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-   -   Help with French Place Pronuciations (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/help-with-french-place-pronuciations-500820/)

tedgale Apr 10th, 2005 08:28 AM

coco: Apartment floorplan (or floor-plan or floor plan) is customary in NA English and utterly unambiguous.

It means a DRAWING that shows the diposition of the rooms, hence the apartment's layout.

Something entitled "Layout" could lead you to a page of narrative, not to a drawing.

The other options are less clear -- terms such as "Apartment plan" and "arrangement" could denote, respectively, some kind of "forfait" and the contractual/ rental arrangement.

Where plan is used in French for a physical depiction (Plan de la ville: city map), the English plan CAN be used sometimes to mean the same thing (e.g. "builders' plans").

But we have a number of specific, unambiguous words for specific types of plans.

Moreover, "plan" is often -- perhaps predominantly -- used in an abstract sense, where French would say, for example, "projet" or "propos".


cocofromdijon Apr 10th, 2005 08:43 AM

amazing! thank you ted!
actually it is a drawing (like ones you can find on rentals apartments websites) so shall I stick to something short like "floor plan"? it is just to put on a link. but it is not only floor since it is furnished and the plan shows it...
thank you in advance!
corinne :-)

tedgale Apr 10th, 2005 09:09 AM

"Floor plan" serait le bon terme.

Vous m'avez remercie et en replique, je repond: De rien.

(Je ne dirai plus jamais "Il n'y a pas de quoi" -- vulgarisme inadmissible meme intolerable, selon des Fodorites renseignes et avertis)

cocofromdijon Apr 10th, 2005 10:18 AM

oh non! pas "de rien"! if you want to look smart (classy?) say "je t'en prie"
je t'en prie! (which means please! in that case...)
I could say : je te prie de dire "je t'en prie" à la place de "de rien" ou "il n'y a pas de quoi"
oh my god I've got a headache now!

thank you anyway let's go for "floor plan"! :-)

tedgale Apr 10th, 2005 11:09 AM

"De rien" is wrong too?

Have all my years of expensive French lessons been wasted??!!!

From this, I take a great lesson:

Use always the standard, classic, unexceptionable phrase. In this case, Je vous en prie.

As with clothing, you can never go wrong with a "classic" turn of phrase, though you may not sound not very "branche".

Now, a mon tour:

Smart -- yes, though it is very English. You risk being misunderstood in NA, other than in Canada.

But Classy (or tony or ritzy).... the terms are impossible!!! Populaire in the worst way.

A classy person never says classy, in other words.

cocofromdijon Apr 11th, 2005 04:10 AM

when I read you ted, I think my english is useless! :-< (I saw "classy" in my Robert&Collins dictionary but I did not notice the ** for popular words!)

What should I say instead of classy, chic?

tedgale Apr 12th, 2005 06:12 PM

Chic or smart are always useful words to describe places or things. When applied to people, both
suggest "fashionable", rather than "well-bred"/"de bonne famille", however.

My English sister-in-law, to indicate "le bon ton", says "PLU" -- "people like us". That is VERY English, i.e usage un peu snob.

"Well-born" refers to a person's good parentage. "Well-bred" means the person has nice manners.

LVSue Apr 12th, 2005 06:36 PM

Coco, wouldn't you say "je vous en prie" to strangers (shopkeepers, et al)?

Robespierre Apr 12th, 2005 07:18 PM

I don't think I've ever heard "je vous en prie" outside the classroom.

I hear &quot;pas de quoi&quot; <i>pahd'kwa</i> all over Paris.

cocofromdijon Apr 13th, 2005 01:15 AM

if I can compare, I would say &quot;je vous en prie&quot; is like &quot;yes&quot; and &quot;y'a pas d'quoi&quot; like &quot;yeah&quot;, oui vs ouais. is that clear?
have a nice day! :-)
corinne

ckenb Apr 13th, 2005 03:53 AM

I hear people in France say &quot;je vous en prie&quot; all the time. The expression is not just used in the (U.S.) classroom.

Merci, coco. BTW, with &quot;floor plan&quot; you can't go wrong -- all English speakers will understand.

