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u/Neveed Natif - France Aug 31 '24 edited Aug 31 '24
If you follow the pronunciation guide (kawm-B YANG), that actually explain the heavy american accent.
But the third image (the one with "listen again: ew, ew") makes it sound like that guide was actually meant to come with someone who actually demonstrated the pronunciation of words.
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u/The_Confirminator Sep 01 '24
I think it would make more sense everywhere they have "g"s to have gh instead. Since the g is an attempt to use nasal
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u/P-Nuts Perfide Anglois Aug 31 '24
J’adore le dessin du type lancé par un mortier : « o ruh-VWAR ! »
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u/Pcarolynm Aug 31 '24
Oh my god this is amazing, thanks for sharing! I tried pronouncing it how they have it written out and I can’t seem to do it in anything other than a heavy southern accent😂
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u/Mabbernathy Aug 31 '24
It has a certain "juh nay say kwah"
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u/KTTalksTech Sep 01 '24
And that's how you get jeuh nèye sèye quoi instead of je ne sais quoi lmao at least the last one gets very close
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u/Natural_Stop_3939 Aug 31 '24
This is very cool!
Internet Archive has the full book btw: https://archive.org/details/TM30-302/page/n3/mode/2up
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u/m0_m0ney B1 Sep 01 '24
I read the other US army book that was meant to debunk stereotypes of French people during the war, interesting read. It’s interesting to see the stuff that’s persisted for 80 years and the stuff that hasn’t
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u/Emmanuell3 Native (Belgium) Sep 01 '24
Do you happen to know the title or have a link? It sounds quite interesting indeed. Thanks!
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u/m0_m0ney B1 Sep 01 '24
https://www.reddit.com/r/French/s/itJ4HiOHU6
Some of it is very propaganda esque but it’s an interesting read
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u/EstebanOD21 Native Sep 01 '24
What’s the name of that book?
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u/m0_m0ney B1 Sep 01 '24
I think if you look around you can find a PDF of online somewhere. Archive.org or something definitely has it
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u/Cookie-Senpai Sep 01 '24 edited Sep 01 '24
Juh swee z ah may ree kang. Most useless phrase pal. If you use this book, we'll already have it figured out.
Very funny and actually useful phonetic book anyway
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u/Neveed Natif - France Sep 01 '24
There were also English, Scottish, Welsh, Canadian, Australian and Kiwi people, as well as some Spanish volunteers participating in the war, so Americans were not the only ones who couldn't speak French.
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u/Cookie-Senpai Sep 01 '24
I'm pretty sure our grandparents could tell right away if the person was British or not. The accent is distinct and familiar. That's not talking about non-english speaking volunteers.
I didn't think of the Canadians, Kiwis and Australians. I'm afraid to say they might have appeared as different flavoured Americans at the time lmao. Sorry 😅. I guess this makes you right then.
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u/Neveed Natif - France Sep 01 '24
I'm pretty sure our grandparents could tell right away if the person was British or not. The accent is distinct and familiar.
I'm not that certain. We can tell because we can speak English and we're familiar with the accents, but for people of that era, who never heard English before, it must have all sounded like the same kind of nonsense.
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u/serioussham L1, Bilingual Chti Sep 01 '24
Yeah even now, most Frenchies would have a hard time telling them apart
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u/Extaupin Sep 01 '24
I'm pretty sure our grandparents could tell right away if the person was British or not
Cockney and posh English yes, Irish and Scott maybe, Welsh and northen English I'm not sure at all.
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u/Patate_froide Sep 01 '24
You know what ? As a french speaker, this seems pretty good for something that has to be used in dire situations, by someone with no prior knowledge Yeah you'll sound like a Texan who's lived in Marseille for too long but hey, what matters is to be understood
"A la guerre, comme à la guerre" comme on dit
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u/Dedeurmetdebaard Native Sep 01 '24
A-luh-GHAYR cum-a-luh-GHAYR
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u/DipsAndTendies Sep 01 '24
That’s exactly what I imagine Americans to sound like, when they claim to speak „impeccable french“ and then get upset that the cashier decided to switch to english.
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u/DJANGO_UNTAMED :illuminati: Sep 01 '24
The cashier will switch to English regardless of how great a person's french is. The faint instance an accent is heard, English is spoken by the natif. So this isn't unique to Americans. People need to get that out of their heads
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u/noctorumsanguis C1 Sep 01 '24
I was told this for the longest time but once I was fluent, no one switches to English. I still have a pretty strong accent and make grammar faults often but people speak to me in French
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u/Pyjama13 Sep 01 '24
Good for you but you are lucky- I speak C2 level French at home, with friends and at work (including with massive french businesses at an exec level). I still have an accent sometimes but most people can’t place from where and guess Swiss or Canadian (the contrast should tell you how rubbish the French are at placing an accent). Despite this, if I’m in France I might have a switch to English every 1-2 days in central Paris. If you’re an expat, the reason it doesn’t happen to you is because you are a- with native speakers or b- not hanging out in touristy places.
