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I’ve spoken French my whole life. The only consistent thing I can think of versus English is the prononciaton of “c” or “g” with the succeeding vowel. Otherwise it’s such a mess. “Eau” (water) has three vowels, but is pronounced like the one vowel that is not in it: “o”. Almost all words have letters that aren’t pronounced, but you can’t tell from any rules. You just have to know how the word is pronounced and written.

English pronunciation and spelling is indeed also fairly inconsistent, but I still make a lot less spelling mistakes even though it’s not my first language.

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benjirenji@slrpnk.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Everywhere you see ‘eau’ or ‘eaux’ it’s pronounced ‘o’. Always, no exceptions. It’s crazy you never noticed that once you know the pronunciation rules of French you can say every word correctly.

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- oce@jlai.lu ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  As anything in French, there are expctions like “femme” et “monsieur” but they are fewer and more manageable than for English.
  
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Evkob@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
As someone who has also spoken French their entire life; I disagree. Is French orthography messy? Sure, but it’s a consistent mess. Like the other commenter said, once you know “eau” is pronounced “o”, you know. Un beau bateau sur l’eau.

Contrast with English, where rough & thorough thought is required throughout tough sentences such as this one just to figure out what the Fuck sound “gh” will make.

I really came to appreciate the difference in English and French when I used to work in pharmacies; my first job was in a French place, and I intuitively knew how to pronounce drug names at first encounter.

I later worked in a place with only Anglophones and I never got the prononciation on the first try. It was a guessing game.

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sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I learned French in school, but no one ever told me how modern French is a combination of divergent old French languages, “Langues D’oc” in the south where the word for yes was “oc” and “Langues D’oui” where oui was the word for yes in the North.

From the former, we have L’Occitâne, and the Languedoc region of the south of France.

I wonder what else i don’t know about French. /me reads Wikipedia.

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