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ArchivesSévérine Pronunciation Question
What is the correct French pronunciation of the feminine name Sévérine?
Thank you in advance!
“Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.”
Reverend Jesse Jackson
Thank you in advance!
“Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.”
Reverend Jesse Jackson
1
Replies
seh-vreen is the most common, you also can hear seh-vuh-reen.
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The stressed syllabe, Mrs. Claire, please
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There is no real stress in French names, as it depends on the context. It is a stereotype that there is a stress on the last syllabe all the time.
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I really can't, unless I have a sentence with it...
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Profe Esteban is right. In French words have a stressed syllable even if this one is always in the same place. This is very clear in a sonogram (or in a good IPA transcription) and it can be very easily noticed when French speakers are learning/speak other languages because they tend to stress the last syllables of the words.
The stress is not stronger as in other languages, but it is still there.
Many French speakers, since in French the place of the stress is non-distinctive (because it is always in the last syllable), are not able to say which syllable is the tonical one, and sometimes they mix the concept of stressed syllable in the word with stressed syllables and/or words in the sentence (stress with intonation and melodical curve).
Even in languages with distinctive position of the stress (Spanish and Catalan, for instance), the syllables and/or the words are more or less stressed depending on the position in the sentence. But since position of the stress inside the word is distinctive, the speakers are (in general) able to discriminate and to say which syllable is the stressed one in a word. (And, on the other hand, they could not be able to recognise some differences in pronunciation because these differences are no distinctives in their language: [e] vs. [ɛ] in Spanish or [b] vs. [v] in both languages.)
I don't have here my books of French photenics to copy you the paragraphs about the stress in French, but I found a more or less clear explanation at Wikipedia in French (note the IPA transcriptions of the words, with the mark of stress in the last syllable):
"Alors que dans la majorité des langues romanes elle est très marquée, elle est, en français, relativement faible voire inaudible. En effet, l'accent tonique du français est marqué pour chaque mot (hormis les clitiques) seulement quand ils sont isolés. Dans une phrase, seul le dernier mot de chaque syntagme portera l'accent, d'autant plus dans une diction rapide et courante.
The stress is not stronger as in other languages, but it is still there.
Many French speakers, since in French the place of the stress is non-distinctive (because it is always in the last syllable), are not able to say which syllable is the tonical one, and sometimes they mix the concept of stressed syllable in the word with stressed syllables and/or words in the sentence (stress with intonation and melodical curve).
Even in languages with distinctive position of the stress (Spanish and Catalan, for instance), the syllables and/or the words are more or less stressed depending on the position in the sentence. But since position of the stress inside the word is distinctive, the speakers are (in general) able to discriminate and to say which syllable is the stressed one in a word. (And, on the other hand, they could not be able to recognise some differences in pronunciation because these differences are no distinctives in their language: [e] vs. [ɛ] in Spanish or [b] vs. [v] in both languages.)
I don't have here my books of French photenics to copy you the paragraphs about the stress in French, but I found a more or less clear explanation at Wikipedia in French (note the IPA transcriptions of the words, with the mark of stress in the last syllable):
"Alors que dans la majorité des langues romanes elle est très marquée, elle est, en français, relativement faible voire inaudible. En effet, l'accent tonique du français est marqué pour chaque mot (hormis les clitiques) seulement quand ils sont isolés. Dans une phrase, seul le dernier mot de chaque syntagme portera l'accent, d'autant plus dans une diction rapide et courante.
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seh-veh-reen
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Something like "say vay REEN"
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