Dreaming of France -- Pronouncing French

hank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Last weekend, as my husband and I perused the map of new French regions, I pointed to the area we planned to move. It had been known as Languedoc-Roussillon. Now the area, combined with Mid-Pyrenees would be known as Occitanie.

"How do you pronounce it?" my husband asked. 

"I don't know," I replied. I'm okay at speaking French that I've heard, but I'm awful at reading words and figuring out how to pronounce them. I guessed that it would probably rhyme with Punxsutawney, like the groundhog in Pennsylvania. Occitanie = Ocksutawney.

I decided I'd better check it out. So I searched, on my phone for how to pronounce Occitanie in French. 

The website Forvo.com popped up. It's an app, so I can download it on my phone for $2.99, and after hearing how to pronounce Occitanie, I'd better. It's pronounced Ock-sit-uh-knee with the emphasis on sit. 

Here, don't try to imagine how to say it, go to Forov and choose a female or male voice to pronounce it for you. Forvo pronounciation of Occitanie. 

We looked up some other words, and my husband asked to see how to pronounce his name in French. 

Now we've been to France many times, and he has heard our French friends massacre his name. There just isn't an easy way to say Earl in French. 

When I searched on Forvo, it changed the language to English rather than French, and even some American. 

I went back to searching for the pronunciation of areas within the region where we plan to move. One of those is Herault. 

I typed it into Forvo.com and the pronuncation sounded a lot like Earl, maybe a bit more like Errol. "That's how I'll spell my name from now on so people can pronounce it," he said. 

Here's Forvo's take on Herault. 

Guess I'd better get busy practicing my French skills.

I have a student from Senegal, where they speak French, and I asked him how he would say "Earl." He laughed and agreed that it would be a very hard name for the French. But I don't feel too bad, because last week when we were reading a story in class, he read latté as lat. 

I said, "Wait! That's a French word."

He went back and read it with French pronunciation and agreed, "Latté is a French word."

Are you good at reading French words and pronouncing them? How do you get better?

Dreaming of France -- Speaking French

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

As I sit in the living room writing my blog, I can hear my husband on the front porch studying his French. He matches verbs with each pronoun -- je parle, tu parles, il parle... Je suis journaliste.
He learned German in high school, so French is a whole new ballgame for him. He has picked up words as we have traveled to France again and again, but the past few years he has begun to take it seriously with the realization that we will move to France next May.
I joke with him that he will learn French in hardware store as he tries to find the right tool or product. But I know he wants to be able to talk people -- our neighbors, shop owners, waiters.
I'm proud that he is tackling French.

And, inspired by him, and by a new blog friend Roz at Our French Life, I've also been working harder at speaking French. I try to study Duolingo most days, which is a great way to learn vocabulary and the basics of French sentences. I wrote a blog post about it in September 2014.

Last month, I got my nerves up and I joined a Meetup group for people who want to speak French. They met on a Friday night at a coffee shop/bar, and I spent quite a bit of time speaking French with Americans, Spanish, Brazilians, and had a headache by the time I left. I'd forgotten how much speaking another language muddles my brain.
This week, there was another Meetup and I had to force myself to consider going, but I need to learn French better, especially comprehending when people speak to me. Then I noticed that the Meetup was full and a waiting list had formed. On the waiting list, I saw the name of a friend from church who has a doctorate in French.
I emailed her and we agreed to meet at the restaurant and speak only in French for an hour.

That was a challenge, but I know i must do it. I feel like I stumble constantly.
I studied French in  high school, minored in French in college and spoke fairly fluently when I stayed in France for three months as an au pair.
After our hour, with my friend feeling free to correct my pronunciation or verb tense, I again felt wrung out, but I know it's necessary to improve my language skills before we move. She complimented my French and said the fact that we were able to converse for an hour meant good things about my abilities. That made me feel better.
How bout you? Do you speak French or another language? How do you keep  your language skills strong?

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

Speaking French

My French is so bad now that it's painful. I feel like I'm speaking with a totally American accent and I'm not using the correct verbs, and aaaaaargh!
There was a time,granted it was 25 years ago, when I could speak French present, passe compose, conditional, future, no problem. I could even understand the subtleties of some French jokes or plays on words. No longer.
I'm fine when I limit myself to ordering in a restaurant or buying souvenir tshirts. I can even request directions and nod my head intelligently when the French person waves her hand, gesticulating this way and that: "A droite et encore a droite..."
But I don't really understand enough to find the place she is pointing out to me.
Visiting friends requires a more sophisticated level of French that has so far deserted me at this point. I find myself laughing at stories that are serious and looking sad at jokes!

We limit our conversations, which of course limits our friendship. We speak in French and English of all the children and cousins and friends. Trying to catch up on everyone's lives, but always lagging a little behind.
I know how to say, "I don't understand" but I don't know how to say, "I just don't get it."