J. M
There are a lot of French words prounce like English words, how to remember those words without confusion? When I'm learning French, a lot of words sound just like English words but with different meanings. How to separate those words and remember those? please share your learning tips toward this problem.
Aug 1, 2015 6:25 AM
Comments · 4
4

The thing with French and English is they have many words in common that are spelled the same and usually have similar meanings, but you need to learn French phonology so you can get the pronunciation right. French should sound nothing like English. When you master the pronunciation differences, you will not confuse the two languages.

August 1, 2015
2

English got many words from french! And of course, now French gets some words from English, thanks to technology.

 

Bill Bryson calls the Norman conquest of 1066 the "final cataclysm [which] awaited the English language."  When William the Conqueror became king of England, French took over as the language of the court, administration, and culture - and stayed there for 300 years.

 

During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today.

 

Of course, the majority of the times, the pronunciation of these french words in the English language,  follow the English pronunciation, not the french pronunciation.  For example, the word "accident" in English,  has a different pronunciation than it does in French.  But if you don't know the French phonology, as Phil suggested, you might be confused as to how to pronounce it. If you're studying both French and English, you need to learn the correct pronunciations for each language, to avoid confusions and obvioulsy to make yourself understood. 

 

I remember staying at a small bed and breakfast in france and the french person said, "there is no wifi access in the patio." However, the sound of it was if i were to write to a native english speaker, "Wee-Fee".  I stood there thinking....'wee-fee?' What is that? And lady said, Internet...you know "wee-fee." Then i said, ohhhhh..wi-fi!!!! :D So yea, learn your french phonology! ;)

August 1, 2015

Marlon, your story reminds me of a similar experience I had in the Netherlands, except they pronounced it "viffy".

August 2, 2015

Marlon makes some excellent history lesson points, which I was too busy to mention :)

As far as the pronunciation of “wifi,” that is a consequence of the famous “Great Vowel Shift,” which I would characterize as another “cataclysm” for the English language.

It’s perhaps an interesting side note that “wifi” is pronounced differently in Latin American versus European Spanish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

August 2, 2015