# Pick a French Canadian voice for the WR dictionaries



## mkellogg

Hi everybody,

We want to record the words in the WR dictionaries with a French Canadian accent.  Please help us choose a good representative voice.

French Canadian Auditions

Let me know who you like!

Mike


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## Language Hound

Hi, Mike!

I don't think Voices.com understood that you were looking for people with _Canadian_ French accents.

LH


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## All in One

Genevieve, Marc, Marie have a French accent.
I vote for Mukti.


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## mkellogg

I haven't even listened to them, not do I think I would be able to judge.  So, the accents are not those of Quebec?


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## Reynald

Amélie (to my Parisian ears). Because of the way she pronounces these
vowels: inverse, bien, bientôt, moins and the [d] in distance.


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## Kelly B

I'd suggest other listeners start from the bottom of the Voices list.

I wasn't going to weigh in before the Canadians do - an occasional visit to Montréal and listening to Radio Canada when I can tune it on my a.m. radio hardly counts - so this is more a bump than a vote. 

I focused on the same cues Reynald mentioned. I hear them in Jerome's second iteration - if he does samples he should aim in that direction. I hear them in Maggie's, too; I prefer her voice over Amélie's as a purely aesthetic matter, though I don't necessarily think Maggie's accent is more representative. I thought Mukti sounded Belgian, but I'm even less qualified to judge that. 

As for the other speakers, it may be useful to clarify the objective to them - Radio Canada news presenters sound COMPLETELY different from, say, the celebrity interviewers; some of your candidates may be deliberately neutralizing their accents in the same way news presenters do.


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## fightxsong

To me, almost all of them sound like what I hear on the radio, news, or the prerecorded messages you get when you call a government agency like the SAAQ or the RAMQ. What we call "l'accent Radio-Canada".

Amelie sounds the most like someone I'd meet on the street here in Montréal.

Maggie sounds like what I aim for when talking to my boyfriend's francophone family or a francophone client at work.

If I met first-version Liane, I would assume that she was from France.


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## Nicomon

As a born and raised Quebecker, I agree with Kelly about  Jerome's second iteration.
And I prefer his voice to that of Amelie who, granted, has less of the « accent Radio Canada ».
I however can detect a little English accent in Maggie's French.  I don't think French is her mother tongue.

The other women sound as if they made an extra effort.  Same thing goes for Marc and Thierry.
So I also agree with this : 





> some of your candidates may be deliberately neutralizing their accents in the same way news presenters do.



But then,  you need to define "French Canadian".  Because in my opinion, there is no such thing.
Accents vary from one city to the next.   Just as they do in France.  The level of education is also at play.
So what are you aiming for exactly?  And why specifically "French Canadian"?
Or should we understand that you intend to record several French accents from different countries?


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## Uncle Bob

Nicomon said:


> But then,  you need to define "French Canadian"...



Perhaps this quote from Wikipedia is relevant by analogy:
*"*Received Pronunciation (RP) is regarded as the standard accent of Standard English in the United Kingdom... Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that *3%* of people in Britain were RP speakers." (My underlining and bold type)


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## Glasguensis

Like Kelly, I was waiting for a Canadian French-speaker to venture an opinion. Now that Nicomon has done so, I have to say that I agree entirely - Amelie and Jerome's second version are what I would be looking for here. Like the regional English accents you tested, clearly we are suffering from the "Radio Canada" effect, and to me the interest of the language variants is to be able to hear a difference, not minimise it. I also share Nicomon's preference for Jerome's voice.


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## Nicomon

Thank you Uncle Bob.  It is indeed very relevant.


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## Étoile du Nord

From Nicomon: 'But then, you need to define "French Canadian". Because in my opinion, there is no such thing.'

I agree. Also, remember there are many French-speaking communities outside of Quebec. Radio-Canada broadcasts from a number of the other provinces throughout the country, almost all of them. Another wrinkle here is that to call something 'Canadian' is to not define it as such. While there are common patterns, structures and rhythms within the country, Canada absorbs and integrates all cultures and evolves over time. This is an Aboriginal, specifically Métis, concept. See the following book description:

http://www.johnralstonsaul.com/non-fiction-books/a-fair-country/

Perhaps it is a bit harder to pin down something as Standard Canadian, in French or English. It is our nature to not do this.

As far the voices go, I prefer Jerome as well.

EDIT: @ Kelly B. Have you tried listening to Radio-Canada online? Here is one link to try:

EDIT: Sorry about the audio link. I just read Wordsmyth's post below and took it off. So try Google, if you are interested.


