la liaison

As we discussed in Chapter 2, French has a system of phonetic linking called liaison:

example:
Je parle souvent à mes_amis.
Liaison is similar to the distinction in English between a and an:

A boy eats a banana.
A boy eats an_apple.
Depending on the environment, liaison can be either obligatory (obligatoire), optional (facultatif), or forbidden (interdit).
Below is a summary of some of these environments and the appropriate level of liaison...

  In French, stress (l'accentuation) is placed on the final syllable of a word. This is very different from the placement of stress in English which varies according to the word itself. Notice that French stress falls on the last syllable whereas English stress may fall on any syllable (word initial, word medial, or word final). This means that word stress is easily predicted (and learned!) in French.

When words are strung together in French to form sentences, stress is placed on the final syllable of the phrase. In a sense, French speakers treat a phrase like they treat a single word – they place the stress at the end. In English, on the other hand, words retain their individual stress pattern when combined into sentences. Compare the two languages:

he acute accent (´), l'accent aigu, and the grave accent (`), l'accent grave, are used to indicate the quality of the vowel sound represented by the letter e.

A. Listen to each example and repeat.

When used with letters other than e, the accent grave does not indicate a sound difference but serves to distinguish different words which have the same spelling but different meanings.

In French, stress (l'accentuation) is placed on the final syllable of a word. This is very different from the placement of stress in English which varies according to the word itself. Notice that French stress falls on the last syllable whereas English stress may fall on any syllable (word initial, word medial, or word final). This means that word stress is easily predicted (and learned!) in French. ..

When words are strung together in French to form sentences, stress is placed on the final syllable of the phrase. In a sense, French speakers treat a phrase like they treat a single word – they place the stress at the end. In English, on the other hand, words retain their individual stress pattern when combined into sentences. Compare the two languages:

During the pronounciation of many English vowels, the tongue actually moves. These types of vowels are called glides or diphthongs. In French however, the speech organs are held tense and stationary during the pronunciation of vowels.
A. During this lesson, you must try to keep your muscles very tense and to not move your tongue or lips as you practice the French vowels /i/ and /o/. Compare the pronunciation of the following: ...

B. Repeat the following pairs of words being careful to maintain tense muscles and to prevent movement of the tongue and lips.