Pronunciation questions Part 2

[allchopin]

It's the gosh-darned French language befuddling me yet again -
How do you pronounce...
1) La plus que lente
2) feux-follets (such an elegant word for 'swamp gas'...)
3) jardins sous la pluie
4) chasse neige
5) jeux d'eau, and 'gaspard de la nuit' for that matter

Miscellaneous...
1) Etr'acte
2) kreisleriana
3) solveig ('s song)
4) etincelles

I'm standing by to untie my tongue.

[ayahav]

it's difficult to tell you how to to pronounce them because French has so many varieties of the vowels, but if you give me your email address I'd be happy to send you a sound file of how to pronounce these names....

By variety I mean, for example, that the letter 'e' can be pronounced in 4 different ways depending on where in the word the letter is.

[DarkWind]

I have my own pronunciations for them, not sure if they are right.

Feux Follets= Fyoo Folay
La Plus Que Lente= La ploo ke lent
Jardin sous la pluie=hardeen soo la plee-ay
Chasse Niege= Chassay Nee-ay-j
Jeux D'eau= joo dyoh
Gaspard De La Nuit=gaspard de la noo-eet

Someone correct me?

[donjuan]

Hi DarkWind,
Im from Canada- they force us to speak french for the first 11 years of our lives.

Everything seems OK in your pronounciations except for Jeax D'eau which should be "zhoo d'oh". the way you had it, it would sound like "judo" hyyah!! .
donjuan

[rlefebvr]

Actually, all of them are wrong, but they are close.

ayahav make a great offer. Would take it up as doing this in writing is close to impossible.

[donjuan]

Everyone, you know what? music is a language all on it's own.  you don't need to speak french to play piano.  Simply enjoy the music.  I suggest we all not care about how to pronounce things.  It doesn't matter- the only thing that really matters is that the music is effective.
We all speak english. SO?? does it change the music?
donjuan

[ayahav]

i'll just go ahead with my offer.... i hope I have it ready by this afternoon..

[ayahav]

oh.... and 'feux-follets' is not an elegant word for swamp gas.... it means will-o'-the-wisps...

[Noah]

Uh.... all of your transcriptions are wrong, I would correct them but I don't know how to, since some of the sounds don't exist in English...

[erik-]

I don't understand how you are supposed to prononce all those weird
    Fyoo Folay
    La ploo ke lent
    hardeen soo la plee-ay
    Chassay Nee-ay-j
    joo dyoh
    gaspard de la noo-eet
anyway. And to just to be coherent, if "FEUX follets" is written into "FYOO Folay", then "JEUX d'eau" should be "JYOO d'eau"

Anyway maybe the best way to explain how to pronounce a word in a foreign language is to use the international phonetic alphabet ? But I'm not sure all the symbols can be written here in HTML format.

[ayahav]

I've posted a recording of me pronouncing the names of the works. You'll find it at :

https://pianoamit1987.tripod.com/french.aiff

-though French is not my native language I speak it almost as though it were (for all you english speaker that doubt my use of were look at the rules of syntax of the english language)....

[rlefebvr]

I've posted a recording of me pronouncing the names of the works

Sounds good to me.

[ayahav]

Merci bien!

[allchopin]

oh.... and 'feux-follets' is not an elegant word for swamp gas.... it means will-o'-the-wisps...

Which is swamp gas...  

Actually, ayahav, just try the best you can with phonetic spellings, such as the above postings.  I am not exactly bent on pronouncing it like a native speaker of France, because I am not.  However, I do want to know generally how to say the words, because it sure seems amateur to not be able to tell someone the name of a piece you are playing!  I don't know- more curiousity I suppose.
Btw, the website did not work...

[ayahav]

give me an email address where I can send you a 4.8MB file, and you can hear it. It's impossible to write in english phonetic spelling, becuase some of the sounds don't exist.....

It worked for other people.... Try again...

[ayahav]

https://homepage.mac.com/pianofrench/FileSharing1.html

this link should stay active and not cause problems for the next 60 days... apparently... Tripod took me down instantly for some reason..... hope you like it...

it's just near impossible to explain french pronounciation by writing.... as you'll hear from french people and quebecois....

[allchopin]

Thanks ayahav.  That's more than I was looking for!
Are these all to be pronounced using French phonemes?  Are they all French words?

[ayahav]

They are all french words (pronounced in a french accent in the file - not quebecois - sorry canadians!), except for solveig and kreisleriana. Kreisleriana is made up play-on-words on the name Kreisler (like the composer), and Solveig is a Norwegian name.