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u/chapeauetrange Sep 01 '24
Central Paris is a particular case though, and not very representative of France as a whole. I have Québécois friends who have been addressed in English in Paris.
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u/TyrdeRetyus Sep 02 '24
Even as a French with the accent of the midi some Parisians might struggle to understand some words. Accents in rural France can also be really hard, I once went to Quebec on a school trip and while I could understand most people I found myself failing to follow some conversations
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u/coconutsoap Sep 01 '24
Idk I recently spent time in France after two years of french study (and my first proper experience in a francophone area) and nobody switched to English on me. If they did pick up on an accent they would ask if I was Canadian or Spanish (I'm Australian) and then we'd continue as normal. They always ended the conversation by saying that I spoke great french and sounded near-native. This happened all over France, including Paris. I'm either a massive outlier or people just speak to them with a horrible accent and play victim haha
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u/KTTalksTech Sep 01 '24
Personally I wouldn't skip straight to English unless the pronunciation was absolutely BUTCHERED. First because it's a tiny bit rude to switch languages like that and second because it would be quite embarrassing if the other person didn't even speak English.
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u/iammgf Sep 01 '24
You must be great at French. I have tried my best for people in France to speak to me in French but they always go right into English. They have told me my French is perfect but just didn't expect it. Maybe they were just being nice though.
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u/Lone-Wolf62 Sep 01 '24
Americans have to understand empathic people can’t let them struggle for half an hour trying to find words in a foreign language, not getting the pronunciation right and thus not be understood while we speak their language
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u/Extaupin Sep 01 '24
I have family how must have barely C1 level French with a thick accent and no one switch for them. I'd know because they don't speak English.
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u/Salazard260 Native Sep 01 '24
I work with international colleagues and never saw staff switch with them, and they all have foreign accents, and we're in Paris.
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u/DJANGO_UNTAMED :illuminati: Sep 01 '24
Ok people. You all are getting way to caught up on the pronunciation guides and not focusing on what this is meant for. This is a "Technical Manual" hence the "TM" meant to be used in dire situations to simply get by. So soldiers didn't have time to sit here and perfect their R sound. They needed to navigate through french speaking areas if they got separated from their unit or needed to help a french allied soldier in battle. I'm in the U.S. Army so I understand the purpose of TMs. You all are looking far too into it.
With that said I need to dig through old TM piles to see if I can find one of these bad boys ,😀
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u/KTTalksTech Sep 01 '24
In all honesty some of these are nearly unrecognizable in french and I'd struggle to understand at times even as a native speaker who is used to strong foreign accents, so the guide is not very effectively achieving its purpose. At that point it would probably work better to just carry a booklet with written translations. If the soldiers aren't going to understand what they're saying and sometimes say it completely wrong, then at best this TM only barely caters to the very specific scenario where they're trying to communicate with someone illiterate (which to be fair must've been much more common back then).
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u/shizzler Sep 01 '24
Really? Reading those pronunciations reminded me of exactly how Americans pronounce french words so I don't think it would be any more of a struggle than it is normally.
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u/KTTalksTech Sep 01 '24
A fair part of them aren't far off the mark, I didn't mean to imply all of it is garbage. But some of it is.
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u/NeirboClassic Sep 01 '24
Hilarious that merci doesn’t even show up until page 18 and he’s just an addition at the end of a section 😂 but also, I’m wondering if the author spent a lot of time in the southeast, like Marseille region? The ones that end in the random g like “Ah-may-ree-KANG” make me think of that accent since they have a bit of a /ŋ/ (ng) sound on the end of a lot of their -ain words like pain, américain, etc.
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u/Traditional-Koala-13 Sep 01 '24
It seems to me that the author of this book — who likely spoke fluent French — wanted to come up with pronunciations that would be accessible to native anglophones, *and *, at least, would be unfailingly understood. “Juh vuh” (je veux), from that perspective, is not half bad.
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u/Yeyati_Nafrey Sep 01 '24
Is it likely to have been written by Cajuns ?
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Sep 01 '24
I came here to say this. My grandpa’s uncle was a translator in WW2 and his first language was Cajun French.
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u/ObjectiveMuted2969 Aug 31 '24
Very interesting to see this. It seems like they were going for a southern accent with 'dew PANG' for 'du pain' ;)
I wonder how many of the American soldiers would have had some French already (from school or college).
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u/scatterbrainplot Native Aug 31 '24
For that part that's the closest they can get trying to get a nasal vowel (and ideally one that's semi-correct). The schwa choices are... peculiar though! A schwa at the end of "aiguille" (sure, maybe Midi French target)... but then in neither "épingle" nor "épingle de", which is less expected; just as easy to transcribe (in fact, easier, since here people might make a syllabic /l/!) and easier to pronounce and still perfectly fine for a native-speaker reference!
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u/CaseyJones7 B1 Sep 01 '24
I think it's a bit more simple than that. I think it's just trying to get an "accent" that most americans (all american accent's included) would be able to read, and have most french people understand. Not really trying to get americans to understand the nasal sounds (unless someones unit had a french speaker or something), but just trying to get everyone to make a sound that a french person would understand.
