.michaelad.

[minor mantle]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[tranquil flume]

If you care strongly about how others view you, then I suppose going over the top (so to speak) might not be ideal, but generally it's good to practice such things as understanding how to properly pronounce the R or other sounds is less of a pure 'accent' thing and more of actual language acquisition that may be necessary for you to be understood by native speakers.

[cosmic oar]

In French classes the students that tried the accent sounded pretentious
That sounds like a you problem and not a them problem
If you think it's pretentious to try to imitate an accent when learning a language, I think you need to spend some time reflecting on why that might be

[tranquil flume]

I'd recommend listening to native content and replaying words that you feel you're not pronouncing properly, and repeatedly saying them out loud to help with accuracy.

[cosmic oar]

When you're first learning a new language, I find that it's best to try to EXAGERATE the accent
If you turn it up to 11, you'll eventually figure out what you need to do to reel it back in and sound more natural

[dusky merlin]

Well it was essentially the whole class but personally I don’t care. I just don’t want to come off as rude trying to speak broken French in case I sound like I’m mocking or something

[tranquil flume]

No, it's a necessary part of the learning process.

[dusky merlin]

Ya I’m trying to just watch French videos and repeat what they say after every sentence since I’m not good enough to have a conversation with anyone

[tranquil flume]

That's a good amount of effort, very few students put that much time in when I was in school. Don't put down your own competency, I have spoken with many levels of language skill and it's not like people look at more 'broken' French and think bad things.

Unless they're a jerk :)

[dusky merlin]

Thank you yes I’ve been out of school for years now but I want to learn better than I did there. Are you also not native French? How did you learn to speak better?

[tranquil flume]

• Speaking to myself constantly (in my head, or out loud while in the shower, cooking, driving, etc)
• Listening mostly to French music
• Listening to podcasts & repeating things they say while listening (for a long time I only listened to InnerFrench, but there's so much content that you could probably just do the same thing)
• Listening to news broadcasts (really helps for getting a grasp on the "base accent" in French, RFI has a "News in Easy French", also there are tons of Canadian/French [like from France] news-based learning activities, like tv5monde apprendre or ici radio canada's stuff)

TBH in terms of purely 'honing your pronounciation', I did find that the shower strategy worked really well. I've read that singing/talking in the shower tends to feel 'good' because the damp air loosens your throat muscles or something (dunno, I'm not a biologist) but I did always find it was easier to pick up new tricks in terms of pronunciation specifically while showering.

I find specifically pronounciation is very much a recognize->research->acquire->practice loop in a way that a lot of things aren't as much, in that you have to (1) actually hear something in the first place (sometimes I'll pick up on things even today and go, wtf, I never noticed that native speakers did that before), (2) physically test your own voice to determine where that sound is best produced / potentially look up pronunciation guides, (3) actually find that and iron it out a bit, then (4) continually practice it

[dusky merlin]

Thank you. I do speak to myself a lot and try to narrate what I’m doing but I’m worried that I might be just speaking wrong. I’ll have to look into French news and podcasts. I was trying to use the voice chats here and stay muted and repeat then speaking, but then found out the stuff I was repeating was a bit racist 😬. Haha I will give the shower trick a try. Thank you for the advice. I want to get to the point where I can hold a conversation decently without sounding like an idiot

[tranquil flume]

Lol. Yes, voice chats are great for immersion, but I would not mimic unknown people personally, just because you really have no quality control in that case. News Broadcasts or InnerFrench or similar stuff will be way more effective esp. considering they speak in a much clearer, enunciated way (and with probably a better microphone) than the average person online.

[dusky merlin]

Fair enough 😅 I just figured that their French was so fast that’s probably how actual French people speak in person

[tranquil flume]

IMO, this is just a recommendation, but I would suggest reframing your goal to just "hold a conversation". It is okay to sound like an idiot. Happens to the best of us. Being able to 'get over that' (I know it's very hard... I know, trust me) is really important because it helps you get to a better immersion level sooner than later.

If you want actual links to some learning resources that are cool, here are a few:

https://mauril.ca/en/ (Canadian)
https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/fr (France, I think)
https://francaisfacile.rfi.fr/en/ (France [RFI])

Oh, and InnerFrench if you weren't already familiar https://innerfrench.com/

[dusky merlin]

Thank you I will use these

[tranquil flume]

Tv5Monde and Mauril both have things like interviews with native speakers, by the way, so there's fully native dialogue in there

[dusky merlin]

Do you think it is better to focus on Quebec French or Europe French? I want to be able to communicate with both ideally

[dusky merlin]

Perfect

[tranquil flume]

Do you live east of Manitoba?

If not, I would not recommend focusing on Quebec French

[dusky merlin]

Yes Ontario

[tranquil flume]

If so, eh, I'd still focus on trying to pick up more neutral or France-French. However there are lots of decent Quebec resources

You could supplement your learning with watching videos from MaProfDeFrancais: https://www.youtube.com/@maprofdefrancais

[dusky merlin]

Do people in Quebec understand France French? And vice versa

[tranquil flume]

She is from Quebec and the videos would likely be perfect for starting to understand the regional accent differences

[tranquil flume]

This is kind of a hard question to answer. If a person from Quebec is speaking with a person from French, they will understand each other, because they'll both probably speak closer to "neutral French". However a person from France would likely find it extremely difficult to understand a rapid conversation between two people from Saguenay.

[dusky merlin]

Hmm ok I will try for neutral French then

[tranquil flume]

A friend from France was messaging me while watching a broadcast a few months ago and saying they were incredibly difficult to understand, I clicked the link and it was just radio-canada french (extremely little accent) 😭 😭

[dusky merlin]

Haha. It’s like Scottish

[tranquil flume]

but imo this is the sort of question that's not worth asking, like just throw yourself in and enjoy stuff and the more you learn == the better

[dusky merlin]

Are you from Canada also?

[tranquil flume]

quebecois accent is very fun

Yeah, I'm from BC, but I moved to Ontario a few years ago

[dusky merlin]

Ah okay

[tranquil flume]

It is very hard to adapt out of the blue to understand the Quebecois accent 😂

[dusky merlin]

I also have a friend from Nova Scotia who I won’t even try to speak French with. Might as well not be French at all

[tranquil flume]

Acadien is super cool but yeah approximately incomprehensible.

If you ever want to discuss small French or Quebecois things, feel free to message me, as I do enjoy nitpicks about the language.

[dusky merlin]

Thank you :)

[sick wren]

Québécois will just about always understand France french outside of very slangy stuff
Frenchies are very capable of understanding the vast majority of québécois but it's not unusual that they're not used to actually having to try, so they may act like they don't understand a thing. If you learn a québécois accent, you're very unlikely to learn anything thick, slangy, or quick enough for frenchies to have any difficulty understanding you. Absolute worst case scenario, you can lean off of the accent or use other words to get your point across, but I've just about never had to do that despite learning french from québécois since I was young. You'll likely be so exposed to france french materials anyways that your comprehension and production of the accent won't be a struggle at all, so leaning towards the québécois side when you can basically boils down to learning the differences and being able to understand québécois better.

[dusky merlin]

Okay perfect thank you

[fluid lava]

I have nothing really new to add, just wanted to reinforce that imitating the accent is normal and necessary if you want to be easily understood. One of the best ways to improve pronounciation is called 'shadowing' and it involves listening to an audio clip and trying to imitate it exactly.

You may sound silly or baby-like at first, as you're learning to coordinate your mouth in new ways, but the practice will pay off down the line.

[blissful laurel]

not that anyone really cares too much, but it's definitely more rude not to try at all, then to actually try to speak french