Sunday, November 15, 2009

How do you pronounce the French name "Goriot", as in the book by Balzac, "Pere Goriot"?

gor-YO





When people speak a language fluently, they use what linguists call "fast-speech" and fast-speech follows rules that are a little different than those same people usually realize. For instance, in English, if you asked someone for a synonym for "small", they'd probably say "liddle". Yes, they mean "little", but nobody pronounces those as T's, it's just not the way it's done. But if I say back to you "I can't hear you, what did you say?" you are likely to say back "LIT-TLE" and really hit the Ts hard. So, internally, we know that they are Ts, but when we say them fast they devolve into Ds.





Same in French. So, to pronounce Goriot in French fast-speech, you really just use two syllables:





gor-YO





and, it's gotta be a French R sound which is a scratchy slightly loogie-hawking sound (pardon my French, there).





yes, and a hard G at the beginning (the French use a soft "english J sounding g" for words where the G is followed by the vowel sounds I and E.)





And BTW, the author is bal-ZAHK where the "bal" sounds to an English speaker more like the god Baal (like baa baa black sheep :) ) than the word "ball"

How do you pronounce the French name "Goriot", as in the book by Balzac, "Pere Goriot"?
Gory-O.
Reply:the lady above is not a French speaker. It's a hard G. As in Gare (French for railway station) which is not pronounced "jar" (English for something you keep jam in)


Goh-ree-o, with the weight on the first syllable.
Reply:PRONOUNCE GORIO (WITHOUT THE T, AND STRESSING THE LAST o)

china rose

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