Help needed with French pronunciation.

March 27, 2011 8:16 PM

My wife is reading Les Miserables and I am reading bits along with her. Many years ago I took French in high school and am amazed at how much French pronunciation ability I have lost. Is anyone aware of any website or other reference source where I can get French names and words from the book pronounced for me?

For example, I can guess that Eponine is pronounced ep-o-neen, but there are many other examples where I have no clue. BTW, to be clear, she is reading the English translation.
I have also thought about getting an audio book of Les Miserables but that seems like overkill and time consuming to me. (In re-reading this, I am painfully aware that I am trying to make short work of a great classic).

posted by Rad_Boy to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Give me the list of names and a skype number and I'll read them for you.

ep-o-neen is right.
posted by bru at 8:21 PM on March 27, 2011

Best answer: googletranslate will read things out loud for you...including 'Eponine'.
posted by Tandem Affinity at 8:31 PM on March 27, 2011

This doesn't precisely answer your question, but...I studied French for years and even lived in France for a little while, but my skills have gotten really rusty. Listening to the free Coffee Break French podcast has done a lot to get me back up to speed. Just hearing those words pronounced by native or otherwise excellent speakers is really worthwhile.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:37 PM on March 27, 2011

Forvo is great for things like this -- native speaker pronunciations, and you can even request new ones if they don't have a word you'd like to hear.
posted by katemonster at 8:50 PM on March 27, 2011

Rent a French movie with subtitles and really try to listen to the dialog instead of reading the English. It comes back to you more quickly than you think. There are some great recent (2000s) movies such as Amelie, A Prophet, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I Have Loved You So Long, Tell No One, Love Me If You Dare ...
posted by dhartung at 9:40 PM on March 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Forvo is great if you just want to look up single words. If you want to actually relearn French pronunciation, I recommend the Foreign Service Institute's Introduction to French Phonology, which is in the public domain. Open up the student text PDF, go to chapter one, play the appropriate tape, and follow along. Each chapter takes about a half hour -- if you do one a day, you can finish it in less than two weeks.
posted by theodolite at 8:49 AM on March 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wow, so many good responses. Forvo is the kind of site I had in mind, but it (at the moment, anyway) is loading very slowly so I tried out Google Translate. I had no idea it pronounced the words. It works beautifully. Thank you all.
posted by Rad_Boy at 10:30 AM on March 28, 2011