Ha!

I tend to agree that your average American is stupid. Not sure about lovable...unless you find stupidity charming, I suppose.



And I'm kind of the complement to you: I can't remember most of what I learned but I can pronounce it pretty well. Except some of the words that have vowel and consonant combinations which are tough for native English speakers, things like oeil, ouille, euil, euille, where your lips and tongue are doing things they aren't used to. They seem easy until you know that a slight variation means something else entirely, as you implied with "pronunciation is important". To be fair, English is similar. I've had help over the phone I can't understand because their accent is so thick words sound like other words.



HAHAHAHA

Yea... for the most part, not knowing French in Montreal isn't too much of a problem as most people are at least passable in English but they definitely appreciate anyone who shows effort in trying to speak it. So, doesn't surprise me that was your experience at all.

I was impressed that many of the people who spoke both, seemed to speak them both perfectly. As in English had no French accent (almost sounding "American" at times) and French sounded, well, not like an English speaking person trying to pronounce French.

There is a distinct meter to spoken French, which is something I was never taught but picked up when I lived there. Often the emphasis falls in the fifth or seventh syllable of a phrase, which is when the speaker takes a breath. It's very different from how we construct phrased in spoken American English.

Agreed on that as well. I think many, many people grow up in multilingual homes & environments so they speak naturally rather than those of us who try to learn a 2nd language later on.

Now that you say this, I've noticed it, too, a cadence and emphasis on syllables, but analyze it. It seems to be to key to sounding more authentic.

No statement is ever fewer than 5 syllables, and there's almost always an emphasis on the 7th syllable in a longer phrase. A former French teacher had a theory that it derives from the meter of classical poetry. In informal speech, filler words -- eg, ¨quoi¨ -- sometimes are used to fill out a phrase to hit the fifth or seventh beat. I am sure this is class and culturally specific, but its still pretty prevalent.

This is interesting. I think I picked up on it but not consciously because I notice that emphasizing certain syllables -- around the 7th, as you say -- does sound more correct.

Thanks for explaining!