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French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

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Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#31

Post by m132 »

bloppe wrote: post #11
tombh wrote: post #4

"Hey", /ˈheɪ/, has a dipthong /eɪ/, so é is precisely the first half of that dipthong. It may feel like it's between the “e” in “bet” and “ee” in “see”, but using the dipthong you don't have to guess it.

I've been speaking French since pre-school (albeit in North America mostly) and to me é always sounds more like the English short i (as in "tip"). I'm becoming increasingly convinced that everybody on Earth but me is wrong about it.

Do you happen to be from the western US or Canada? They tend to lower the /ɪ/ monophthong (i of tip, pit, sit, etc.) there, making it sound pretty close to /e/ (French é, German eh). It's one of those things that, combined with regionalisms and other accent features, give away where you grew up :) I noticed a lot of Londoners do this too, though this is just my experience.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#32

Post by Tyrannosaur »

bloppe wrote: post #11
tombh wrote: post #4

"Hey", /ˈheɪ/, has a dipthong /eɪ/, so é is precisely the first half of that dipthong. It may feel like it's between the “e” in “bet” and “ee” in “see”, but using the dipthong you don't have to guess it.

I've been speaking French since pre-school (albeit in North America mostly) and to me é always sounds more like the English short i (as in "tip"). I'm becoming increasingly convinced that everybody on Earth but me is wrong about it.

No, you are correct.

Dr Geoff Lindsey on youtube:

short version: https://youtube.com/shorts/GF1gIaxnULc?si=d4jFC-rLOC5dww-8

long version: https://youtu.be/GNpbv7hJf6c?si=xNz1UjeLY0Ch9eDv&t=366

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#33

Post by icegreentea2 »

Joker_vD wrote: post #24
strongpigeon wrote: post #5

As a native (Québécois) French speaker who's been living in the US for most of my adult life, something I miss from French is that once you've learned the (many) rules, you can be pretty confident about how to pronounce a given word. English on the other hand has so many exceptions (usually based on the origin of the word), that I still encounter words that I'll mispronounce at first. I can typically pass as a native…

Like, "passage" and "massage", why do they not rhyme in English? They're both borrowed French words! And don't even start me on how English pronounce "hangar"... that's like, what if you tried to pronounce this word as differently from the original as possible while still plausibly having the same spelling.

For anyone wondering, passage and massage entered English at very different times. Passage entered in middle english (around 13th century), while massage entered in the 19th century.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#35

Post by elric »

abrowne wrote: post #13
strongpigeon wrote: post #5

As a native (Québécois) French speaker who's been living in the US for most of my adult life, something I miss from French is that once you've learned the (many) rules, you can be pretty confident about how to pronounce a given word. English on the other hand has so many exceptions (usually based on the origin of the word), that I still encounter words that I'll mispronounce at first. I can typically pass as a native…

The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée .

Having grown up in two languages where dictée is a thing, I was always bemused by spelling bees. You have to spell one word? And have loads of time to do so? Pah!

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#36

Post by dismalaf »

ghewgill wrote: post #25
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #17

>Ê with the circumflex accent marks an “e” after which originally some other letter was written (usually an S), but this letter is no longer present in its modern spelling. [snip] >By imagining “es” instead of “ê”, we can often deduce the meaning of unknown words; for example, forêt = forest, fête = “feste” = fest(ival); intérêt = interest and many others. The circumflex accent is used in the very same sense also for…

I had that "a-ha" moment not at first by learning that "fenêtre" means "window", but later when I learned the German word is "Fenster".

Or defenestrate...

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#37

Post by rkomorn »

elric wrote: post #35
abrowne wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée .

Having grown up in two languages where dictée is a thing, I was always bemused by spelling bees. You have to spell one word? And have loads of time to do so? Pah!

To be fair, spelling bees usually have more complicated words (though the complicated ones are often borrowed from French anyway so, win-win for some of us).

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#38

Post by yakkomajuri »

strongpigeon wrote: post #5

As a native (Québécois) French speaker who's been living in the US for most of my adult life, something I miss from French is that once you've learned the (many) rules, you can be pretty confident about how to pronounce a given word. English on the other hand has so many exceptions (usually based on the origin of the word), that I still encounter words that I'll mispronounce at first. I can typically pass as a native…

The most phonetically consistent language I know is Finnish. I believe there is exactly one way to pronounce every word and it's clear to all speakers.

And the least phonetically consistent is English.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#39

Post by skydhash »

isolli wrote: post #27
abrowne wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way – trying to spell a word you hear – is harder, since many sounds have multiple possible spellings. Hence la dictée .

While helping my children learn French spelling, I was horrified when I realized that there are 6 or 7 ways to write the sound [ɛ̃]: un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein

The first one (un) is different from the others.

Re: French e, è, é, ê, ë – what's the difference?

#40

Post by isolli »

skydhash wrote: post #39
isolli wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While helping my children learn French spelling, I was horrified when I realized that there are 6 or 7 ways to write the sound [ɛ̃]: un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein

The first one (un) is different from the others.

So I've been told... but I could never hear the difference myself!
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