Pronunciation what's yours like in French

Ch’ti is a regional dialect/variation of French, it also denotes the people of that part of French, chtimi is also used to describe the language variation: c’est moi = ch’ti mi.

Quite right, accent and dialect/patois are two different things. I use both ça va, with the local accent but obviousy standard French, and ba pla, which is patois, depending on who I’m talking to :wink:

If you really want to get going try pain au chocolat -v- chocolatine, it’s chocolatine here and nothing else!!!
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Oh how I relate to this!!! Flo, having grown up in the South, is constantly picking me up on the number of syllables I pronounce when I am strangling the language in my attempts to learn!!! That, plus the emphasis on the last letter - example: " acte de vente " whereas I (apparently) pronounce it “acte de vent”. A hard teacher is my missus!!!

And @an_droo - I can never forget the shock I had when I first visited your tabac and tried to speak French…and you just calmly responded in perfect English to put me out of my misery!!! :joy::joy:

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My accent is terrible but I seem to be able to make myself understood and that’s about the best I can do.

Here in the Tarn (and elsewhere in the South I imagine) they put a “g” on the end of a lot of words ending in “n”. So demain becomes demang and pain becomes pang. Some of the locals have such a strong accent I can’t understand a word they say.

As a slight diversion, we have an aide à domicile who is just 18 years old. Now, while I don’t expect anyone to speak English I was amazed to discover she has no understanding of English at all. Knowing the amount of English lessons she has attended during her school years (my step-son is 17) it’s quite incredible that she knows no English. How can that be?!

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No English at all does seem incroyable for an 18 year old but some people have very little gift for 2nd languages - I managed an O’Level but could not have had a conversation in French beyond “hello” at the age of 16.

Some would say I’m not much better now :slight_smile:

I know the emphasis given to the teaching of foreign languages in France, especially English, and she must (?) have taken an English exam in the last year in order to pass her Bac. She’s a lovely girl and certainly not unintelligent so I’m a bit baffled.

Too shy? It was certainly part of my inability to string a sentence together.

Yes, now you mention it, maybe she just says she knows no English to avoid the potential embarrassment of attempting to speak it. That’s reasonable enough knowing how I felt when first trying to have conversations in French.

I’m not going to mention it to her again in case that’s the reason. She may be able to understand more than we realise!!!