French pronunciation help
 

I need some advice on how to pronounce Les Eyzies. One friend says it is Eh-zeees (or A-zee) and the other insists it is Eye-zee-eh (or " I - zee - A"). Which is right - or is it something altogether different? (Sorry about my phonetics). Thank you.

Go to http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php and type in "Les Eyzies." Choose Alain or Juliette to say it and you will hear it said correctly.

layze-ay-zee

Oh for heaven's sakes. Why do "friends" always insist on completely nutso stuff that they are totally ignorant about? They don't even seem to have a clue about how basic vowels are pronounced in French.

It's Layze Ayzee de Tie-ack. That's the best I can do phonetically.

I love all these Fodors "friends" who suggest this and that - almost always totally off base.

Anyway, there you go....

Why even bother with a phonetic approximation when you can get the real thing off the net?

Often Alain and Juliette pronounce things a bit differently and/or speak so rapidly that it is hard to figure out the way to say it more slowly. People without an "ear" tuned to French may benefit from phonetic guidance as well as listening to a French speaker. What's the harm?

The approximate phonetic representation usually falsifies what the French actually say. For example, <i>les</i> is commonly represented as "lay" which is wrong on two counts: first of all, for the English speaker, that represents a diphthong ending in a jod (sp?) which is not in the French, and secondly it assumes that the sound is a "è" when in French the article <i>les</i> is pronounced "lé". I believe that the pronunciation of Les Eyzies should be "lézézi", with no hint of separation between the two words. A listener should be able to listen to such a short phrase often enough to catch how Alain and Juliette do pronounce it.