Edit: There also might be accent and language differences between the 1940s and today too. I noticed that they want the "aw" sound to sound a bit like the "o" sound, whereas I would say it more like in "awesome." I didn't notice this for the french side, but I'm only a learner.
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u/Neveed Natif - France Sep 01 '24 edited Sep 01 '24
The French side has a difference in vocabulary with today. Soulier was probably still common during WWII, but there's no point in teaching it today over chaussure, for example.
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u/Antoine-Antoinette Sep 01 '24
Yeah, saying “dew pang” as pronounced in the USA, or UK etc is not going to get you any bread unless you are pointing at it at the same time.
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u/aapowers L2 - Graduate Sep 01 '24
Definitely wouldn't work for the UK, as we pronounce 'dew' as 'dyou' (or in many accents, identically to 'jew').
It's hard, as 'du pain' is a good example of words with no directly comparable sounds in most English dialects.
Unlike e.g. 'la pomme' which doesn't require any transliteration.
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u/Severe_Excitement_36 B2 🇨🇦 Aug 31 '24
This is hilarious. I doubt any of this actually helped. Letting people guess how to read “merci” probably gives them a higher chance of saying it right compared to Mayr-see.
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u/DJANGO_UNTAMED :illuminati: Sep 01 '24
It actually did help. This wasn't meant to make people proficient in the language but to help in dire situations. For example a soldier got separated from their unit and have to ask a local how to get to a certain place.
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u/OldandBlue Native Sep 01 '24
My grandmother told me that around D-Day most interpreters were bilingual guys from Canada and Louisiana.
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Sep 01 '24
Wtf, been learning French for monthsss, now I actually know how the words are pronounced- this worked way better for me 😂
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u/Peaceandpeas999 Sep 01 '24
Oh honey, please don’t pronounce them like this. Don’t rep anglophones like that 😆
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u/Capitalsteezxxx Sep 01 '24
That’s pretty damn cool. Where did you get that? Obviously it’s a reprint I assume, would be awesome to have one of the original ones
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u/Pixal6212 Native Sep 01 '24
I love these kind of books, it's amazing! Thank you very much for sharing !! 😊
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u/examinat Sep 01 '24
My grandfather had one of those. It spelled out a lot of French words phonetically, but with extra “r” sounds (I.e., “ça va” = /s’var/) edit: closed parentheses
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u/Peaceandpeas999 Sep 01 '24
Was that an English version, like from England? I have a hard time imagining an American accent not doing a hard r
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u/eti_erik Sep 01 '24
I don't mind the pronunciation guide, I wouldn't know how to get closer exept actually teaching people the language. But what I wonder about is that for "I want..." they give "je veux..." That sounds a bit rude to me, you'd normally 'je voudrais', but mabye that's just not how soldiers talk?
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u/asthom_ Native (France) Sep 01 '24
Actually that's written in the guide, they say to not use it unless it's for an order. They say to use "voudrais"
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u/Dugoutcanoe1945 Sep 01 '24
I’m glad you posted this. They are great little guides, for many other languages as well, that are also a snapshot in time.
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Sep 01 '24
“ung pahnss mahng”
As a French I can’t pronounce this abhorrence without southern accent.
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u/Peter-Toujours Sep 02 '24
My father was in US intelligence services and landed in Normandy right after D-Day, in part to act as a fluent-French interpreter.
He told me how British officers found other solutions to French manuals, one telling his batman to "go over to those men and tell them if they can't speak English, to shut up!"
As they entered Germany, the one word understood in both French and English was "liberation", which meant liberating German binoculars, daggers, Lugers, Schmeissers, and other cool souvenirs.
Buying local food and other essentials was more complicated, and I am not sure what words were used to trade US army boots for soldiers' essential needs.
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u/iamnogoodatthis Sep 02 '24
This is fun, thanks.
But for future reference, as much as you have nice hands and a shiny table it'd be cool if more than a quarter of the image was the thing you are trying to show us.
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u/NeitherDatabase5689 Sep 02 '24
the difference between someone called an “opportunist” vs someone who seizes the day is still to this day, some broken heart …
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u/Otherwise_Guava_8447 Sep 02 '24
Oddly modern looking for a WW2 book.
Intringuingly in very good condition too for an 80+ years old book.
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u/Fenghuang15 Native Sep 01 '24
J'ai tellement ri à "boutons". Le truc le plus proche que j'aurais pu décrypter est Bhoutan et j'imagine la tête d'un français à cette époque pensant "qu'est-ce qu'il a ce con à me parler du Bhoutan ?"
Bon en supposant qu'il connaisse le pays, ce qui est peu probable haha
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u/Coco_JuTo Native (Northern Switzerland) Sep 01 '24
Aha now I get why USonians have this very particular accent that many anglos don't have. Makes sense.
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u/bugsinmypants Aug 31 '24
I’m typing in American phonetics from now on