Comments on: French names – stress

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:57:49 +0000

email me at Cubcreole@yahoo.com

Maria

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:56:54 +0000

please someone please phonically send an example of how to say the name: Bourdieu. Please!

Maria

By: Jim Clevenger

Jim Clevenger — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:58:22 +0000

Max:

“and the tone of the voice always seems to imply “hey, listen to me, I know how to pronounce French, I’m sophisticated”. They don’t and they aren’t.”

RUDE is the same in all languages.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:47:57 +0000

Keith:

Any more absurd than the British insistence on “GÂteau”, or the utterly strange “PEUgeot”, which in combination with the weak terminal “o” makes me always first think my interlocutor is saying “Persia”?

Let’s face it, Americans and Brits as a rule both speak abysmal French, but in non-identical ways.

By: Keith Mundy

Keith Mundy — Sat, 09 May 2009 06:21:36 +0000

I heartily concur with Athel Cornish-Bowden on the habitual American pronunciation of French words. They have an absurd conviction that the last syllable should always be stressed, and the tone of the voice always seems to imply “hey, listen to me, I know how to pronounce French, I’m sophisticated”. They don’t and they aren’t.

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:09:30 +0000

In response to JJM, of course the “obvious” French pronunciation is a no-no because of its similarity to ‘putain’.

By: JJM

JJM — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:25:55 +0000

Also on a lighter note, Vladimir Putin’s name often causes some hilarity amongst French Canadians because it is spelled “Poutine” in French.

In Canada, “poutine” is a very popular fast food comprising (your arteries are probably already clogging up) fries topped with cheese curds then smothered in gravy.

By: Athel Cornish-Bowden

Athel Cornish-Bowden — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:00:43 +0000

Marseilles, which I’ve just commented on in another thread, also raises a question for me in this one. Most French people I know put almost exactly equal stress on the first two syllables, and barely pronounce the final e at all (though people with a strong local accent pronounce it quite strongly). However, when I first lived here 20 years ago I noticed that a senior colleague seemed to stress the first syllable when speaking English, and I could never quite decide whether this was my ear interpreting equal stress as stress on the first syllable as I was expecting stress on the second, or whether he was trying to say it in what he regarded as a more English way.

Your comment about how Americans pronounce French names seems almost an understatement: I have long had the feeling that many Americans have a conviction that all French words are heavily stressed on the last syllable. When I first heard the molecular biologist Jacques Monod referred to as Mno I didn’t know who was meant, as most British people at that time (and probably most now as well) made the exactly opposite error of stressing the first syllable strongly: Monno.