Ecureuil, Pronunciation Fears, and most difficult French words to pronounce (read aloud by Jean-Marc!)
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
We begin this edition with a quote from a reader:
When I studied French decades ago, I was told by one prof that during the war, écureuil was a test word used to ascertain whether the speaker was, indeed, French or perhaps a spy. This word remains difficult for me to this day. - Mary
TODAY'S WORD: un écureuil
: squirrel
Improve your spoken French with Exercises in French Phonetics
A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE
by Kristi Espinasse
One of the things we language learners have in common is the fear of speaking in a foreign tongue. The first time I can remember being afraid to pronounce French was just moments before meeting my host family, in 1989.....
My Dad had accompanied me to Lille, France, and we were now arriving in some parking lot. Had he driven me? I can't remember, for my brain can only recall a car window, beyond which the gray unknown awaited.
The gray was no more than the clouds, so typical of the industrial town of Lille, and as for the unknown it was about to reveal itself via two sunny faces: Mr. and Mrs. B.
Thump, thump, thump, went my heart. How would they ever understand me? Had two years of college French, learned back home in the wild west, made me a fluent speaker? On a more practical note, what to say now?! What if it all came out garbled?
To this day I can't remember what my first words were to Robert and Christiane B. But I can still see the kindest faces, looking back at me, as if to say, Do not worry. Go ahead and speak.
Almost 30 years later, my dear Dad & me - in sunny Cassis :-)
A year ago I asked you to share the hardest words to say en français. Here, now, are your "Most Difficult French Words To Pronounce," followed by a recording for you, by Jean-Marc:
la rue - street
le yaourt -yogurt
l'écureuil - squirrel
trois - three
dessus and dessous - above and below
Reims - (the French town)
heureuse - happy
la cucurbitacée - cucurbit
le pouilly-fuissé - type of white wine
la chirurgie - surgery
la fourrure - fur
la grenouille - frog
l'ours - bear
mille-feuille ou millefeuille - kind of dessert
Buoux - (a town in the Luberon)
la serrure - lock
le RER - (high-speed train between Paris and suburbs)
la bouteille - bottle
l'accueil -welcome
l'oeil - eye
(Listen to Jean-Marc pronounce all these French words, click here)
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