How to Fake a French Accent

We love the beautiful accent that the French have when they speak English, and it can be fun or even useful to imitate it. If youre an actor, comedian, grand sà ©ducteur,  or even if you just have a French-themed Halloween costume, you can learn how to fake a French accent with this in-depth look at how the French speak English.* Please note that the pronunciation explanations are based on American English; some of them wont sound right to British and Australian ears. *Si vous à ªtes franà §ais, ne men voulez pas  ! Jai à ©crit cet article parce quil sagit dun sujet intà ©ressant et potentiellement utile. Franchement, jadore votre langue et jadore à ©galement votre accent quand vous parlez la mienne. Si vous voulez, vous pouvez utiliser ces tuyaux pour rà ©duire les traces de franà §ais dans votre anglais. Mais, à   mon avis, ce serait dommage. French-infused Vowels Nearly every English vowel is affected by the French accent. French has no diphthongs, so vowels are always shorter than their English counterparts. The long A, O, and U sounds in English, as in say, so, and Sue, are pronounced by French speakers like their similar but un-diphthonged French equivalents, as in the French words sais, seau, and sou. For example, English speakers pronounce say as [seI], with a diphthong made up of a long a sound followed by a sort of y sound. But French speakers will say [se] - no diphthong, no y sound. (Note that [xxx] indicates IPA spelling.) English vowel sounds which do not have close French equivalents are systematically replaced by other sounds: short A [à ¦], as in fat, is pronounced ah as in fatherlong A [eI] followed by a consonant, as in gate, is usually pronounced like the short e in getER at the end of a word, as in water, is always pronounced airshort I [I], as in sip, is always pronounced ee as in seeplong I [aI], as in kite, tends to be elongated and almost turned into two syllables: [ka it]short O [É‘], as in cot, is pronounced either uh as in cut, or oh as in coatU [ÊŠ] in words like full is usually pronounced oo as in fool Dropped Vowels, Syllabification, and Word Stress When faking a French accent, you need to pronounce all schwas (unstressed vowels). For reminder, native English speakers tend toward rmindr, but French speakers say ree-ma-een-dair. They will pronounce amazes ah-may-zez, with the final e fully stressed, unlike native speakers who will gloss over it: amazs. And the French often emphasize the -ed at the end of a verb, even if that means adding a syllable: amazed becomes ah-may-zed. Short words that native English speakers tend  to skim over or swallow will always be carefully pronounced by French speakers. The latter will say peanoot boo-tair and jelly, whereas native English speakers opt for peant buttr n jelly. Likewise, French speakers will usually not make contractions, instead pronouncing every word: I would go instead of Id go and She eez reh-dee rather than Shes ready. Because French has no word stress (all syllables are pronounced with the same emphasis), French speakers have a hard time with stressed syllables in English, and will usually pronounce everything at the same stress, like actually, which becomes ahk chew ah lee. Or they might stress the last syllable - particularly in words with more than two: computer is often said com-pu-TAIR. French-accented Consonants H is always silent in French, so the French will pronounce happy as appy. Once in a while, they might make a particular effort, usually resulting in an overly forceful H sound - even with words like hour and honest, in which the H is silent in English.J is likely to be pronounced zh like the G in massage.R will be pronounced either as in French  or as a tricky sound somewhere between W and L. Interestingly, if a word starting with a vowel has an R in the middle, some French speakers will mistakenly add an (overly forceful) English H in front of it. For example, arm might be pronounced hahrm. THs pronunciation will vary, depending on how its supposed to be pronounced in English: voiced TH [à °] is pronounced Z or DZ: this becomes zees or dzeesunvoiced TH [ÃŽ ¸] is pronounced S or T: thin turns into seen or teen Letters that should be silent at the beginning and end of words (psychology, lamb) are often pronounced. French-Tinted Grammar Just as English speakers often have trouble with  French possessive adjectives, mistakenly saying things like  son femme  for his wife, French speakers are likely to mix up  his  and  her, often favoring  his  even for female owners. They also tend to use  his  rather than  its  when talking about inanimate owners, e.g., This car has his own GPS. Similarly, since all  nouns have a gender  in French, native speakers will often refer to inanimate objects as  he  or  she  rather than  it. French speakers often use the pronoun  that  for a subject when they mean  it, as in thats just a thought rather than its just a thought. And theyll often say  this  instead of  that  in expressions like I love skiing and boating, things like this rather than ... things like that. Certain  singulars and plurals  are problematic, due to differences in French and English. For example, the French are likely to pluralize  furniture  and  spinach  because the French equivalents are plural:  les  meubles,  les  Ãƒ ©pinards. In the present tense, the French rarely remember to conjugate for the third person singular: he go, she want, it live. As for the past tense, because spoken French favors the  passà © composà ©Ã‚  to the  passà © simple, the French tend to overuse the formers literal equivalent, the English present perfect: I have gone to the movies yesterday. In questions, French speakers tend not to invert the subject and verb,  instead  asking where you are going? and what your name is? And they leave out the helping verb  do: what mean this word? or what this word mean? French-flavored Vocabulary Faux amis  are just as tricky for French speakers as they are for English speakers; try saying, as the French often do, actually instead of now, and nervous when you mean  Ãƒ ©nervà ©. You should also throw in occasional French words and phrases, such as: au contraire  - on the  contraryau revoir  - good-byebien  sà »r !  - of course!bon appà ©tit  - bon appetit, enjoy your mealbonjour  - hellocest-à  -dire  - that iscomment dit-on ___  ?  - how do you say ___?euh  - uh, umje  veux  dire  - I meanmerci  - thank younon  - nooh là  Ã‚  là  Ã‚  !  - oh dear!oui  - yespas  possible !  - no way!sil  vous  plaà ®t  - pleasevoilà  Ã‚  - there you go French Faces And, of course, theres nothing like  gestures  to make you look more French. We particularly recommend  les  bises,  la  moue, the  Gallic shrug and  dà ©licieux.