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Craig Hall
Pronunciation
I notice that the "e" sound is sometimes pronounced with a nasal sound (le, difference) and in others it is more like the Spanish "e" sound. Can someone help me with this? Thanks in advance.
Dec 4, 2014 11:11 PM
Answers · 4
1
It's even more complicated than that - welcome to the wonderful world of French vowels! There are three different ways to pronounce "e": just "e", é, and è.
Then you have nasal vowels, which is what happens in "différence": "en" is a single vowel sound, and you do not pronounce the "n" at all, unlike in English.
There's also "eu", which is yet another sound (as in "deux").
You can find more details about the letter "e" here:
http://www.french.hku.hk/starters/fonetik/fiche03web.htm
And here are all the French vowels:
http://www.french.hku.hk/starters/fonetik/fiche02web.htm
I hope this helps!
December 5, 2014
1
I'm not sure I understand the question as I repeating the word in french in my head.
Although "e" changes depending on the letters around it
like in Différence
First "é" as an accent so sound like Hey! in English
second one is close to the R and N so it's sound like the an in "and" although not exactly (I have no word that comes to mind that mimics that sound perfectly) Although if said with a France accent the Rs would be more present.
and the last "ce" following the C making it softer like the word Sea but don't pronounce the A
December 4, 2014
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Craig Hall
Language Skills
English, French, German, Spanish
Learning Language
French
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