This post is dedicated to all my American friends who keep mentioning that French is such a complicated language to learn because French speakers *apparently* don’t pronounce half the letters in their words (mostly the second half).
So you think so, huh? Maybe.
Well, I’d actually like to hear you Anglos pronounce your words correctly too! No double standards here: *you* also need to scrutinize your own language a little bit...
Examples?
Closed (same thing for all the ‘ed’ conjugated verbs). ‘Closed’ should actually be written ‘clozd’, not ‘closed’. Why don’t you pronounce the ‘e’ for a change? ClozEd. And why don’t you pronounce the ‘s’ like an ‘s’? You know it’s not a ‘z’, right?
Through. What about that ‘gh’ thingy at the end? That word should be written ‘throo’, not ‘through’. Pronounce that ‘g’ and that ‘h’ just for fun! ThrouGH. Yeah, that’s right: througgghhhuuuhhh!
Whole. And all those words that start with a “silent” ‘w’ (like there is such a thing as a silent ‘w’ anyway...). ‘Whole’ should be written ‘hol’, not ‘whole’. And while you’re at it, why don’t you *also* decide to pronounce the ‘e’ at the end? Wwwholeeee. Sounds different, right?
Know. Why bother with the ‘k’ and the ‘w’ if you don’t say them? Go for ‘no’, it’s that simple.
Half. Again, why bother with the ‘l’ if you don’t say it? ‘Haf’ it is!
So in the end, you’re not really better than those Frenchies, are you? ;-)
In addition, not only do you not pronounce ‘haf’ of your letters (just like us), you don’t actually pronounce the letters that *are* written in your words:
Factor (It’s an ‘o’, not an ‘e’. So why do we hear ‘facter’?)
Dessert (It’s a double ‘s’, not a ‘z’, right ? So why do we hear ‘dezert’?)
Blue (there’s an ‘e’ at the end, you know? Why don’t you say it?)
I could go on and on for days but I'll keep the ranting for this Friday night only... ;-)
Like that letter, look at it very carefully: ‘w’. It’s not a double u, it’s a double v. W = vv, not uu!
Moral of the story? Only when you leave a particular reference frame can you actually understand many things that originally seemed logical, self-explanatory or even obvious.
By the way, you know that this reasoning can also be applied to politics and culture, right?
Ohhh! Dee-nied! ;-)
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1 commentaire:
And don't forget the confusion that exists with the letters "i" (or "y")... I never know how exactly I should pronounce those letters — like the sound "ee" of "Literature" or like the sound "I" as in "Idea" ?
Same thing with the letter "a". Sometimes it is pronounced like the "a" in "Apple", other times like the "a" in "Shame"...
Now, try to pronounce the word "Hierarchy" correctly...
What a mess for people who learn that language ! You need to know how to pronounce a word before reading it...
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