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## Lovergirl79

I love that you are doing this so bumping this but though I can tell rather quickly from *listening* to the radio/movies (from earshot, not actually watching) if it's a Quebec accent or not I'm having some trouble with this one. I will wait a little bit and come back with fresh ears perhaps.  Really hope more Quebecois respond to this post.

I do want to say I have often noticed Quebeckers "losing" their accent in formal educational situations. Almost wonder if some of them did that for these recordings!


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## Étoile du Nord

From mkellog: 'So, the accents are not those of Quebec?'

There is a difficulty if you want to call something French-Canadian and then only refer to native French-speakers who live in Quebec. For example, the province of New Brunswick is officially bilingual (French and English) and French has equal legal status with English in Manitoba, and some argue it should be bilingual as well.

Acadians (Acadia was also once a colony of France) are French-speaking Canadians. But I think their French has developed a bit differently than in Quebec.

While I am aware the English I speak and write is different from that of Australia, New Zealand, England, America and so on, I personally would never say I speak Canadian English.

Maybe if you are looking for French accents from native-speakers in Quebec, the title for these recordings could reflect that in some way.


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## Wordsmyth

As other non-Canadians have said, I hesitate to offer an opinion: Nico's views should carry most weight (though no doubt fightxsong and l'étoile du nord also have a good basis for judgement). My own first-hand awareness of French Canadian accents is based only on working visits to Montréal, and on having worked and socialised with Québécois colleagues, and some others, here in France.

But it seems to me that voice samples should demonstrate the areas where the _biggest_ differences lie between Canadian French and 'standard' franco-français pronunciations. There's not much point in having a separate pronunciation category if it sounds much the same as 'standard' French. Choosing a representative voice may be difficult, given the variations of accent across both countries, but my impression is that some of the strongest Canadian French markers aren't really demonstrated by those recorded samples ...

Among the strongest markers, to my ear, there are the _t _and _d_ before certain vowels, pronounced _ts_ and _dz_ (which are just about there in _"distance"_ in Amélie's recording and in Jérôme's second run, but I've often heard them sounded much more strongly). A sentence with _"tu dis"_ would bring that sound out more. Then there's the long, dipthongised _o_ in words such as _"chose"_. And the _i _in words such as _"police"_, which is often more central and more open, and much shorter than in French French: sounding more like 'poliss' than 'poleece'. And various other vowel sounds, some of which Reynald has mentioned.

Is that a fair comment Nico, or have my experiences been atypical?

(We're not allowed to post audio/video links, but if you google for 'Garou parle de Bruno Pelletier' you can find something that is, to my ear, far more Québécois than any of the Voices.com samples.)

Ws


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## Language Hound

Wordsmyth said:


> ...But it seems to me that voice samples should demonstrate the areas where the _biggest_ differences lie between Canadian French and 'standard' franco-français pronunciations. There's not much point in having a separate pronunciation category if it sounds much the same as 'standard' French. Choosing a representative voice may be difficult, given the variations of accent across both countries, but my impression is that some of the strongest Canadian French markers aren't really demonstrated by those recorded samples ...


 For what it's worth, I wholeheartedly agree.


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## Nicomon

Wordsmyth said:


> [...]Is that a fair comment Nico, or have my experiences been atypical? [...]


 Yes, I think that is a  fair comment, Ws.  Especially if your coworkers  are Montrealers. 
For instance you  can definitely hear the _ts/dz_ sound in my own accent when I say « _Qu'est-ce que tu dis_ ».
If I make an effort to pronounce the _t_ and_ d_ more "pointus", I sound just as fake as non Quebeckers trying to imitate the so called "Quebec accent".
Which, I repeat, is not the same in Montréal as it is in say... Lac Saint-Jean or Gaspé, and varies depending on education.

Garou can sometimes be hard to follow, even for a trained ear, though. 
For a radio but not so "Radio Canada" accent, try Paul Arcand.

That said, I do think that Jerome's accent in the second reading sounds pretty much like mine.   I wouldn't aim for « joual ».


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## Maîtreaupôle

I believe that the task Mike has set himself is impossible. There is no more a single French-Canadian accent typical of Canada than there is a single French accent typical of France. The pronunciations WR provides of the French of (presumably?) France is a type of RP French that perhaps 3% of France speaks [following on Uncle Bob #9] or perhaps no native speakers, really. The criteria used to settle on this RP French are not wholly arbitrary, however. I would bet they give some rough idea of how a subset of "well-educated" and literate French speakers in France speak - those who (in the minds of those who set the standards)  avoid any grossly unattractive habits of pronunciation. I believe these RP constructs are intended to serve a control function on how different a type of French can become before it becomes a communication problem across regions. It also (inadvertently?) becomes a version of "international" French with the result that it winds up more likely to be spoken by a non-francophone than any native French speaker. 

