For a long time, I saw French as a close relative of English because for most instances, they have similar words, pronunciation, and grammars. However, French pronunciation contains cultural specialty as well. In French, “r” is pronounced as “h” in English, and the pitch of which is much more intense. I noticed in their pronunciation that French changes their pitch frequently, as Americans speaking English. That characteristic can be found in words like “restaurant, manifique, composter”, and so on. Also, one would not spot a huge difference in terms of word constructure. As mentioned above, for example, the word “restaurant” in French is spelled identically as it is in English, and there are many other French words that can be found in English dictionaries. Although English and French are alike in multiple aspects, listening to French is a process substantially more complicated in English. In French grammar, the last alphabet is silent. That means that after a word is pronounced, the listener does not have any clue of the last alphabet of the word. Moreover, I think this feature obstructs American French learners from connecting phrases word by word fluently because in English, we always connect the last alphabet with the opening alphabet of the next word. The absence of the last alphabet does pose some challenges in listening and speaking. For example, we actually hear the word “restaurant” as “res to ran”, pretty much like “Hestohang” in English. Furthermore, French has more tense transformations than English. A French verb can have approximately 8 forms, and each of them has unique pronunciation. With tense transformations that differ each other a lot, it is possible that we recognize words without hearing the ending alphabet. If all those forms are completely memorized and applied, one can easily distinguish oral messages word by word.
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I did not know French pronounciations contained cultural specialties. Thank you for sharing that information now I know the "r" and pronounced as "h". This is kind of similar to spanish where the two L's would be pronouned as a "j" sound. It it also interesting that french verb can have 8 different forms.