# Francophones: "femme" vs. "famme"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 24, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769 "2005-02-24T21:47:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/21 "2005-02-25T15:55:52Z")
Oh, I agree - that’s what I said earlier; that it’s like “fahm.” Not, to me, like the A in family. It’s hard though to write the phonetics of one language in the words of another, especially when people pronounce those words differently. ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/22 "2005-02-25T15:59:30Z")
My last post was to Ferret Herder. Those links sound right to me. ---
**Author:** ![Asteroide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Asteroide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asteroide)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/23 "2005-02-25T17:14:06Z")
> [@AwSnappity](#): > > The /a/ in _femme_ is between the /a/ in _family_ and the /a/ in _car_. We really don’t have an equivalent in English, which might account for some of the disagreement in this thread. It’s not a nasal vowel either, like you see in the word _faim_. The mistake I often hear Americans making on this vowel sound is to make _chat_ sound like Shah, where the “a” in _chat_ is a lot more clipped. You can form the “a” in _femme_ by “smiling” (and not pushing your lips forward) as you mouth it. A long “a” in words like _femme_ is something you’ll only hear as a kind of humoristic “aristocratic” spoof accent - like lahdidah. (It was presumably a living accent at some point in the past). OTOH Quebequois French has some pertty substantial variations relative to the French spoken in France, a lot more diphthongs. Maybe that’s where the longer “a” comes from ? > [@AwSnappity](#): > > Can I get a native speaker’s ruling on the validity of that text-to-voice link I provided? The French pronunciation sounds right to my [non-native-but-currently-studying-French-especially-French-phonetics] ears. At first sight it’s pretty good but seems to trip up on words like _bouille / bouillir_ and there are some inconsistencies between the male and female voice. Still a cool site. “Bar” is a pretty good test on there since the same word exists in all the languages. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/24 "2005-02-25T17:23:19Z")
In phonetic terms, the a sound in “femme” [a] is the cardinal low front unrounded vowel. The “ah” sound in most American English accents [A] (script a) is the cardinal low _back_ unrounded vowel. The “a” in “cat” [&] (a-e ligature) is a front vowel that’s midway between the “e” in “met” [E] (epsilon) and [a]. See this diagramme – [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html](http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/vowels.html) ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/25 "2005-02-26T15:16:31Z")
> [@Asteroide](#): > > The mistake I often hear Americans making on this vowel sound is to make _chat_ sound like Shah, where the “a” in _chat_ is a lot more clipped. You can form the “a” in _femme_ by “smiling” (and not pushing your lips forward) as you mouth it. > > A long “a” in words like _femme_ is something you’ll only hear as a kind of humoristic “aristocratic” spoof accent - like lahdidah. (It was presumably a living accent at some point in the past). > > OTOH Quebequois French has some pertty substantial variations relative to the French spoken in France, a lot more diphthongs. Maybe that’s where the longer “a” comes from ? Just to clarify: I know that the A in femme is not EXACTLY like the sound AH in English. It’s just an approximation in order to explain the sound to people who don’t speak French. It doesn’t do them any good to say it’s like the A in chat, since they have no idea how to pronounce chat. I have no real knowledge of Quebec French; I lived in Paris and learned Parisian French. And, I do not make the mistake of pronouncing “femme” like the AH in Lah-di-dah; maybe other Americans who don’t speak fluent French do. I am not one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Asteroide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Asteroide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asteroide)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/26 "2005-02-26T16:11:19Z")
We may of course be talking about the same thing, it’s always tough to discuss phonetics. And obviously if you’re a native French speaker whatever your pronunciation may be it is “correct”. The point I’ve been trying to make is that in ‘standard’ French (as spoken in Paris for example) the vowel sound in _femme_\*\*[fam]\*\* is the same short “a” as found in “family”**['fam-lE, 'fa-m&-]** “pan”**[pan]** etc. This sound is represented by a simple lower-case “a” in the phonetic alphabet. The “a” in “Shah”**['shä, 'sho]**, the “ah” sound is somewhat different. ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/27 "2005-02-26T16:34:09Z")
Sorry to have jumped on you. My last post came out more snippy than I intended. That’s what happens when typing while also having a “discussion” with one’s mother on the phone. It is definitely hard to explain phonetics in two different languages! ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2005, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/28 "2005-02-26T22:54:55Z")
> [@Asteroide](#): > > We may of course be talking about the same thing, it’s always tough to discuss phonetics. And obviously if you’re a native French speaker whatever your pronunciation may be it is “correct”. > > The point I’ve been trying to make is that in ‘standard’ French (as spoken in Paris for example) the vowel sound in _femme_\*\*[fam]\*\* is the same short “a” as found in “family”**['fam-lE, 'fa-m&-]** “pan”**[pan]** etc. This sound is represented by a simple lower-case “a” in the phonetic alphabet. The “a” in “Shah”**['shä, 'sho]**, the “ah” sound is somewhat different. What dialect of English are you thinking of here? I’m American, and so the sound in family or pan is written with the ligature “ae” in the phonetic alphabet. ---
**Author:** ![Asteroide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Asteroide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asteroide)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/29 "2005-02-27T00:16:03Z")
I was just referring to the online [webster’s](http://www.merriam-webster.com/home.htm) pronunciation. There are of course all kinds of regional variations. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769/30 "2005-02-27T04:47:35Z")
> [@Asteroide](#): > > I was just referring to the online [webster’s](http://www.merriam-webster.com/home.htm) pronunciation. > > There are of course all kinds of regional variations. Indeed. The a’s in _family_ and _pan_ for me are quite distinct. For me, the \*a \* in \*family \* is the “a-e ligature” in acsenray’s link above. The \*a \* in _pan_, for me, is a little higher up on that chart – in fact, it approaches Spanish \*e \* (around the cardinal vowel \*e \* on the chart). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/francophones-femme-vs-famme/291769.md?page=1)