To me, this is the same with CBC French. Formed according to different criteria than RP French used in France, it serves the same functions including that of being a French more likely to be spoken by a foreigner than by any francophone who is not a news anchor. I am such a foreigner who actually speaks CBC French, and I love it. Isn't that pathetic?!

To cut to the chase, I think the best Mike can do is pick an existing RP French, despite its artificiality, that was trumped up in Canada for his Canadian French just as he has picked an existing RP French that was trumped up in France to represent French French. That leaves him accepting the artificiality/arbitrariness of the result, but it is either that or forget the whole thing. As I suggested, such an RP choice would not be entirely useless. One, it would provide a control, as mentioned, if you're into control. Two, it would provide another international French that a non-native speaker could choose with the assurance most French speakers globally would understand it. Not much use in either case to a francophone, but, hey, throw me a bone. By the way, not being a CBC basher, my candidate for the job is, yes, CBC news anchor French with its four -count 'em - four nasal vowels, and its suppression of the particular diphthong that characterizes many Canadian and Québecois regional dialects. However, if one wanted to retain a hint of that suppressed diphthong, one might turn to Amélie. She was the only one in whom I heard even a hint of it.


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## Nicomon

I maintain that I prefer Jerome's second reading to Amelie's, if only "voice wise".

I of course don't advise - and I wrote it before - a « joual sounding » French like that of « Les têtes à claques » 

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I didn't mean to bash against Radio Canada news anchors, but those samples just don't sound natural to my francophone ears.
They don't sound like Céline Galipeau, Bernard Derome or Henri Bergeron before him... they sound forced/artificial.

And while I don't talk like a news anchor woman,  I personally do also use four nasal vowels and don't diphtong that much.
That said, I hope other French Quebeckers or Canadian francophones will chime in.  I feel somewhat alone here.  I think I'd better move to another thread.


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## Maîtreaupôle

In my response #18, I meant only to express the opinion of an anglophone who has spent a fair bit of time in Quebec and learned his French there. As well, I am familiar with other French speaking environments in Canada. For many years, one of my dearest friends has been an Acadian from New Brunswick and we make it a habit to talk together in French. On radio, I hear quite regularly interviews with franco-Albertans. It is from that background that I made my comments thinking they might be of interest, but certainly not thinking they are expert or have anything like the weight of Nico's reflections.

Two further clarifications are in order. While I believe  Radio Canada French might be as good a choice as any to serve Mr. Kellog's purposes, that was not intended as a vote for any of the Radio-Canada-like voice samples we were offered. I don't contest that they did not sound like the voices of Céline Galipeau, Bernard Derome, etc. Rather, they sounded, as Nico says, somewhat "forced/artificial". I would note, though, that making the observation of the contrast between those voices and Galipeau's and Derome's does seem to imply that the voices of the latter do not sound similarly forced or artificial. Anyhow, I have to confess they sound like music to my anglo ears.

Secondly, my reference to the four nasal vowels was badly put. The comparison I meant to suggest was between the four nasal vowels in Radio-Canada French (and of any French dialect in Canada of which I am aware) and the three nasal vowels I associate with the French from France I am most familiar with. Sorry, Nico, I totally botched what I was trying to say there. 

Anyhow, I could never be so thick (I hope) as to think I was half so qualified as Nico to be commenting on all the above, and if it comes to a choice, I would unhesitatingly advise Mike to move me to another thread, not Nico. Nico and Wordsmyth seem to me to have said much more of value than I have, for example, and to be pointing to an approach that would lead to a better result than simply settling for Radio-Canada French. I am just wondering, if in the end, all the work of developing the project they seem at least implicitly to be hinting at might overwhelm the resources of WordReference. If not, it would make a fascinating project.


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## Étoile du Nord

@ Nicomon: No offence here. I would feel the same way about CBC announcers. I do not think I sound like Anna Maria Tremonti or Nahlah Ayed or Peter Mansbridge. Though, when you are learning a new language, you can pick up all kinds of ways of speaking from various sources.

I have also heard the distinctions described above by Wordsmyth and Maîtreaupôle, and, outside of Quebec, I also hear numbers of others. So for me, these would not constitute the greatest portion of the variations I hear. Thus, I would hesitate to call them the biggest differences. It may be a bit like asking, what is the biggest variation from British English, the way Australians speak or the way Americans speak?

Also, take into account that many French-speaking Canadians have spoken both French and English since they were born. I think this can have an affect on the accent of both languages. 

