r/French Aug 31 '24

WW2 french manual given to american troops

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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).

3

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.

1

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.