Help with French please!
 

Hi,

I am trying to find a website that teaches the pronounciation of all the Paris attractions. I don't speak any French, and am trying to learn a little. I was able to find websites that teaches common phrases, but nowhere could I find how to say the names of the attractions, ie Places de Vosges or Montmartre.

Thanks in advance.

Ellen

try this http://tinyurl.com/k49s9 with Juliette :-)

I don't think such a thing exists. Every single place in France? that's a tall order. Some people have mentioend some audio tool on the internet, I forget the details, maybe it has something.

I posted the website that does give standard international phonetic pronunciations for many of the major geographic names in France, though... It was some kind of online French atlas or something. I'll see if I can find it. It was mainly regions, any major geographical entity, and cities or towns of maybe over 10-25K, something like that.

If you really learn standard French pronunciation rules, there isn't a big need for such as thing, as barring a few special exceptions or anomalies, French words, even names of places, are pronounced exactly the way the are spelled, according to standard French rules. French pronunciation rules aren't that complex to me, there just aren't that many exceptions. So it would do you better to learn basic French pronunciation. Then you could pronounce about any French word you see.

I'll see if I can dig up that website I'm thinking of for you.

a snap

Place des Voges= Plah-say dess Vache

Montmartre= Mahnt-mur-tree

any more no need help with?

Tour Eiffel = Tower If-ful

Oh Pal! #-O ;-)

oh good Coco posted -- that was the site I was thinking of. That is very good, I just tried a few things, but I'm not sure how it works. It did pronounce a few proper names I tried wrong, so I wonder if it's just going by the standard rules which aren't always true for some exceptions. But it's pretty good.

www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/lj/menu.shtml

This one has a few.

The site that cocofromdijon gave can be fooled, but not that easily; I would use it except that I do not need it. But for an example of mispronunciation or just plain gobbledygook on that site, ask for the pronunciation of Samoens.

I found the website I was thinking of, although it is mainly larger places (it does have montmartre, though). It's a French Political Geography website -- if you click on a name, the IPL pronunciation is given after the name

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ysz5xa

It seems to be taken from COlumbia Encyclopedia, but it does have a couple place names accurately that Juliette had wrong (ie, Senlis and Aix-en-Provence).

Thank you all for your replies. They are very helpful. I've bought a French speaking dictionary, but it does not have any of the attractions. Thanks again.

Palanque!

Place des vosges

Plass dey vozh

Remember, Americans don't have the short 'o' in their repertoire....

It isn't 'vazh' or 'vowzh' but 'vozh'

OMG, Pal, was that a joke? I hope so :)

Il raconte n'importe quoi, c'est pas grave.

This site will give you the pronunciations of just about every landmark you can think of in either transliterated English or IPA notation, sometimes both: atkielski.com