Website with correct pronunciations for ALL French cities???
 

Anyone know of a website that shows ALL French cities & how to pronounce them??

Sorry - - can't resist this somewhat smart-aleck answer - - http://fr.dir.yahoo.com/exploration_geographique/pays/france/villes/liste_complete<BR><BR>To a French speaker, of course, the way to pronounce them, is &quot;exactly as they are written&quot;!<BR><BR>But I realize you mean with &quot;phonetic spellings&quot; that make sense to you (an American English speaker, I guess?) - - as you might imagine, the &quot;phonetic spelling&quot; that a German, Russian or Greek speaker would like to see is quite different from the way to represent French pronunciation to American speakers of English.<BR><BR>Regrettably, I don't know of any one single place to find what you are seeking.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>[email protected]<BR>

No, but a big English or American English dictionary will include entries for many cities, with pronunciation shown phonetically in either the international phonetic alphabet or a pronunciation system used by the particualr dictionary, which will be explained somewhere in the volume. There are probably online dictionaries with similar features.

I'm not sure about Rex' list which I didn't look at but there are some cities that can be pronounced differently so the spelling alone wouldn't tell you for sure, even if you were French. It depends on local custom to some extent. For example, Senlis and Lille are two cities that could be correctly pronounced different ways, even if you know French (ville and fille certainly are).<BR><BR>However, even my French French dictionary (Larousse) does not have pronunciation of place names, unfortunately, although I don't have one of those superbig unabridged ones. I do have a big American dictionary which has some major foreign cities, as I recall, but the pronunciation is sort of Americanized IMO (for French proper names, at least), but would certainly be better than nothing.<BR><BR>A good dictionary should have international phonetic pronunciation as cmt notes; if you don't know that, it is usually notated in the dictionary.<BR><BR>This certainly isn't every French city, but a lot of major ones (including even little Senlis) and has a pretty good pronunciation guide, a French Political Geography Encyclopedia:<BR><BR>http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/...ies/frgeo.html

Do you have any particular ones in mind that we might be able to help with?

There is, in French, a Dictionnaire des Noms de Lieux de France (Dictionary of Place Names in France). My copy is very old, and I don't know if it's still in print, and I doubt if it's anywhere on the internet. If you can find a copy of it on Amazon or better yet, a used or rare book site, it would have what you are looking for, provided you can read the pronounciation symbols and interpret them correctly - and you'd have to have some at least basic French to do that.

How do you pronounce Aix and Antibes.

Aix = the way one says X in English.<BR>Antibes = Ahn (nasal) teeb

This is a handy site for those wanting pronunciation of a word or phrase in French. (Also does English and German.)http://www.serveurvocal.com/<BR>For French, click on &quot;FR-Essayez maintenant,&quot; type in the word or phrase you want to hear(including place names if you like), choose whether you want a man's or a woman's voice and send it to yourself. It will come to your e-mail with a Realplayer attachment. Click on the attachment and voila! you will hear the phrase you typed. I tried it again last night to see if it was still working. I typed &quot;Nous allons a Caen, Rennes, Chenonceaux, Toulouse et Cannes.&quot; It took a while (sent to me at 5:16 this morning) but it came through in very comprehensible and correct French. Very cool!

Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of La Roque Gegeac. I know the first part would be La Rock but not how the last word would sound is the &quot;c&quot; silent?

I can't tell for sure about Gegeac but there are many names in Dordogne ending with &quot;ac&quot; such as Cadillac, Bergerac and the last c is normally pronounced. That's possibly the case with Gegeac too(?).<BR>

Yes, Ira. The particular towns that I want to make sure I prounce correctly are:<BR>&quot;Cagnes Sur Mer&quot;<BR>and &quot;Cap&quot; as in &quot;Cap d'Antibes&quot;. Do you prounounce the &quot;p&quot; at the end or is it silent? <BR>&quot;Cap-d'Ail&quot;<BR>&quot;Kerylos&quot; in &quot;Villa Kerylos&quot;?<BR>&quot;Vallauris&quot;<BR>Thank you for your help. <BR>

MGB: It's La Rock (with the French &quot;r&quot;) Gah-zhac (Gah being a hard &quot;g&quot; as in &quot;good&quot; and &quot;zh&quot; being the soft &quot;g&quot; that we don't really use much in English - as in the second g in garage, if you're not pronouncing it as dg) - hope that makes sense.

Hi Gargiulo<BR><BR>Here's my 2 cents on pronunciation<BR>Cap D'Antibes =Cap (yes pronounce the &quot;p&quot;) danteeb (silent s)<BR>Cap D'Ail= Cap Die (silent l)<BR>I think Kerylos would be kear (as in kir royale) los<BR>Vallauris =valorie (as in calorie-silent s)<BR><BR>By the way Roque would be roak (rhymes with oak) not rock. I would GUESS Gegeac would be gee (hard g as in get &amp; the same as french pronunciation of guy) jack or soft first g as in french pronunciation of GIGI.

StCirq is right about &quot;Gah-zhac&quot;; but it's spelled &quot;Gageac,&quot; not &quot;Gegeac.&quot;

Dordogne<BR><BR>I thought it was pronounced door dawn.<BR><BR>It's not! Anyone know?

It's door-dogn (the gn being the same sound as in lasagna or the first syllabale of onion).

Thanks

Thanks everyone!!!!!!!!!!! ;-)

ttt (to the top) My best friend and I plan a tour of Champagne in our 50th year. I look forward to pronouncing at least a few things or places well because of these suggestions!