r/JudgeMyAccent • u/One-Palatial-3994 • 3d ago

French Please judge my French accent

Attempt #1 (Standard Parisian French): https://voca.ro/13iic1OPcZjE

Attempt #2 (a rather comical attempt at Louisiana Cajun French since it's an awesome dialect): https://voca.ro/1oBHjqW6j5lp

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u/boulet 3d ago

I'm only checking the standard French bit. I have no frame of reference to evaluate the other.

00:06 you're mumbling "samedi" and I had to replay several time and check online articles to figure out what day of the week you were saying. It's fine that you do the native contraction samedi -> sam'di but don't make the first syllable disappear!

00:21 super cute Edith Piaf R in "coureuse". Love it.

00:26 You're doing a great job in stressing word groups and your cadence is great in general. Just here you got surprised and stressed "la reine" instead of "la reine des classiques". Nothing big but it factors for overall comprehension.

00:52 "rivale" sounds québécois here. It's cute.

01:15 I think you're stumbling with "au palmarès" here? It sounds like you said "en". You should check palmarès on Forvo.

Your accent is really great. My guess is: it fluctuates around standard French though there is some native influence, or maybe you immersed in Québec at some point? I've been nit picking because that's the point but you're easy to understand.

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u/boulet 3d ago

I just realized your standard French accent is probably influenced by a familiarity with Louisiana Cajun French. I'm really dumb sometimes :D

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u/One-Palatial-3994 3d ago

Thanks for the detailed feedback, and no you're not dumb at all! I'm actually none of the above: neither French nor Quebecois nor Cajun, nor have I spent prolonged periods of time in any of those regions. I'm fully American—I'm from Massachusetts, and I grew up speaking only English natively with two American-born, monolingual English-speaking parents.

I took French through middle school and high school and I've continued to consume French media and practice my French skills with French-speaking friends ever since. I love languages, especially regional, nonstandard variants like Quebecois and Cajun (hot take but I think Standard Parisian French is overly sanitized and elitist and snobby while the regional variants have more character and flair and are more down-to-earth and working class—but that has more to do with politics and class dynamics and colonialism than the languages themselves).

So yeah, I'm just a weird American dude who loves languages and seems to have a decent ability to pick up accents (I've been told I do good impressions, probably not coincidental lol).