Prononciation

n. – pronunciation
While my French may not be perfect, I do take great pride in my accent. Recently an old friend and former colleague of mine who was coming to France for work asked if I knew anyone who could accompany him during his assignment and translate for him. My husband suggested I volunteer so I did.

Once he arrived in Paris, we travelled to Burgundy where the story he was reporting on took place. On the way, we stopped in Fontainebleau and had lunch just near the magnificent chateau. The name came from a fresh water spring or “Beautiful Water Fountain” if you break down the name Fontaine-Belle-Eau.

When we arrived at our final destination in the small town of Nuits Saint Georges, we were greeted by the owner of the Chambres d’Hôtes where we were staying. Literally translated this means, hosted rooms or bed and breakfast would be the way I would describe it. In this case it was a hôtel particulier, which is another way of describing a single family home. While not as grand on the scale of the Hôtel Lambert on Ile Saint Louis which was recently sold for somewhere around 80 million euros, it was still a large multi-roomed mansion of sorts and expensive to keep up, which is why the woman and her mother had decided to turn it into a guest house.

I cheerily told her about our visit to Fontainebleau, but she cocked her head indicating she didn’t understand. I repeated Fontainebleau. Again, she cocked her head and looked confused. Fontainebleau, I kept saying, surprised that she hadn’t heard of it since it’s so famous. Finally, she said “ah, Fontainebleau.” It was not a good start to a translating effort if I couldn’t even make her understand one of the most famous French cities within an hour’s drive from where she lived.

However, my friend and I had a giggle about it because neither one of us could figure out what I had done wrong. I explained the story to my husband when I got home and he spotted the error right away. I was pronouncing the end more like the color blue is pronounced in French. Instead, I should have pronounced the end to sound more like blow. It’s a subtle difference I can assure you!

I run into the same situation with my dog’s name, which is Felix. People ask me what he’s called and I answer, Felix. They ask me to repeat it and then they say “ah, Félix.” I guess it’s because I don’t use the accent when I speak. I’m getting used to it because I’m not changing the way I pronounce it, which is more like Feelix than Fehlix. Someone I know who is from Peru pronounces it Feliz, which is cute so sometimes my husband and I call him Feliz Navidad. I like the fact that Felix comes from the Latin word for happy. I do get tired of people telling me that Felix is a cat, though.

My friend and I had more language giggles during our excursion, mostly at his expense because he doesn’t speak a word of French. As such, his pronunciation or lack thereof, make it hard for even me to understand what he’s trying to say. He did make some valid points though, like why put an “s” in the middle of a word if you’re not going to use it. In Vosne Romanée, a region in Burgundy, the first word is pronounced Vone, not Voznee as he liked to say.

With the arrival of the accent circumflex in the French language around the 16^th century, many an “s” before a consonant disappeared. For example in the word hôtes seen above, the accent over the “o” has eliminated the need for an “s” which surely used to be there as we see in the English word, host. It’s the same with hôtel or hôpital. In English, while we also use the word hotel, we still use hostel to describe lodging of a more practical manner. Gîtes, which is another word for inn, also has an accent circumflex, this time over the “i” replacing an “s” that must have been there preceding the “t.”

But my favorite language faux pas or false step, literally translated, was when my friend said bonjour at the end of a conversation. I explained it’s not like aloha or ciao. Bonjour is always hello and never goodbye. We had a good giggle over that one.

Bonjour!