HE CAN NOT SPEAK FRENCH, BUT HE CAN READ IT, YOU KNOW.--HE HAS A TRY
AT IT IN PARIS.--NASAL SOUNDS AND ACCENTED SYLLABLES.--HOW I REDUCED
ENGLISH WORDS TO SINGLE SYLLABLES, AND WAS SUCCESSFUL IN THE OBJECT I
HAD IN VIEW.--A REMARK ON THE CONNECTION OF WORDS.
When you ask an Englishman whether he can speak French, he generally
answers:
"I can read it, you know."
"Aloud!" you inquire, with a significant smile.
"Well," he says, "I have never had much practice in reading French
aloud. I mean to say that I can understand what I read. Of course, now
and then I come across a word that I am not quite sure about, but I can
get on, you know."
"I suppose you manage to make yourself understood in France."
"Oh! very little French is required for that; I always go to the
English hotels."
He always does so on the Continent, because these hotels are the only
ones that can provide him with English comfort.
When he starts for Paris he gets on capitally till he reaches Calais.
There he assumes his insular stiffness, which we Continental people
take for arrogance, but is, in reality, only dignified timidity.
Arrived at the Gare du Nord, he takes a cab and goes to one of the
hotels in the Rue Saint Honore or the Rue de Rivoli.
The first time he reached one of these establishments, he tripped on
getting out of his cab, and fell on the pavement. The porter helped him
up and asked him:
"_Avez-vous du mal, monsieur?_"
He thought the porter took him for a Frenchman, and he prepared to
answer in French. Believing he was asked if "he had two trunks," he
answers:
"No, only a portmanteau."
After this first success, he thought he would air his French.
"_Garcon!_" he calls; "_j'ai faim._"
He pronounces this quite perfectly, so perfectly that the waiter,
understanding that he is married, informs him that he can have
apartments ready for Madame.
"He is obstinate and will have another shot:
"_Je suis fameux, garcon!_"
The waiter bows respectfully.
This won't do, dear fellow; try again.
"_Je suis femme!_" he yells.
This staggers the waiter.
It is time to inquire of him if he speaks English.
"Can you speak English?"
"Oh yes, sir."
Our traveler is all right again, but he thinks that those confounded
French people have a queer manner of pronouncing their own language.
* * * * *
With the exception of our nasal sounds, which I know are
stumbling-blocks to Englishmen--who will always insist on calling our
great music composer and pianist Saint-Saens, "Sang Songs"--I never
could understand that the difficulty of our pronunciation was
insuperable. Our vowels are bold, well-marked, always sounded the same,
and, except _u_, like the English vowels, or so nearly like them that
they can not prevent an Englishman from understanding French and
speaking it.
The greatest mistake he makes is in not bearing in mind that the accent
should always be laid on the last syllable, or on the last but one if
the word ends in _e_ mute. How much easier this is to remember than the
place of the English accented syllable, which varies constantly! In
_admirable_, you have it on the first; in _admire_, on the second; in
_admiration_, on the third. On the contrary, no difficulty about the
pronunciation of the three French words, _admirable_, _admirer_, and
_admiration_; the tonic accent falls on the last sound syllable in
every case.
* * * * *
The less educated a man is the more stress he lays on the accented
syllables; and you find the lower classes of a country lay such
emphasis on these syllables that they almost pronounce nothing else.
Being unable to make myself understood when pronouncing whole English
words, I have often tried to use only the accented syllables when
speaking to the lower class people of England; in every attempt I have
been successful.
I obtained a basket of strawberries in Covent Garden Market by asking
for a "_bask of strawbs_."
A lower class Yankee will understand few Frenchmen who speak to him of
_America_; but he will understand them if they speak to him of _Merk_.
* * * * *
The greatest defect in an Englishman's pronunciation of French is
generally in the wrong connection of words between which there is no
pause.
The final consonant of a word, followed by another beginning with a
vowel or _h_ mute, should be pronounced as if it belonged to the latter
word. An Englishman sounds _ses amis_ as if it was _seize amis_. He
should say: "se samis."
"Mon ami est a Paris" = "Mo nami e ta Paris."
Perhaps the following remark on the separation of syllables may fix the
rule:
The English say: _mag-nan-im-ity_.
The French say: ma-gna-ni-mi-te.
* * * * *
You see, dear reader, how difficult it is to refrain from talking
"shop," when one has been a school-master.