3 – Les vacances
Prononciation: 3.1 – L’accentuation
In French, stress (l’accentuation) is placed on the final syllable of a word. This is very different from the placement of stress in English which varies according to the word itself. Notice that French stress falls on the last syllable whereas English stress may fall on any syllable (word initial, word medial, or word final). This means that word stress is easily predicted (and learned!) in French.
| French | English | |
| NormanDIE | NORmandy | |
| MéditerranEE | MediteRRAnean | |
| AtlanTIQUE | AtlANtic | |
| CanaDA, canadiEN | CAnada, caNAdian | |
| PaRIS, parisiEN | PAris, paRIsian |
When words are strung together in French to form sentences, stress is placed on the final syllable of the phrase. In a sense, French speakers treat a phrase like they treat a single word – they place the stress at the end. In English, on the other hand, words retain their individual stress pattern when combined into sentences. Compare the two languages:
Je visite la cathéDRALE.
Je visite la cathédrale Notre DAME.
Je visite la cathédrale Notre Dame à PaRIS.
I’m VIsiting the caTHEdral.
I’m VIsiting the caTHEdral NOtre DAME.
I’m VIsiting the caTHEdral NOtre DAME in PAris.
Listen and repeat.
| 1. Je NAGE. | Je nage à la MER. | |
| 2. Je fais du SKI. | Je fais du ski dans les ALPES. | |
| 3. Je visite la BreTAGNE. | Je visite la Bretagne en voiTURE. | |
| 4. Je passe les vaCANCES. | Je passe les vacances à PaRIS. |
