The Sounds of French: Phonetics and Pronunciation

This course is designed to help students develop the necessary skills to improve their pronunciation and understanding of spoken French. It combines an examination of how French sounds are produced and how they differ from English sounds, with practical exercises in oral practice, sound discrimination, and phonetic transcription. In addition to improving their general fluency and oral accuracy, students will also increase their knowledge of francophone culture and gain an understanding of pronunciation differences between language registers and dialects/regional accents. By the end of the course, students will be familiarised with the rules of correspondence between sounds and spelling, as well as the rules governing other phenomena, such as intonation, stress placement, liaisons, and schwa.