[robotmay]

Every time I try to pronounce "Auvergne" to a French person they quite literally cannot comprehend what I'm aiming for. It's pretty remarkable that I've been trying for years at this point and still can't get it right! I can manage Clermont-Ferrand at least so I can sort of fudge what I mean using that but still, it would be nice to figure it out one day :D

[bertil]

Auvergne has a lot of the sounds that are almost impossible to get right: 'au' has few equivalent other than the Scandinavian 'å' (and they rarely make the connection), 'v' is muted, the wet 'gn' sounds like the Spanish 'll' but is hard for even then to put in the middle of a word — and the unheard final 'e' will trip anyone in the country for less than two decade.

“Bonjour“ and “croissant” are classic examples too: the opening 'b' is muted, 'j' only exist in some arabic dialect, etc.

I used to live near the Louvre and the hundreds of tourist ordering at the local bakery were offended that, pointing at the pastries and articulating as much as they could, the baker would claim to have no idea what they wanted. I had to explain that she genuinely couldn’t understand and she was sincerely confused at them pointing at a croissant and asking for a “Keurrawssanteu”. Those two things could not be the same — it’s not an accent: someone from Switwzerland or Quebec would have no problem even though they sound completely different. I could make sense because I spoke English. “But I’m speaking in French…” Well… almost.