Hmm… Interesting, I wonder if this is a regional-ism? Like I say I’ve never heard it in that context here in the Ile-de-France region of France, but rather “c’est mon copain” is used to convey the same (slang) meaning.
Works for virtually all American speakers, though. Barbarian’s pronunciation will be found here and there in the U.S., as well.
Mangetout’s pronunciation (and I’ve not heard his link … just going by his location and description) will sound to many Americans not too far from “tome” or “tawm”.
This would be a lot easier if people would just use the IPA.
That short O vowel sound is one that often gives away American actors trying to sound British. Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the few who really nailed it, hence all the praise for her British accent in Sliding Doors. It is closer to the American “aw”, i.e. if you want to say “Tom” and sound British, veer towards “Tawm” instead of “Tahm”.
Saying “short” and “long” as applied to letters is an inadequate way to describe English vowels (and when I say “vowel,” I mean sounds). This habit, which English teachers unversed in linguistics have instilled in vast numbers of unsuspecting students, makes people think that English has 10 vowels: a long and a short version of A, E, I, O and U.
In fact, English has at least 21 vowels, depending on which linguist you ask. Using the terms “long” and “short” A, how do you distinguish the vowels in the words hat, father, and hate? What about the vowels in cough, tough, through, ouch, and though, all of which are spelled with OU but are pronounced differently? “Long” and “short” aren’t going to help you there. I repeat: use the IPA, whether you’re talking about English or French.
Even though it’s written with an ‘e’, which usually indicates a schwa, femme is not pronounced that way. Listen to the examples posted by *Intelligently Designed and compare Serge Lama’s pronunciation of femme, femme, femme with Serge Gainsbourg’s Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais for shwa sounds.
Spent 2 years in French class and 2 years in France and I hear/say it as “fahm”, such as in Cherchez la femme.
As for femme fatale, I’ve never heard it other than “fem fahtahl”. with the short e sound.
The IPA’s not that useful in casual discussions on message boards, though. You can’t type it and most people don’t know what the symbols mean anyway.
Oh, boy. :rolleyes: See, this is why French is so damned scary to me. I can walk into a roomful of two dozen people, say one word, and no more than two of them will believe I said it right. The rest would take me for a rube who can’t talk straight.
So it’s probably a good thing I never asked that cute Jenny Saykwa to be my fumm. :smack:
The Velvet Underground guys clearly sing “fem”, but their pronunciation of French is probably as authoritative as Nico’s pronunciation of English.
Well, it would be, if more people used it. I think it’s a shame that many dictionaries for native English speakers completely ignore it, and invent their own system to “phonetisize.”
Yes, you can. It’s one of the fonts of MS-Word, and you can download extensions for various other languages for free.
I suppose you’re right there, but that’s only because of habit. Koreans all know it, because they’re expected to know some English to get a good job. If they can learn it, why can’t we? (Meaning English speakers.)
The pronunciation of “femme” in French (the English way to say it depends on what you want to say)–well, I don’t have my French dictionary handy because I’m out of town at the moment, but I’d say [fɑm] (the finale consonant being nasal). But my French is pretty bad these days.
It’s fam or fahm (or in between), depending on who you learned your French from. I learned the language from francophone Africans, and it was closer to ‘fahm’. It is most certainly NOT ‘fem’.
But there are no keys for many IPA symbols on a typical keyboard.
They aren’t singing in French. They’re speaking English and thus using the correct English pronunciation of “femme fatale.”
There is a fairly standard transcription of IPA for ASCII. I and others have used it frequently on these and other boards.
With MS-Word, you use INSERT CHARACTER. With the SDMB, I don’t remember.
a = a
A = script a
A. = turned script a
& = ash
D = edh
e = e
E = Greek e
@ = schwa
i = i
i = small capital i (or iota)
o = o
O = open o
S = esh
T = theta
u = u
U = turned small capital omega (or closed lowercase omega)
V = turned v (a.k.a. barless small capital a)
Okay, I’m going to try it out:
I type an “@” and I get a…"@"
I type a “T” and I get a…“T”
Something isn’t working here for me.
It is working,** Guizot**. It’s a transcription of IPA for ASCII. The appearance doesn’t change to IPA, but it is understood what symbol is meant.
Well, maybe the Mistinguett song is from when people didn’t use friend to mean with benefits. IIRC she was Belle Epoque?