Je t'en prie !

twoflower Apr 13th, 2005 05:13 AM

Not &quot;sahn&quot; (as in 'yarn&quot;) but &quot;sohn&quot; (as in &quot;john&quot;). St Denis = Sohn Denee, St Remy = Sohn Remi.
The s is pronounced if there's an e after it, otherwise not usually. (Yesterday a French speaker talking about the Loire Valley pronounced Amboise as &quot;Om-bwahz&quot; but Blois as &quot;Blu-wah&quot;).
Rousillon = Roo-see-yon
Gordes = Gord
Cassis = Cassee
Not sure about Les Baux. Beaux = Bo, but Baux?
Not sure about Uzes either.
If Bonnieux = Bon-you, then I guess Perigieux = Perrig-you? I always wondered.

twoflower Apr 13th, 2005 05:17 AM

Further to above and the double &quot;l&quot; (Rousillon) being pronounced &quot;y&quot;. Try Chantilly. Not the way the Big Bopper said it back in the 50's, but Shon-tee-yee. Quite a challenge!

ira Apr 13th, 2005 05:24 AM

I stand corrected on &quot;floor plan&quot;.

&gt;If Bonnieux = Bon-you, then I guess Perigieux = Perrig-you? I always wondered.&lt;

I thought that &quot;ieux&quot;, was &quot;yeu&quot; as in &quot;oeuf&quot;. Was I misinformed?

I can't think of an English word that has that sound. Any suggestions?

((I))

cocofromdijon Apr 13th, 2005 07:00 AM

p&eacute;riGUEUX, look for gueux in a dictionary (means beggar in medieval times)you will see the phonetic. I have no idea how to say gueux in english!
thank you all for the floor plan! ;-)
corinne

rex Apr 13th, 2005 07:25 AM

twoflower - - you have added a bunch of confusing, and to be blunt... flat out wrong advice on &quot;saint&quot; and the nasal a(n) vowel syllable in Chantilly. Please see my post (over two months ago - - which begs the question, why are you still rehashing the pronunciation of all these places?) on 2/03...

Saint - - rhymes with &quot;john&quot;?! - - it rhymes with (the French words) vin, or vingt. Likewise, pain or faim...

As for...

&lt;&lt;I thought that &quot;ieux&quot;, was &quot;yeu&quot; as in &quot;oeuf&quot;. Was I misinformed?

I can't think of an English word that has that sound. Any suggestions?&gt;&gt;

The oft-repeated advicer to listen to those kids sing &quot;adieu to yieu and yieu and yieu&quot; in the Sound of Music remains the gold standard, in my opinion. But as has been correctly pointed out, Perigueux does not contain &quot;ieu&quot;. The final syllable rhymes with deux, or peu, or veut (and has a hard &quot;g&quot; as in guitar).



laverendrye Apr 13th, 2005 07:41 AM

If twoflower is from upstate New York, then to pronounce the vowel sound in &quot;saint&quot; as in &quot;john&quot; is not too far off.

cocofromdijon Apr 13th, 2005 08:07 AM

I fully agree with rex, bien jou&eacute;! :-)

LVSue Apr 13th, 2005 08:18 AM

Actually, if you don't know how to pronounce &quot;vin&quot; in French, for Saint, just say the San in San Francisco, but leave off the N sound at the end (don't bring your tongue up to your palate to finish it off). It kind of automatically becomes nasal. Sainte is even easier because you do say the N followed by a T sound.

rex Apr 13th, 2005 08:25 AM

&lt;&lt;just say the San in San Francisco, but leave off the N sound at the end &gt;&gt;

Sue, I realize that this thread is long, and no reason to think you will have re-read it all (though in my latest post, I did mention taking a look back at my post from 2/03) - - where I think I gave pretty much the same description of the nasal i(n) vowel sound...

&lt;&lt;I would explain it as the first syllable in &quot;sandwich&quot;, but without pronouncing the &quot;n&quot;, or the &quot;d&quot;. Kinda like a kid says it... saaa-wich (but clearly the &quot;aaa&quot; is not intended to be an &quot;ah&quot; sound).&gt;&gt;

:)


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