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KitQC2 en Francais
KitQC2
The Sounds of the French Language
If you look at the beginning of the French dictionary Le Petit Robert you will see a page that shows all of the sounds of the French language. These sounds are shown as a list of API letters - letters used to represent the sounds of languages.
It is a good idea to photocopy that page because you will need it to puzzle out how to pronounce French words when you look them up in the dictionary.
This list of sounds is important for another reason : it will help you to get rid of your accent very fast.
As part of the research done for KitQC2, a list of sounds with sample combinations of letters was created. Each sample has an example word. This research can be invaluable to you. You can find out which sounds that you have difficulty pronouncing and then practice the sample words until you get rid of your accent.
The document is only 8 pages and a small 200 Kb as a download. The file is a .pdf file (Acrobat Reader) and tremendously valuable to teachers and students of French.
Download French Sounds Overview (Le Petit Robert)
Download French Sounds and Accent Helper
Another fact that emerges from the list of sounds is that French is about memorization. There are an incredible number of letter combinations used to make the same sounds. The only way to learn the words is by memorizing them. KitQC2 lets you practice words as many times as necessary until you can remember the gender, spelling, pronunciation and plurals of words.
One of the sounds is kind of strange. In French you will hear people talk about an ‘aspirated h’ and a ‘silent h’. This is completely misleading. The ‘silent h’ is easy. The ‘aspirated h’ just means that you pause between the article and the noun. You can investigate this in more detail. Examples: ‘silent h’ = l’homme. ‘aspirated h’ = le hockey.
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