Exercises in French Phonics

During the course of trying to learn French, I accumulated a lot of books. Exercises in French Phonics is indispensable. Merits: * Concise, well explained, and well organized * It's cheap * Lots of very good, and sometimes tongue-twisting, exercises that help accentuate differences in key points of pronunciation * Explains the similarities and differences between English sounds and true French sounds * Relies on pronunciation guidelines but documents the exceptions very well * Explains differences between theoretical pronunciation and spoken pronunciation and some differences found in major French dialects * The phonetic symbols are listed and explained well in the appendix Weaknesses * You still need an aural guide to fine-tune differences in sounds. For example, tu vs. tous, serai vs. serrai, dans vs. menton vs. ancien vs. faim. You can overcome this problem using a free tool like Google Translate. * The book is cheap, so the binding and cover get well worn * Most of the words in the exercises and elsewhere do not have accompanying phonetic symbols so one might mispronounce the word. This is most likely to happen when you are drilling a certain sound early in the book and an exercise word contains sounds that aren't explained until later in the book. You might get the sound that is the subject of the exercise correct but mispronounce another part of the word. For example, when pronouncing "la rose", you might nail the "z" sound but pronounce an open "o" when it should be a closed "o". Once again, Google Translate comes in handy. If you are serious about learning French, buy this book as early as you can into your studies. If you can get pronunciation correct from the start, you not only will save yourself loads of work trying to unlearn mistakes but also greatly accelerate your proficiency in hearing and speaking the language. Once you master this book, you will be able to take dictation in French - even if you don't understand all of the vocabulary or grammar. That is a big deal.

This instructional book really covers it all. Having one semester of French in a post-h.s. night-school classroom setting 20 years ago and still wanting to learn the language, I purchased this book hoping to find the greatness that all of the other reviews held. I am so very thankful for getting this book. **BONUS** It's authored by a smartie-pants from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This book really details the nitty-gritty of French Phonics... What's that? You don't quite know how to pronounce something? The internet is FILLED with a lot of wonderful websites that assist with audio for the French language. A life-saver if you're still in the beginning stages of learning, like me. The book is a nice, portable size but is jam-packed with the basics for speaking the language. I find it to be an excellent resource in my self-study.

I was given a copy of this book over ten years ago when I was working in France and struggling with the language. What an eye opener! This book is about translating written French to spoken French. It won't help you pronounce your r's and t's correctly, but it will help you recognize from written text whether a letter is silent, whether an s should sound like a z, how to recognize the "e-cauduc", when a b should sound like a p, whether a g is hard or soft, and dozens of other "special cases". I bought another copy recently for review (the old one was left in some hotel room ages ago) I'm headed back to France later this year and hoping to not sound too painfully American. If you are studying French (especially if you are self-studying) you need this little book.

This is for the classroom, not for the casual tourist. French Phonics is discussed in great detail, from an academician's point of view. I liked it because of its detail. It would be hard to easily find the pronunciation of a particular word that was troubling you. It uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is more correct, but more complicated, than the guide books use of the English alphabet only. As a teacher of French, I like the exactness of the way that this book treats pronunciation. An example of this is the difference between the open 'o' and the closed 'o'. Most tourists will not really understand and discern the difference, because they would be struggling with more basic concepts. This book covers the basics and the details.

I've studied French for quite a few years and read aloud almost daily to improve my pronunciation, so a lot of French pronunciation has become intuitive to me. But there are still times I need to look up the pronunciation of a word in a dictionary, or have forgotten some rule about when or how a word or a combination of letters are pronounced. This little volume answers those questions precisely. In my opinion, it's a must-have book for anyone serious about learning French, whether an advanced student like myself or a beginner.

An excellent book on French pronunciation. But as others have written, you do need a native speaker or recordings such as Pronounce it Perfectly in French: With Audio CDs (Pronounce It Perfectly CD Series) to help you. Or you can use the YouTube videos from the University of Michigan's Language Resource Center (search for LRC Michigan). This book, along with Essential French Grammar (Dover Language Guides Essential Grammar) are the two books I read over and over again.

