Discussion Post #4

Sound is how people say the word whereas spelling is a conventional way to use letters that represent the make-up of a word. This is very distinct in my target language because most of the time, not all of the letters in a French word are pronounced. There can be 3-5 extra letters at the end of a French word that are never pronounced. The city "Bordeaux" is a good example. A non-French speaker would think to pronounce this as "Bore-docks" or "bore-doe-ks"; but in reality it is just "Bore-doe." Sound and spelling do not always go together and relate to one another directly. I have found this evident while studying Spanish and French at the same time. When I see the way that a Spanish word is spelled, my brain has to switch from ignoring letters at the end of the word to ignoring letters in the middle of a given word. For example, anytime I see a double "ll" or a "j", my brain has to adjust. J sounds are pronounced differently in both French and Spanish, so sometimes there can be a similar adjustment. This is still something I am learning to work through. 

https://www.frenchcourses-paris.com/french-phonetic-alphabet/ ;

The French Phonetic Alphabet has 12 vowels, 4 nasal vowels, and 18 consonant sounds. The nasal vowels stood out to me because I could immediately think about words in French where the nasal sound is prevalent (i.e vain, bain, monde, enfant, etc). Once again, I wouldn't run to immediately thinking that a language has more than six vowels, like what we are taught in school. The French 'R' is definitely the first thing that comes to mind when I think of a sound not in American English, because the 'R' comes from the back of the throat/mouth rather than the front of the mouth by your lips. For example...

- La rélation (connection) : The 'r' sound starts at the back of the mouth and the rest of the word makes its way to the front of the mouth and back to the middle with the "on" sound. 

- Revenir (to come back) : The 'r' sound is at the beginning and the end of the word. 

Producing different sounds in the French language can be difficult for me sometimes, but if I practice reading French texts out loud to myself, I see myself improving. In a French class, I am always quick to volunteering to read a passage so I can practice my pronunciation and hold myself accountable. This is something I also plan to do with Spanish as I progress in that language as well. 

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