![]() (I mean, yes, if you're French and someone asks you - as in this thread - or it seems like a genuinely appropriate informal moment, but not otherwise.) I'll tell you why: The one thing you must never, EVER do is correct anyone else's French pronunciation, no matter how horrible. And they're going to laugh anyway: it's something French people enjoy, laughing at foreigners' attempts at French. Please note the emphasis falling on the second syllable: it's not GROO-yair but gru-YAIR.įrankly, if you get it 90% right, only the French will be bothered. Here's a video where the word is pronounced correctly twice at around 1:21mn: È as in met (as in we met in front of the statue.) ![]() Real hard for any American.Įverything else should be pretty straight forward: It's not rolling, but it does need some of the same kind of contact between the back of the tongue and the palate. Now the French "r" I really can't describe. Since most of the American language is pronounced with a relaxed jaw, cheeks and lips and placed way in the back of the throat, it's not a sound you're used to make. It's a typical French sound where all the sound is forward in the mouth, and the cheeks and the lips are really tense. You really have to purse your lips way forward into a tiny circle. About halfway between that "ee" and that "oo" there's almost a "u". ![]() You pronounce an "f", then you slowly morph "ee" into "oo". I think it's in there somewhere in the American word "few". To describe the vowel "u" is a difficult thing to do. It's pretty much just as hard for Americans to pronounce the French "r", so with a word like "Gruyère" you're really asking for trouble! :lol: To give you an idea of what you may sound like, next time you meet a French person, ask them to say "Error". It seems to be just as hard for Americans to pronounce the French "u" as for French people to pronounce the American "r". I have never, ever heard any American being able to properly pronounce the french vowel "u". If you just want the closest pronunciation, it's "groo-yair". assuming you want to know the proper pronunciation.
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