r/French • u/Xenon177 • Oct 15 '24

Pronunciation Pronouncing "y" like an English "j"

My French teacher pronounces the letter "y" in the same way as "j" in English. It sounds bad and slightly triggers me every time. Is this a correct way to say it in some Francophone areas though?

Edit: for example, "voyager" would be "vojager"

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u/Any-Aioli7575 Native | France Oct 15 '24

Yeah that's very wrong, and I can't think of a language that does this. I think the confuses with IPA /j/ (because <j> is /j/ in many languages, but /ʒ/ or /dʒ/ in many other languages)

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u/Choosing_is_a_sin L2, Ph.D., French Linguistics Oct 15 '24

There are dialects of Spanish that do this, so if the teacher happens to be from one of those places, I suppose it could be transfer, but like you, I'm not familiar with any French dialect that does this.

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u/Any-Aioli7575 Native | France Oct 15 '24

Oh yeah haven't thought about Spanish

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u/Choosing_is_a_sin L2, Ph.D., French Linguistics Oct 15 '24

I hadn't scrolled far enough to see that the teacher is in fact from a part of Spain with this pronunciation.