Year 2 With Pipe, Paddle and Song How to Pronounce words!

[Cathie]

We have just started With Pipe, Paddle and Song and I am butchering the French words. Does anyone have a pronunciation guide or any helpful hints for the names, places, phrases?
Thanks!
Cathie

[Renaissance Mom]

I just made up my own phony French accent and pronunciation. My kids laughed because they knew it was phony but because I didn't stumble along chopping up the story, we all enjoyed it. So whatever you do, do it with confidence -- you're not teaching French but adding color to your history studies! (Opinions will differ on this, I'm sure.)

Enjoy,
Monica

[Pat]

Here are some websites that get you overviews on how to pronouce French:

http://www.essortment.com/fren...ion-guide-59854.html (http://www.essortment.com/french-pronunciation-guide-59854.html)
http://www.jump-gate.com/langu.../french/french1.html (http://www.jump-gate.com/languages/french/french1.html)
http://www.smartphrase.com/Fre..._pronunciation.shtml (http://www.smartphrase.com/French/fr_pronunciation.shtml)

The big thing to me is to look at vowels. Usually other languages have less vowel sounds than American English so it is easier to learn those and then look for consonants that are distinct in the other language (for instance in Spanish "v" makes a "b" sound).

I never read a book with an accent unless the writer wrote it with the accent, but I would strive to get names correct. If all the characters are one nationality they won't have an accent to each other (and in this case, they probably aren't speaking English but French). The author distinguishes characters by giving them a different accent from the others that you read as written.

There will probably be native american names as well. I think generally those are written in English phonetically, but there are exceptions so you'll have to do your best.