Yeah, this is my major difficulty with French, and it's even more difficult in colloquial spoken French which may drop entire syllables or words. I often find African pronunciations of French to be easier because they seem to pronounce each syllable distinctly.
Having grown up in two languages where dictée is a thing, I was always bemused by spelling bees. You have to spell one word? And have loads of time to do so? Pah!
To be fair, spelling bees usually have more complicated words (though the complicated ones are often borrowed from French anyway so, win-win for some of us).
While helping my children learn French spelling, I was horrified when I realized that there are 6 or 7 ways to write the sound [ɛ̃]:
un in (im) [i]en ain aim ein
Yeah, I've been there. Apparently my pronunciation of "Chretien" (Christian) was indecipherable, and the French people I was speaking with clarified it for me by saying, "you're saying cray-tee-uh(n), but it's pronounced cray-tee-uh(n)"
The first one is pronounced with an O shape with the mouth (like you would do with the word oh), and the others with more of a smile shape (like with the word see). It’s impossible to pronounce one like the other.
I’m not a native English speaker and I gave up trying to pronounce th (father, through). Although I can hear the difference.
Yup, very parisian. Love how then they almost mock how pain (bread) is pronounced in the south-west where you won't mistake the sounds between the words un pain.