I think one of the best things about being here in classes full of international students is that I've been given the opportunity to hear French spoken with such a wide range of accents. Each different country brings with it different sounds and different phonetic problems, which, once learned, make international understanding possible. Another fun part of this is that I can now tell which country someone comes from usually when the speak to me in French - although I still have some work to do with distinguishing the regional French accents.
A large part of my ability to do this has no doubt been due to living in a French setting and having adjusted to the "vrai" French accent. Surprisingly the American French accent is the one that grates on my nerves the most - probably due to the fact that it has, as one of my friends says, "no real accent, it's just French spoken with neither inflection nor tone" - and this is definitely true of most of the Americans I've known who speak French.
This is not to suggest that my French is different from this. I feel that my French is most definitely in this category with the exception of the few monosyllabic phrases that require nothing more from me than a shameless imitation of what I hear the French say - at least in these I can say that I sound French. But today I received a compliment from the girl who has been sitting beside me for the past few days after we all had to read out loud. She asked how long I'd been in France and when I told her 6 months she said that she was impressed because I didn't sound anything like the other Americans when I speak French. To her I had broken that accent and fallen somewhere close to actually sounding French.
That pretty much made my day.
A large part of my ability to do this has no doubt been due to living in a French setting and having adjusted to the "vrai" French accent. Surprisingly the American French accent is the one that grates on my nerves the most - probably due to the fact that it has, as one of my friends says, "no real accent, it's just French spoken with neither inflection nor tone" - and this is definitely true of most of the Americans I've known who speak French.
This is not to suggest that my French is different from this. I feel that my French is most definitely in this category with the exception of the few monosyllabic phrases that require nothing more from me than a shameless imitation of what I hear the French say - at least in these I can say that I sound French. But today I received a compliment from the girl who has been sitting beside me for the past few days after we all had to read out loud. She asked how long I'd been in France and when I told her 6 months she said that she was impressed because I didn't sound anything like the other Americans when I speak French. To her I had broken that accent and fallen somewhere close to actually sounding French.
That pretty much made my day.
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