Sounds French

This introductory textbook is principally addressed to English speakers who want systematically to improve their pronunciation of French.

Sounds French examines the history of popular music in France between the arrival of rock and roll in 1958 and the collapse of the first wave of punk in 1980, and the connections between musical genres and concepts of community in French society. During this period, scholars have tended to view the social upheavals associated with postwar reconstruction as part of debates concerning national identity in French culture and politics, a tendency that developed from political figures' and intellectuals' concerns with French national identity. In this book, author Jonathyne Briggs reorients the scholarship away from an exclusive focus on national identity and instead towards an investigation of other identities that develop as a result of the increased globalization of culture. Popular music, at once individual and communal, fixed and plastic, offers an illuminating window into such transformations in social structures through the ways in which musicians, musical consumers, and critical intermediaries re-imagined themselves as part of novel cultural communities, whether local, national, or supranational in nature. Briggs argues that national identity was but one of a panoply of identities in flux during the postwar period in France, demonstrating that the development of hybridized forms of popular music provided the French with a method for expressing and understanding that flux. Drawing upon an array of printed and aural sources, including music publications, sound recordings, record sleeves, biographies, and cultural criticism, Sounds French is an essential new look at popular music in postwar France.

Aimed at beginners and at intermediate students who want to undo bad habits, EASY LEARNING FRENCH PRONUNCIATION focuses on spoken French, and will help you to improve your pronunciation, confidence and fluency.The booklet and audio CD will guide you through how to pronounce each sound and gives real-life examples of where these sounds are used. It will help you recognize why your native language makes you mispronounce certain sounds and which sounds you therefore need to focus on.There are also plenty of opportunities for you to practice the French sounds while listening to the native French speaker on the audio CD. One of the section focuses on pronouncing items from a typical French menu, so you can be sure you will always be understood.The booklet also contains illustrations of the mouth showing how to make French sounds and memorable cartoons to help you remember pronunciation rules.In addition to teaching you how to pronounce French words accurately, EASY LEARNING FRENCH PRONUNCIATION also covers the differences between the French and English alphabet, stress and rhythm, the differences between accents within France and provides information on the differences between the French spoken in France and Canada.EASY LEARNING FRENCH PRONUNCIATION is a fun and enjoyable way of putting the finishing touches on your French accent!

A comprehensive, detailed, and well-illustrated undergraduate French language/linguistics textbook with CD-ROM. The book focuses on pronunciation of Modern Standard French, and incorporates regional and social variations, abbreviatory processes and 'word play'. It looks at historical phonological changes which continue through today. Perfect for readers and learners with little or no formal training in linguistics. The CD-ROM provides invaluable oral examples crucial to linguistic study.

Tranel's textbook is principally addressed to English speakers who want to improve their French pronunciation. It describes the difficulties typically encountered, explains why they occur and suggests ways to improve them. In addition, from a more theoretical perspective, the book provides readers with a fundamental understanding of the way French sounds are produced and how they behave according to general linguistic principles. Perfect for both relative beginners and more advanced students, Tranel's book draws on contrastive analysis, general phonetics, traditional knowledge, and more modern developments in phonology, historical linguistics, and orthography. Intended for classroom use, the book will appeal to teachers because of its wide scholarship and firm grasp of instructional principles, while students will welcome Tranel's clear style and organization.