General_Information_About_the_Phonological_Features_of_Romanian_and_French

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE PHONOLOGICAL FEATURES OF ROMANIAN AND FRENCH French ❖ French language has maximum twenty two consonants and sixteen vowels. French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and two processes affecting word-final sounds: liaison, a certain type of sandhi, wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel; and elision, wherein a final vowel is elided before vowel initial words. ❖ There are 16 vowels in French, not all of which are used in every dialect: /a/, /ɑ/, /e/, /ɛ/, /ə/, /i/, /o/, /ɔ/, /y/, /u/, /œ/, /ø/, plus the nasalized vowels /ɑ̃/, /ɛ̃/, /ɔ̃/ and /œ̃/. In France, the vowels /ɑ/ and /œ̃/ are tending to be replaced by /a/ and /ɛ̃/ in many people's speech. ❖ Voiced stops (i.e. /b d ɡ/) are typically produced fully voiced throughout and voiceless stops (i.e. /p t k/) are unaspirated in French. ❖ Fricatives: French has three pairs of homorganic fricatives distinguished by voicing, i.e. labiodental /f/–/v/, dental /s/–/z/, and palato-alveolar /ʃ/–/ʒ/. Notice that /s/–/z/ are dental, like the plosives /t/–/d/, and the nasal /n/. ❖ Lateral and central approximants: The lateral approximant /l/ is unvelarised in both onset (lire) and coda position (il). In the onset, the central approximants [w], [ɥ], and [j] each correspond to a high vowel, /u/, /y/, and /i/ respectively. There are a few minimal pairs where the approximant and corresponding vowel contrast, but there are also many cases where they are in free variation. Contrasts between /j/ and /i/ occur in final position as in /pɛj/ paye, "pay", vs. /pɛi/ pays, "country". ❖ French has one rhotic whose pronunciation varies considerably among speakers and phonetic contexts. In general it is described as a voiced uvular fricative as in [ʁu] roue, "wheel" . Vowels are often lengthened before this segment. It can be reduced to an approximant, particularly in final position (e.g. fort) or reduced to zero in some word-final positions. For other speakers, a uvular trill is also common, and an apical trill [r] occurs in some dialects. Romanian ❖ The phoneme inventory of Romanian consists of seven vowels, two or four semivowels, and twenty consonants. In addition, as with all languages, other phonemes can occur occasionally in interjections or recent borrowings. ❖ Romanian has nine vowels; the more "exotic" ones are /ɨ/, /ə/ (also in stressed positions), and the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/. Additionally, /ø/ and /y/ may appear in some borrowed words. There are also a large number of glide-vowel sequences which are, strictly speaking, not diphthongs. twenty-two consonants. The two approximants /j/ and /w/ can appear before or after any vowel, creating. ❖ While most of these vowels are relatively straightforward and similar or identical to those in many other languages, the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ is uncommon as a phoneme and especially uncommon amongst Indo-European languages. ❖ In final positions after consonants, a short /i/ can be deleted, surfacing only as the palatalization of the preceding consonant (e.g. [mʲ]). Similarly, a deleted /u/ may prompt labialization of a preceding consonant, though this has ceased to carry any morphological meaning. ❖ h is not silent like in French, but represents the phoneme /h/, except in the digraphs ch /k/ and gh /g/. ❖ j represents /ʒ/, as in French. ❖ There are two letters with in Romanian a comma below, Ș and Ț, which represent the sounds /ʃ/ and /t͡s/. However, the allographs with a cedilla instead of a comma, Ş and Ţ, became widespread when pre-Unicode and early Unicode character sets did not include the standard form. ❖ In Romanian ă represents the schwa, /ə/. ❖ The letter e generally represents the mid front unrounded vowel [e], somewhat like in the English word set. However, the letter e is pronounced as ie [je] when it is the first letter of any form of the verb a fi "to be", or of a personal pronoun, for instance este /jeste/ "is" and el /jel/ “he”.This addition of the semivowel /j/ does not occur in more recent loans and their derivatives, such as eră "era", electric "electric" etc. Some words (such as iepure "hare", formerly spelled epure) are now written with the initial i to indicate the semivowel. Vowel Chart Of Romanian |Vowel |Description |Examples | |/a/ |Open central unrounded |apă /ˈa.pə/ water | |/e/ |Mid front unrounded |erou /eˈrow/ hero | |/i/ |Close front unrounded |insulă /ˈin.su.lə/ island | |/o/ |Mid back rounded |copil /koˈpil/ child | |/u/ |Close back rounded |simplu /ˈsim.plu/ simple | |/ə/ |Mid central unrounded |păros /pəˈros/ hairy | |/ɨ/ |Close central unrounded |cârnat /kɨrˈnat/ sausage | Vowel Chart Of French | |Front |Central |Back | | |unrounded |rounded | | | |Close |oral |i |y |  |u | |Close-mid | |e |ø |ə |o | |Open-mid | |ɛ (ɛː) |œ | |ɔ | | |nasal |ɛ̃ |(œ̃) |  |ɔ̃ | |Open | |  |ɑ̃ | | |oral |a |(ɑ) | [pic] |Oral vowels | |/i/ |[si] |si |'if' | |/e/ |[se] |ses |'his'/'her' (plural | | | | |form) | |/ɛ/ |[sɛ] |sait |'knows' | |/ɛː/ |[fɛːt] |fête |'feast' | |/ə/ |[sə] |ce |'this'/'that' | |/œ/ |[sœːʁ] |sœur |'sister' | |/ø/ |[sø] |ceux |'those' | |/y/ |[sy] |su |'known' | |/u/ |[su] |sous |'under' | |/o/ |[so] |sot |'silly' | |/ɔ/ |[sɔːʁ] |sort |'fate' | |/a/ |[sa] |sa |'his'/'her', | |/ɑ/ |[pɑːt] |pâte |'dough' | |/ɑ̃/ |[sɑ̃] |sans |'without' | |/ɔ̃/ |[sɔ̃] |son |'his' | |/œ̃/ |[bʁœ̃] |brun |'brown' | |/ɛ̃/ |[bʁɛ̃] |brin |'sprig' | Consonant Chart Of Romanian |Romanian consonants | | |Bilabial |Labio- |Dental |Post- |Velar |Glottal | | | |dental | |alveolar | | | |Nasal |m | |n | | | | |Plosive |p   b | |t   d | |k   ɡ | | |Affricate | | |ts      |tʃ   dʒ | | | |Fricative | |f   v |s   z |ʃ   ʒ | |h      | |Trill | | |r | | | | |Approximant | | |l | | | | |Consonant |Pronounced as |Examples | |/p/ |p in speak |pas /pas/ step, spate /ˈspa.te/ back, cap /kap/ head | |/b/ |b in boy |ban /ban/ money, zbor /zbor/ I fly, rob /rob/ slave | |/t/ |t in stop |tare /ˈta.re/ hard, stai /staj/ you stay, sat /sat/ village | |/d/ |d in day |dacă /ˈda.kə/ if, vinde /ˈvin.de/ he sells, cad /kad/ I fall | |/k/ |k in sky |cal /ˈkal/ horse, ascund /asˈkund/ I hide, sac /sak/ sack | |/ɡ/ |g in go |gol /ɡol/ empty, pungă /ˈpun.ɡə/ bag, drag /draɡ/ dear | |/ts/ |ts in nuts |ţară /ˈtsa.rə/ country, aţă /ˈa.tsə/ thread, soţ /sots/ husband | |/tʃ/ |ch in chin |cer /tʃer/ sky, vacile /ˈva.tʃi.le/ the cows, maci /matʃʲ/ poppies | |/dʒ/ |j in jingle |ger /dʒer/ frost, magic /ˈma.dʒik/ magical, rogi /rodʒʲ/ you ask | |/m/ |m in man |mic /mik/ small, amar /aˈmar/ bitter, pom /pom/ tree | |/n/ |n in name |nor /nor/ cloud, inel /iˈnel/ ring, motan /moˈtan/ tomcat | |/f/ |f in fine |foc /fok/ fire, afară /aˈfa.rə/ out, pantof /panˈtof/ shoe | |/v/ |v in voice |val /val/ wave, covor /koˈvor/ carpet, mov /mov/ mauve | |/s/ |s in sound |sare /ˈsa.re/ salt, case /ˈka.se/ houses, ales /aˈles/ chosen | |/z/ |z in zone |zid /zid/ wall, mazăre /ˈma.zə.re/ pea, orez /oˈrez/ rice | |/ʃ/ |sh in shy |şarpe /ˈʃar.pe/ snake, aşa /aˈʃa/ so, oraş /oˈraʃ/ city | |/ʒ/ |s in measure |jar /ʒar/ embers, ajutor /a.ʒuˈtor/ help, vrej /vreʒ/ stalk | |/h/ |h in hope |horn /horn/ chimney, pahar /paˈhar/ glass, duh /duh/ spirit | |/l/ |l in like |lung /lunɡ/ long, alună /aˈlu.nə/ hazelnut, fel /fel/ sort | |/r/ |Italian r |repede /ˈre.pe.de/ quickly, tren /tren/ train, măr /mər/ apple | Consonant Chart Of French |IPA chart French consonants | | |Labial |Dental/ |Palato- |Palatal |Velar |Uvular | | | |Alveolar |alveolar | | | | | | |IPA |Example |Gloss |IPA |Example |Gloss | |/m/ |[mjɛl] | |[pic] | |acute accent (accent aigu) |é only | |grave accent (accent grave) |è, à, ù | |circumflex (accent circonflexe) |â, ê, î, ô, û | |diaeresis (tréma) |ë, ï, ü, ÿ | |cedilla (cédille) |Ç only | In Romanian accent marks are not these much.Thus,this makes speaking French harder for a Romanian speaker. • The French U is another tricky sound, esspeacially for Romanian speakers, for two reasons: it's hard to say and it's sometimes difficult for untrained ears to distinguish it from the French OU. But with practice, one can learn how to hear and say it. • Nasal vowels are the ones that make it sound like the speaker's nose is stuffed up. In fact, nasal vowel sounds are created by pushing air through the nose and mouth, rather than just the mouth like you do for regular vowels.