Since traveling to France I've always wanted to learn French. I think it is a beautiful language and as my travels will keep me returning to France it makes sense to learn it as well. Since I do not know a second language yet (curse the American education system) I took it upon myself to get lessons and had my first session yesterday with my tutor Max.
We jumped right in with common phrases and focused on pronunciation.
"Est-ce que tu es français?" - Are you french?
"Non. Je ne suis pas français." - No. I am not french.
"Est-ce que tu es américaine?" - Are you american?
"Oui! Je suis américane." - Yes. I am american.
And this is where I ran into the biggest problem - of all the words I could have trouble with I actually can't seem to pronounce "american" properly! There are two french pronunciations "americain" if masculine and "americaine" if feminine.
In America we say "a-mare-e-kin".
In French masculine it is "a-mare-e-can" but with a little more nasal sound.
And for French feminine it is "a-mare-e-ca-n" with an even more nasal sound.
See the difference? I barely could either - though I could hear the slight subtle difference when Max pronounced it but I couldn't figure it out. It was the one word he repeatedly had to correct me on throughout the lesson.
Nevertheless - I can't wait for my next lesson. I picked up some language books and audio cds and will work on my pronunciation each day so that maybe one day I can pronounce american properly in french.
We jumped right in with common phrases and focused on pronunciation.
"Est-ce que tu es français?" - Are you french?
"Non. Je ne suis pas français." - No. I am not french.
"Est-ce que tu es américaine?" - Are you american?
"Oui! Je suis américane." - Yes. I am american.
And this is where I ran into the biggest problem - of all the words I could have trouble with I actually can't seem to pronounce "american" properly! There are two french pronunciations "americain" if masculine and "americaine" if feminine.
In America we say "a-mare-e-kin".
In French masculine it is "a-mare-e-can" but with a little more nasal sound.
And for French feminine it is "a-mare-e-ca-n" with an even more nasal sound.
See the difference? I barely could either - though I could hear the slight subtle difference when Max pronounced it but I couldn't figure it out. It was the one word he repeatedly had to correct me on throughout the lesson.
Nevertheless - I can't wait for my next lesson. I picked up some language books and audio cds and will work on my pronunciation each day so that maybe one day I can pronounce american properly in french.
You'll get it before you know it! Congrats on your first step in being multi-lingual.
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