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Joined: Jan 2006
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can anyone transliterate the pronunciation of "Le lune ne garde aucune rancune" for me?

i can't speak french but this line ("the moon holds no grudges whatsoever") occurs in a poem I have been asked to read in class by my English teacher... Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T. S. Eliot...

I tried a few french language forums but theyre a bit slow in replying and i have to read this thing on wednesday.... i'm trying every forum i can.... ahhhhhh

...thank you so much....

Last edited by Benjamin; 01/29/06 01:53 PM.
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ok... another forum has suggested

"Lah lyune nuh gahr-duh oh-kyune rahn-kyune"....

would like a second opinion though...

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The three us in lune and -cune do not have an equivalent in English. They are technically called high front rounded vowels, and are similar to the German sound ü. You can approximate the sound by pronouncing them like an i (as in Spanish or Italian) but with rounded lips.


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ah Zmj--you remind me of my first French teacher (a nun) who would come by and try to pinch our cheeks. those of us who cowered and cried (when pinch) sometimes got extra points.

she maintained that, if we were doing our homework and practicing prononciation, our cheek muscles would be sore --because we needed to learn, not just words in our heads, but to use new muscles in our faces (cheeks) to make new sounds..
Especially words with R and U.

if we didn't ache from practice, she would make us ache with a good pinch!
(now days, i remember almost no french.. but i think i can still make the U sound of luna (i feel myself using facial muscles that i almost never use!)

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Ah, of troy, to learn French from penguins (aka le manchot). What a treat. On a sad note, I see that my phonetic grandfather (the advisor of my phonology professor) has shuffled off this mortal coil. I never got to meet him, but heard plenty of stories from my professor, and another of his students with whom I worked for a number of years.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I found this...

How to Pronounce the French "U"

1. Open your mouth.
2. Say O.
3. Draw out the O until your lips are where they would be to make a W sound.
4. Purse your lips as tightly as you can.
5. Keeping your lips pursed, say E.
6. Voilą the French U!

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Oh my god, that works perfectly well Benjamin. The sound is the same.

I was trying to figure out how to explain it to you, the way we say it with the tongue and lip placement, it but if you follow your explanation, it sounds the same.

(though when we say it, because of the way our tongue is placed, the lips are not so much pinched as ever so slightly puckered as in to give a gentle kiss)

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My opinion (which of course doesn't count) is that he's probably going to sound rather silly pronouncing one vowel in exacting French "accent" while ignoring the rest of the sounds.
It may come off very like the newscasters who pronounce foreign names very exageratedly - "I am reporting from NEEcaaar-r-r-r-raghghghhoooaa today."

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I think that the rest of the sounds in French are not necessarily so different from English pronunciation.

(edited for tone)

Last edited by etaoin; 01/30/06 04:36 PM.
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Agreed, eta - although I'd shorten the "gar-duh" a bit - instead of a whole syllable, just a really emphasized "D" sound, more like gar-de.
There's a big difference between "la lune" and "la loon" - oh-oh, I hear "luney/looney" jokes coming......

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