That said, I am only a francophone at heart, so I, too, will give way...


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## Glasguensis

Note that the idea is not to find the single perfect Canadian French voice. We had exactly the same kind of debate when choosing Irish and Scottish voices. Of course there are many different accents in Canada, just as there are many different accents in Scotland or Ireland. The idea is to give dictionary users some idea of how a word might sound, and the potential differences between the accent choices available. Ultimately we may have many different accents for some of the more common words / languages. The idea here is simply to choose a pleasant voice with an accent which is recognisably Canadian (recognisable by speakers from both Canada and France).


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## Wordsmyth

l'étoile du nord said:


> I have also heard the distinctions described above by Wordsmyth and Maîtreaupôle, but, outside of Quebec, I also hear numbers of others. So for me, these would not constitute the greatest portion of the variations I hear. Thus, I would hesitate to call them the _biggest_ differences.


Fair enough, Étoile. As Nico said ...


Nicomon said:


> Yes, I think that is a fair comment, Ws. Especially if your coworkers are Montrealers.


... and, with one exception, they are.

Ws


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## mkellogg

This certainly started a lively discussion. 



Nicomon said:


> you need to define "French Canadian". Because in my opinion, there is no such thing.
> Accents vary from one city to the next. Just as they do in France. The level of education is also at play.
> So what are you aiming for exactly? And why specifically "French Canadian"?
> Or should we understand that you intend to record several French accents from different countries?


We have a representative voice for France and I would like one for Quebec.  Of course there are a lot of different accents, but we need to chose one.



l'étoile du nord said:


> Maybe if you are looking for French accents from native-speakers in Quebec, the title for these recordings could reflect that in some way.


Too late! I think you all figured it out.



Wordsmyth said:


> my impression is that some of the strongest Canadian French markers aren't really demonstrated by those recorded samples


We can just say "no" to them all and try again later or find a friend who can do the recordings.  Recording words into a microphone is not rocket science, but we have had better luck with "professionals" than other people. The main problem is getting somebody to actually sit down and do the work.



Maîtreaupôle said:


> That leaves him accepting the artificiality/arbitrariness of the result, but it is either that or forget the whole thing


That is what we had to do with our Jamaican English accent. Nothing worked out and we gave up for now.



Nicomon said:


> those samples just don't sound natural to my francophone ears


Nicomon, if you feel that it would be better for me to not accept any of them, speak up.  We can always try again later.  I would rather get this right than to get it done now.

If Nicoman gives the go-ahead, then it seems Jerome #2 wins.

Thanks everybody!


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## Lacuzon

Bonjour,

To my French ears, both Jérome's and Amélie's sound like a French Canadian accent. Maggie's one, albeit very resembling, to me as to Nicomon, has a slightly English accent.


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## pointvirgule

Nicomon said:


> That said, I hope other French Quebeckers or Canadian francophones will chime in. I feel somewhat alone here.


OK, OK, me v'là, pour pas que Nico se sente toute seule de Québécoise icitte.  En fait, je n'ai pas grand-chose à ajouter à ce qu'elle a dit. À tout prendre, j'aurais penché pour Amélie, dont l'accent se rapproche du mien, mais va pour Jérôme–série 2... pourvu qu'on puisse le convaincre de ne pas essayer de prendre un ton trop professionnel. T'auditionnes pas pour un système de réponse téléphonique, chose bine (« Pour le service en français, faites le 1 »).


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## Nicomon

Merci, pv.  Je commençais à penser que tous les québécois avaient déserté le forum. 

@ Mike :   As you can see, it's a toss between  Amélie and Jérôme (second reading).
I think either one is fine as far as accent goes.
However, as I already said it several times,  I prefer Jerome's voice... by far.  But then, I prefer men voices in general.

Note : I agree with pv that you may need to remind Jérôme that he is not auditioning for a telephone answering system.  
Note 2 : My comment about forced/not natural was a reference to the other auditions.


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## mkellogg

Nicomon said:


> I agree with pv that you may need to remind Jérôme that he is not auditioning for a telephone answering system.


We try our best to remind them to use a natural voice. We will go with Jerome and hope for the best!

Thanks


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## tonyspeed

mkellogg said:


> That is what we had to do with our Jamaican English accent. Nothing worked out and we gave up for now.




I thought we had narrowed it down and picked a selection. It seems maybe perceptions on what a Jamaican "should" sound like got in the way.


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## mkellogg

Wei hired our favorite Jamaican and he flaked out on us.  I decided not to pursue #2.  We'll try again in six months or so.


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