4totravel

D - ew - le - fee?

Eloise

My guess is that you are right.

The French tend to pronounce things as they are written, unlike the British who pronounce "Beauchamp" as "Beecham" and "Cholmondley" as "Chumley"...

tedgale

It is very hard to convey the vowel sounds in English but here goes:
D'yeuh-leuh-fee.

Re: where to place the tonic accent: This word is a little bit special, as it is actually a sentence ("God-made-it&quot rather than a conventional proper noun. I guess I'd say the stress falls mostly on the final syllable.

It is a wonderful hill-village (the local term is "viale&quot, as perhaps you know. Its celebrated hotel/ restaurant is Les Hospitaliers.

We dined there one evening long ago and were disappointed that they could not give us a table outside on the terrace, which overhangs and overlooks the plain (plaine de Valdaine). Seated inside, we were amused and entertained when, with an enormous clap of thunder, a huge storm broke -- and waiters and soaked diners struggled to bring dripping plates and cutlery inside.....

Not a long stop on any itinerary, as it is tiny.

Check out nearby Nyons, Bourdeaux, Chateauneuf-de-Mazenc.

If not staying at Les Hospitaliers, try our favourite B&B, La Roche Colombe near Manas. If not dining at Les Hospitaliers, eat at the restaurant/ hotel Les Voyageurs in Charols.

harzer

The French tend to pronounce things as they are written

???? you are kidding aren't you?

Harzer

abbynicole27

yah, I speak French fluently, and I can testify that there's lots of silent letters in French - you can't pronounce it the way it's written!!

Eloise

Following the rules of French phonetics, of course.

So, no, I am not kidding. And 80% of my work is done in French.

Of course, French is not pronounced "as written" to the extent that German with its hidebound rules is.

And I say that having done 80% of my work in German in a previous position.

Underhill

Les Hospitaliers--our favorite hotel/restaurant anywhere--is actually in the medieval village perchée of Le Poët-Laval; Dieulefit is about a 15-minute drive to the east.

Incidentally, Poët is not pronounced, as you might think, Po-ay; our French friends corrected us gently, saying it is pronounced like poet in English, but with the stress on the "et."

Tedgale, your pronunciation guide is perfect.

abbynicole27

I agree that if you know the basics of French pronunciation, it is very easy. We just thought you meant according to English phonetics it's pronouced as we see it!!

tedgale

French is actually a very regular language, unlike English. Things are not strictly "as written", however, in the sense that there are letters that are not sounded (E.G. the "t" in Dieulefit). But once you know how it works it is rare to make a mistake.

Rare is the word with 2 possible pronunications (oi-gnon, wah-gnon). Rare too the hompohone -- 1 sound, 2 potential spellings (departement du Lot vs. the fish "lotte&quot

Italian is more regular still and easier, as it has fewer letters (22 to our 26, I recall) and only 7 vowel sounds to our 40-odd-and-counting.

Hungarian is just as regular, they say, notwithstanding it is impossible for us to pronounce.

Anyway, as I have been dragooned into reading and speaking French since Grade 3 (i.e. for 43 years) the pronunciation actually does seem automatic/reflexive, not something to puzzle over......

How ANYbody from France or elswhere learns to write English without having a memory chip surgically implanted amazes me.

tedgale

Mea culpa -- My egregious error re Poet-Laval. Of course you are right and I was wrong and the only extenuation is that -- having stayed nearby on multiple trips over the last 15 or more years -- most recently early October 2004 -- I have stopped remembering names and only recall the roads, houses, restaurants etc.

"Poet-Laval' is thus "where we had dinner that time it rained" whereas "Dieulefit" is "where that obnoxious guy parked his Harley right by our cafe table last month".

Eloise

Tedgale: Your remark about the difficulties of English pronunciation -- or spelling -- is, of course, right on the nose.

Unfortunately, I do not remember the details, but George Bernard Shaw once demonstrated that, according to English pronunciation rules, "fish" could just as accurately be spelled "ghoti" -- or maybe it was the other way around...

tedgale

I learned this example from Grade 11 and if I recall correctly --and I'm not exactly batting 1000 on this thread -- "gh" is from enouGH, "ti" is emoTIon.....and the "o" I don't remember.

cigalechanta

And if you like pottery, Poet-Laval is known for it.

k_marie

...the "o" is from wOmen...

rex

I, too, would say that it is pronounced just as it is written - - but perhaps it is clearer to say that it is pronounced just the same as if it were written - - the three words that it originally was.

Dieu le fit

Best wishes,

Rex

TopMan

In other words, you got it RIGHT!!!!

PatrickLondon

The French do pronounce things as they are written. It's just that their rules for writing sounds are not the same as in English: but they are much more consistently applied.

ira

As Mark Twain once noted, "They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always
spell better than they pronounce."

Christina

I agree with abby et al, I think French pronunciation is easy if you know the basic rules, as they are almost always followed (with very minor exceptions like few words where "ll" is pronounced as "l", or the final consonant is pronounced, etc."

This is why the comment << Poët is not pronounced, as you might think, Po-ay; our French friends corrected us gently, saying it is pronounced like poet in English, but with the stress on the "et.">> wouldn't be necessary if you know basic French pronunciation rules that one learns in the beginning of studying the language (how to pronounce letters). That e has a trema over it which makes it very clearly pronounced differently, or essentially a different letter, which should be obvious from that diacritical mark.

StCirq

I made the same mistake with Moët-Chandon until my French friends corrected me.

4totravel - if you know how to pronounce Dieu (as in "Mon Dieu!&quot, the rest is easy - leu fee.