! They are so helpful! I'm from Poland, I study English and I decided to learn French on my own. I find the pronunciation extremely difficult but with your tips there is a great hope for me:) Thank you very much!

[DaggerNubC2]

est-ce que vous etes francaise ou vous etes americaine mais vous avez apris le francais à l'école ?

[frenchsounds]

@DaggerNubC2  Bonjour... je suis bilingue de naissance, étant née aux États-Unis dans une famille multiculturelle.

[berrylict]

Very helpful indeed. Although after I learned to nicely round my BON, I could not help but notice that your first BONJOUR in the video has very little rounding to it. Hmmm.

[frenchsounds]

@berrylict Yes, and you bring up a very good point. Native speakers have the muscular tension necessary for their own languages. In general, French is pronounced with a much higher degree of tension than English. The pedagogical uses of heightened lip rounding and lip spreading help non-native speakers achieve that same degree of tension for a good pronunciation. As a native bilingual speaker, I can adapt my muscular tension for either French or American English, hence your observation.

[berrylict]

@frenchsounds I thought this would be the case. My mother tongue is Czech but I live in Canada now and just started with French. It is quite interesting to compare English/American/Canadian textbooks with Czech ones, especially with regards to pronunciation. Sometimes there are differences that seem to be not so minor: Czech - open your mouth to "i", smile and say "e"; English - say "ay" as it sounds in "dAY". My Canadian girlfriend is learning Czech (how nice) and I find her material on pro...

[berrylict]

@frenchsounds ... nunciation quite funny ("yes, it helps you and the sounds somewhat work, but I can do without the cramps in my face to speak it"). Anyhow, I find your videos helpful. It would be nice if you explained how to pronounce the indef. article "un" - it often sounds like the nasal "a" to me, but my Czech textbook insists there is a difference. And the English ones mostly maintain it is an "un" in "ungh". :)

[frenchsounds]

@berrylict Bonjour et merci de vos commentaires! Please check out the last section of my newest video, Spelling-sound correlations for /ɛ̃/, in which I briefly discuss contemporary pronunciation of the "un" and "um" spellings. In Québécois French I mainly hear the version with rounded lips.

[berrylict]

@frenchsounds Thank you so much, very helpful. I discovered that there is quite a variation in pronouncing the indefinite article (and the same sounds, e.g. in "lundi" etc.). What made me happy recently is that after some three weeks of practising, a native French speaker understood my short but quickly uttered sentences such as "Je veux un verre d'eau" etc. (the words are so short and I thought it must be hard to distinguish them in the merged result, even more so with a foreign accent :) )

[artistsComplex]

thank you for breaking it down so well! :)

[TheClaudia111]

thanks

[TheClaudia111]

thank u or should i say in french merci

[AimeeViolette]

Thank you so much...I took French immersion throughout high school and still struggle with it. Your videos seem like they will truly help me. Merçi.

[enkeibeloved]

this is very helpful ! thank you !

[LloydSkyLion]

I'm a native spanish speaker just starting to learn french. I just want to thank this video that not only taught me how to pronounce "bonjour" but also taught me how to pronounce the "back L" in english, which I had struggled to learn for years...

[nlt19]

Thank you very much for your helpful and detailed instruction :)

[ModelArtTavo]

Salut Cheryl. J'etude français et Je vous remercie vos leçons et commentaires. Vos indications sur la pronunciation en particulier sont très instructif. A bientôt.

[Mavfalls]

This has been very helpful to me. thank you.

[xJulie4ever]

Merci beaucoup!! This video really helped me.

[StawberryPop]

Wow!! thank you so much!

the tips about the tongue were really helpful =)

[harrywang1986]

Thank you for your wonderful demonstration.

[beruskilla]

Excellent!! the best on French pronuciation on youtube!!

[wolfstrokes]

Very illuminating