La Phonique · your accent

Your accent is fine. Silence is the risk

This is the fear that stops more parents than any other, so let's deal with it directly, with the research, in two minutes.

Children calibrate their pronunciation to the input they get most of and the input that comes from native sources. A child who hears native French, from audio, from school, from media, from anyone fluent, and also hears their parent's imperfect French does not end up with the parent's accent. What they end up with is a parent who talks to them in French.

Here's the liberating maths: a parent who says it slightly wrong, warmly, five times a day, gives their child thousands of moments of French a year. Every imperfect sentence counts in full. The scripts and audio exist so that un versus une never has to hold you back again.

Seven sounds are worth ten minutes

Not for your sake, for comprehension. These seven change meaning, and getting them roughly right means your child understands you the first time.

Audio is being recorded now. The sounds below work today.

u, tu / ou, tout The pair that changes meaning. Ou is the "oo" in soup; u has no English equivalent, say "ee" then round your lips.
les voyelles nasales, pain, un, bon, banc Vowel out through the nose, and the n itself is never pronounced. Bon is "bo", not "bonn".
le r, rouge, encore A soft gargle at the back of the throat. Never rolled, never the English r.
les finales muettes, petit Final consonants stay silent. Petit ends at the i: "puh-tee".
la liaison, les enfants A silent final letter wakes up before a vowel: les enfants is "lay-zon-fon".
é / è, été, très Both live near the "e" in bed. É is tighter and smilier; è is wider. Neither slides.
eu, deux, bleu Round your lips first, then say é. Lips say "oo", mouth says "ay".

That was your mouth. The other half is the page: the letters your child will meet when they start reading, and which sound each one makes.

Next: La Phonétique, the sounds

The full module, a 25-minute video plus a sixty-second drill for the car, is being recorded now. The seven sounds above are the heart of it, free, today.