This is a great book!!! I've just started studying it, and it has been super helpful in helping me understand the phonetic symbols in my French dictionary, and I haven't even read the whole book yet. I would recommend that you start with the appendix first, so that you can start understanding the phonetic symbols in your dictionary, and then study the rest of the book.

This is great small packet like book for reference to pronunciation. I would definitely recommend this as an addition to your French learning supply while also listening to the actual pronunciation by a speaker and taking reference to this book.

This is an excellent (so far the best) book for learning correct pronunciation of French. As a child I used to speak French extremely well but over the years I've lost pretty much all of it so I've started over. One of the things I'm finding hardest is pronunciation and this book covers it better than any of the many I've been reading. You'll think it's very short, almost pamphlet length at 48 or so pages but it covers the topic better than books 4 or 5 times the length of this book. Highly recommended. I hope you found this review helpful.

Se trata de un libro muy útil para aprender la relación entre la ortografía y la fonética del francés. No me gusta que ponga un montón de ejemplos centrados en perfeccionar un sonido con palabras donde no se especifica la fonética del resto de sus sonidos.

As English-speakers, French pronunciation can be perplexing. Help is on the way from the author, Mr. Nachtmann. He has a really intelligent approach. Examples are designed for their clarity and common usage. He makes the link between the two languages using French words which are already in English (antique, moustache). With reminders like "CRFL" (careful) for the words having a silent consonant as well alleviating the confusion over the prononciation of 'QU' he gives with concrete examples. Before buying this little gem of a book, I had doubts that a book with linguistic symbols (k'i''r is spoon) might be off-putting, but this arcane science is secondary to the abundance of examples and explanations. It is a book that is appropriate for many levels, from the novice to the advanced. For advanced speakers, there are always explanations to learn or understand. By the way, the author is by chance at a university in Champaign, Illinois (USA). That's amusing, simply because it is the state and one of the cities which are rooted in French heritage. (Comme anglophone, nous nous trouvions rendu perplexe par la prononciation française. Au secours vient l'auteur, M. Nachtmann. C'est vraiment intelligent son approche. Des exemples conçu pour leur clarté et leur usage courant. Il fait les liens entre les deux langues en utilisant les mots français qui existe déjà en anglais (antique, moustache). Avec ses pense-bêtes comme "CRFL" (careful) pour les mots consonants muets jusqu'à travers la confusion à l'énonciation du 'QU' avec des exemples concrets. Avant l'achat, j'avais des doutes qu'un tel livre avec des symboles linguistiques (k'i''r qui est cuillère) peut être repoussant, mais cette connaissance obscure s'arrange avec l'abondance des exemples et des explications. C'est un livre qui s'adapte à travers des niveaux, soit le novice soit l'habile. Il y a toujours les éclaircissements d'apprendre ou mieux comprendre quel que soit son habileté. Au fait, l'auteur par hasard se trouve à la fac en Champaign, Illinois (USA). C'est rigole parce que c'est l'état et une des villes dont sont enraciné le patrimoine français.)

I found this book to be just excellent, I have struggled with pronouncing French for years and came across a review of this book by chance.On receiving the book I found it to be a practical aide for getting the right pronunciation of French spellings and as the title suggests with many exercises to practice on.

I was looking for a resource to use to guide some of my students in pronunciation exercises. I majored in french linguistics in university and this is exactly the resource I was looking for. It has the phonetic alphabet in the back and provides really great examples throughout on general rules and exceptions to the rules. There are tons of exercises. I only wish it came with an audio component (i.e. a link to a website where you can listen to a speaker go through the exercises) and the phonetic mouth diagram (where certain sounds are pronounced in the mouth), but both are easy enough to find on the internet. This book doesn't contain *everything* about linguistics, of course, and only really focuses on the Parisien accent. There is no mention (that I saw) about differences in regional french accents (including francophones African countries, Quebec, and Acadia). Overall, I would highly recommend this book. It's a great resource, cheap, and takes up very little space!