# How to pronounce "bon"



## englishman

Apparently I've been pronouncing "bon" incorrectly all these years (like "dans") so I've been trying to figure out how to say it properly. I think that it goes like this:

1. Say the English word "bawl", but drop the "l" 
2. Pout the lips a bit more than English people are wont to do.
3. Add a nasal French "n"

How does that sound ?


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## Gardefeu

How do you pronounce _non_?


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## englishman

Gardefeu said:
			
		

> How do you pronounce _non_?


Je dis "bon" comme "dans", ainsi je dis "non" comme "nans", bien sûr 

I'm afraid French is pretty much a read-only language for me at the moment, so I don't get any feedback on the vagaries of my pronunciation. To be honest, I can barely distinguish the difference between real French people saying "bon" and "dans" - I don't think I can be the only person for whom this is the case.


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## DearPrudence

"bon" is not pronounced like "dans".

"dans" is a bit pronouced like the British "dance" (without the /s/ sound at the end).

Maybe this site could help you.


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## englishman

DearPrudence said:
			
		

> "bon" is not pronounced like "dans".
> 
> "dans" is a bit pronouced like the British "dance" (without the /s/ sound at the end).
> 
> Maybe this site could help you.


I can pronounce "dans" just fine, I think. The problem is with "bon". I took a look at that site the last time I raised this question, and I can't hear the difference, but given that I'm listening to a speech synthesiser mediated via the internet, my computer, and some cheap headphones, I'm not losing too much sleep over that at the moment. Thanks anyway. I'll be in France next week anyway, so I'll try and listen to a real live French person, if I get the opportunity.

BTW, I also found some of the English pronunciations to be slightly off there; I wouldn't expect too much from anything but a human being.

Another point: there are at least 3 different pronunciations of "dance" in Britain, and none of them are really like "dans", which has a slightly darker vowel sound to it than any of the British possibilities (at least, the way I say it - maybe I say that incorrectly too)


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## Napolitain

englishman, I tried your link, it's amazing !!!


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## calembourde

Englishman, you're not alone!

I also used to pronounce bon (and all other 'on' sounds) that way, until I read another thread on these forums, and listened to the speech synthesis and realised they were different. I was surprised I hadn't noticed it because the two sounds are distinct even in English, at least in my accent... it's the difference between 'good' (bon) and 'god'. (ban) (Except I think that my English grandmother pronounced 'good' differently so this probably won't help you.) I listened to the phrase 'mon enfant' on this site, and I heard that the vowel in 'mon' is different, although I was sure I had never heard anyone say it like that before. I had always pronounced all three vowels the same way. Maybe you can hear the difference in this phrase. Now I try to listen out for the difference when people are speaking but I could swear that people often pronounce 'on' the same as 'an' or 'en'.

I am also a bit confused about the pronunciation of 'dans' though. I think I pronounce it correctly (a nasal version of the 'o' in 'god' in my accent, the same as in most British accents I think) but the book I originally learnt French from said that it should be pronounced as DearPrudence said, like the sound in 'dance', more of an 'ah' sound. I hear Italians pronouncing it that way and I think they're getting it wrong, but I wonder if they are just different accents of French, equally correct.


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## OlivierG

Yes, there are major differences in the way these sounds (nasalized vowels) are pronounced, depending on the accent.
There should be 4 of them:
an (dans) 
on (pont)
un (brun)
in (vin)
However, the Parisian accent tends to lessen the difference between them. For instance, "in" and "un" are often pronounced exactly the same way.
In the South of France, the difference is much more obvious.

Edit: try to make the speech synthesizer say "brin brun" and you'll understand what I mean.


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## Johnny Blaze

If you pronounce *dans* like the way the English say dance......well you won't go very far.

If dans is followed by a vowel you pronounce the s if not you don't.

The closest thing I can think of is the name Don except don't pronounce the n.


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## antoine.a

maybe  try "song"

song - then remove the s, go with bong - then remove the g. 

i think you'd be near with this.


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## englishman

antoine.a said:
			
		

> maybe  try "song"
> 
> song - then remove the s, go with bong - then remove the g.
> 
> i think you'd be near with this.



Unfortunately, that's exactly how I pronounce "en", "dans", and so on.


