French learners usually find it difficult to pronounce certain words accurately. This is especially true for native English speakers who have little or no experience speaking a second language as pronunciation in English is fairly straightforward compared to French - at least that's how it seems from our admittedly biased non-French speaking perspective.
Even though both English and French share the same Latin-derived 26 letter alphabet, the similarity is somewhat superficial with plenty of differences in pronunciation between the two languages.
Whereas the English language has 5 vowels, French vowels are divided into separate classifications of single vowels and vowel groups (two or more vowels combined such as ai, au and ou and so on). The letter 'e' is a special vowel that can be pronounced in several different ways. The letter 'y' is considered a vowel in French and almost all vowels have special characters called accents which are little marks on the characters (such as 'à', 'á' or 'â') that modify the pronunciation of that particular character. Nasal vowels can also be challenging to the aspiring French speaker; certain combinations like 'an', 'en', 'in' and 'on' are pronounced through the nose and the mouth at the same time. With all the different rules combined with numerous exceptions on how to pronounce French vowels it's easy to see how anyone would be lost.
French consonants are easier to deal with, most of them closely follow their English counterparts but there are a few quirks. The French 'r' is famous (or infamous) for being hard to pronounce by many learners - it is pronounced in the back of the throat with the uvula and requires plenty of practice to perfect. Another potentially confusing aspect of French consonants are silent letters. These are usually found at the end of the word and are almost always silent; there are certain exceptions to this which should be studied.
Repetition exercises and patient guidance from an experienced French teacher can certainly help, but this is not available to most people. Luckily the Internet provides a plethora of options to practice one's French pronunciation. Many sites offer audible examples that visitors can click on to hear the proper pronunciation of a certain word or vowel combination. There are even sample French conversations and lessons that can be streamed or downloaded - some require payment, but most are free.
A great commercial audio course that teaches spoken French is the Pimsleur series of French courses. The Pimsleur series of language courses are very popular among those teaching themselves foreign languages and is used by many government agencies to train their employees.
Some great online resources to learn proper French pronunciation are the French ‘pronunciation tips’ section at the BBC site for languages which offers interactive lessons with streaming audio. Another excellent guide to pronunciation with clickable audio samples can be found at french.about.com.
Learn French the Fast and Fun Way (Barron's Fast and Fun Way Language Series) by Elisabeth Bourquin Leete and Heywood Wald is a book which teaches to learn French in a fast and funny way. Another book which teaches the basics of French pronunciation is French Made Simple:Learn to speak and understand French quickly and easily by Pamela Rose Haze
It may seem daunting at first, but with a little online searching and some practice everybody can master French pronunciation and speak like a native Parisian!
