French words

[GoesStation]

How about cliché? In BrE, most (I think) would put stress on the first syllable. How about AmE speakers?

That's a perfect example. Americans stress the second syllable. I think it's a nearly universal rule for French loanwords of two syllables in American English.

 

[Roman55]

Yes, I think so too. And I can't stand it. There is no tonic stress on cliché, or any two syllable word ending in an accented vowel in French. The accent changes its pronunciation but does not put syllabic stress onto it.

As for the word entrepreneur, it is widely used in French, and its pronunciation in AmE is particularly horrible.

 

[Rover_KE]

San fairy Ann.

If anybody needs this explaining:

What's the origin of the phrase 'San fairy Ann'?

It's a deliberate jokey corruption of the French phrase 'Ça ne fait rien' - it doesn't matter.

(ThePhraseFinder.com)

 

[jutfrank]

I'm not sure what it says about me but when I'm at a French, Italian, Spanish restaurant, I'll always attempt to pronounce the dishes as I think they are pronounced in their original language, but only when I know that that is the first language of the waiter I'm ordering from. If I know that the waiter is a native English speaker, I don't.

I don't know if it's because I want to impress the non-native waiter or because I don't want to sound snobby to the native one. Probably both.

 

[emsr2d2]

Both of my parents pronounce the foods as close to the original as possible when ordering in restaurants. However, they have different personalities so I believe they have different reasons for doing so.

My dad does it because he loves language and he simply wants to pronounce words "properly" (in the eyes of the waiter).

My mum does it because she wants to show off and impress the other people at the table (her friends and family!)

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

"Frenchly" and "Englishly" aren't words.

They should be!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I'd like to know if native English speakers pronounce words with French roots Frenchly or Englishly.
For example: bourbon, croissant, entrepreneur, etc.

In the US:

bourbon = bər-bən
croissant = crə-sont
entrepreneur = on-trə-prə-nər or on-trə-prə-noor

You'll find all that in any American dictionary. We hardly pronounce anything Englishly (though the movie Love Actually, you'll see that we say table they same way they do), and we don't pronounce anything Frenchly! (Except in southern Louisiana and northern Maine. Sort of.)

 

[Do228]

What if I go to the US and pronounce these words correctly (the French way)? Would people not understand me or maybe get angry at me because they think I'm a wiseacre?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

How about cliché? In BrE, most (I think) would put stress on the first syllable. How about AmE speakers?

klee-shay

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

What if I go to the US and pronounce these words correctly (the French way)? Would people not understand me or maybe get angry at me because they think I'm a wiseacre?

"Correctly" in the US are the American pronunciations. But to answer your question, no American will care.

Also, sometimes we pronounce French terms as the syllables would be pronounced in US English just to be funny. For example, c'est la vie is normally pronounced say lah vee here - similar to the French way of saying it. But to be funny, we might say sest luh vye (rhyming with eye and rye).

My favorite Americanizations of French terms are place names. For instance, we pronounce Havre de Grace, in the state of Pennsylvania, havver dee grace (rhyming with space and place). I live in the state of Maine, where the town of Calais is pronounced kal-iss (rhyming with Dallas, malice, and Vitalis).

 

[GoesStation]

My remark that AmE speakers respect French pronunciation a bit better does not apply to place names. Not far north of me lie the Ohio towns of Bell fountain (Bellefontaine) and Vur sales (Versailles).

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

And hey, let's not leave out good ol' Paris, France! It's pair-iss franss, rhyming with Harris, ferrous, and heiress and dance, chance, and glance.

 

[jazzz8]

I personally have never been that aware of the pronounciation of words that have french roots. Feel like I mostly speak a mixture of both :shock:

 

[PHenry1026]

There are more than 100 dictionaries at www.onelook.com. 'Frenchly' is noted in only two, 'Englishly' in only four. Forget them.

That's true but one of these dictionaries is Merriam-Webster.

Frenchly is defined in the OED and Englishly is also noted in the OED.