It's All About the Tongue

We’ve been working with our French teacher on pronunciation and learning all the things we do wrong.

We started with the letter R.  Unlike the American R, which is pronounced in the mouth, the French R comes from the throat.  A little like growling, but not really.

We talked about this with our friend Joe, who is originally from England, and he told us that the British R is different from the American R, because ours is “rhotic”.  Sometimes I think he makes this stuff up.

Joe went on to tell us that the difference is in the tongue, and explained how the British like to use their tongues.  Dude, that is just WAY too much information.

Our next French lesson was on U and OU.  With U you have to make E with your mouth and an O with your lips.  You would think the French would just settle on one vowel at a time, but no.

With OU you just use your throat.  The teacher described it as kind of like a dog howling.  We had fun practicing that one.

And, of course, we had a long discussion about how the French like to use their tongues.  All I can say is that they are much more creative than the British.

Most of the time when we try to do what the teacher says we get it wrong.  She tries not to laugh but usually can’t help herself.  So now we are pretty self-conscious, what with all our growling, howling and trying to make our tongues do strange new things.

Makes me want to go howl at the moon.

KVS