when a French person speaks English
they often have a French accent
but what does this actually mean?
in this video
I’m going to break down the features
that create a French accent in English
my reference speaker is going to be
Emmanuel Macron - the current French president
he speaks very good English
but you can still tell he sounds French
here are some reasons why
in English we use aspirated /p/ sounds
this means we add air to them
in French
/p/ sounds are not aspirated
this means words like "part" and "passport"
in a French accent become:
TH sounds are not common in the world’s languages
and cause many problems for non-native English speakers
Emmanuel Macron replaces
the voiced TH with Z
and the voiceless TH with S
this means the words "that the" become
and the word “thanks" becomes
If someone knows they are
replacing TH sounds
with S or Z
they may start hypercorrecting
and turning every S and Z
into TH sounds
this means the word “civil” may become
"series" becomes
and "strong" becomes
the French language does not have a /h/
an H sound
this means it’s often not pronounced
when speaking English
so the word “have” becomes
and the word “history” becomes
there may also be hypercorrection here
when a syllable begins with a vowel sound
a French speaker may insert an H sound
this is called intrusive H
so a word like "reaction" becomes
it’s pretty challenging to work out
the pronunciation of an English word from the spelling
so a French speaker may use the French
letter-to-sound correspondence
to pronounce English words
the words “other” and “budget”
have the same vowel in my English accent
but for a French speaker
they may sound different
the words “ship” and “sheep”
have different vowel sounds in my accent
but when a French person
says the word “ship”
it may sound like “sheep”
the word “look” and my name “Luke”
are pronounced with different vowel sounds
but for a French speaker
they may be pronounced with the same vowel sound
this means if a French person says “look”
it may sound like my name “Luke”
word stress is really important in English
if you don’t stress the right syllable
you may be misunderstood
the words “idea” and “negotiate” are
stressed on the second syllable in my accent
but Emmanuel Macron stresses them on the first
the word “energy” is stressed
on the first syllable in my accent
but on the second syllable in his
these are just a few features which indicate a French accent in English
thanks for watching
and please share it with all of your French friends