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## Veege

Hi Englishman,
I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with pronunciation, especially as you seem to have a firm grasp on the language. Here's what I tell my mom, who is 55 and who is trying to learn French but focuses so hard on perfectly pronouncing a given word that she will never get anywhere: "Just speak! You learned French too late to have a decent accent, it's a known a fact. Frenchies (and anyone, for that matter) will give you credit for giving it a try!" I tell the same thing to my French husband as he's speaking English, and he's 27. If you didn't learn to pronounce before the age of 15 or 16 (and usually before 12 is best), you're at a huge disadvantage. However, you are fantastic for learning new and _extremely_ challenging things, like another language. 
Bon courage!!!


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## englishman

Veege said:
			
		

> Hi Englishman,
> I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with pronunciation, especially as you seem to have a firm grasp on the language.


Actually, I'm not really struggling with pronunciation - I have been told in the past by native French speakers that my accent is pretty good - it's this particular "on" sound that I mispronounce, and I've been doing it for so long that it's pretty hard to change now (I started learning French at 8 so I probably managed to learn the wrong pronunciation at the worst time).

However, having read some of the responses above, it's not even clear to me that there are fixed, non-regional pronunciations of the "an" "en", "on" "in", "un" sounds, so maybe I'm wasting my time trying to change it anyway.


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## englishman

calembourde said:
			
		

> it's the difference between 'good' (bon) and 'god'. (ban) (Except I think that my English grandmother pronounced 'good' differently so this probably won't help you.) I listened to the phrase 'mon enfant' on this site, and I heard that the vowel in 'mon' is different, although I was sure I had never heard anyone say it like that before. I had always pronounced all three vowels the same way.


"good" v. "god" seems like a nice way to remember it - thanks.

I've take a look at that site, and tried it with "bon enfant sur le pont" - as far as I can tell, there is *no* difference between the first three syllables, but a big difference with "pont", which is pronounced as per your "good" suggestion above.


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## antoine.a

englishman said:
			
		

> "good" v. "god" seems like a nice way to remember it - thanks.
> 
> I've take a look at that site, and tried it with "bon enfant sur le pont" - as far as I can tell, there is *no* difference between the first three syllables, but a big difference with "pont", which is pronounced as per your "good" suggestion above.



actualy, there is a difference between the first three syllabes. in this case, "bon" is pronounced like "bonne", "en" like "banc" and "ant" like "france". but for the two last ones, you can forget it - even good natives could not perceive it...


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## JamesM

> I've take a look at that site, and tried it with "bon enfant sur le pont" - as far as I can tell, there is *no* difference between the first three syllables, but a big difference with "pont", which is pronounced as per your "good" suggestion above.


I'm not a native speaker of French, but I do hear a distinct difference between the vowel sound in "bon" and the two (nearly identical to my ear) vowel sounds in "enfant".  ("fant" sounds a little more open to me, but it's almost identical to my ear.)

Actually, the Alain voice and the Juliette voice say "bon" two different ways, Alain using more of an "oh" sound and Juliette having more of an "uh" sound.  I'm used to hearing it pronounced more like the Alain voice than like the Juliette voice.

Can you hear the difference between Alain and Juliette saying "bon"?  Maybe if you start there you can work up to hearing the difference between "bon" and "enfant" in one of the voices.

It's definitely a subtle difference, especially when it's not a sound we're used to distinguishing.  To me, "bon" sounds something like "lonely", while "enfant" has a sound more like the first syllable of "hominy" or "haunted".  ("Haunted", I think, is closer, especially since "hominy" sounds different in the U.S. depending on where you live.)


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## Muffine

Hi Englishman & co

I agree there is a real difference between dans and bon.  I do pronounce an/on/un/in individually (thankyou, OlivierG) - less so the more tired I am, when my French pronunciation and accent become steadily worse!  You are really looking to hear a phonetic difference which, once mastered, can make a big difference to your understanding - and particularly, writing - of French:  On a course in Paris one year I was amazed how much difference studying phonetics made to how well I spelt words and our teacher said this always made a dramatic difference for Americans, for some reason!  My best effort to explain the pronunciation of "bon" is: Try saying "bong, bong, bong" in a very onomatopoeic way - which for me means making the mouth rounder than usual.  That should(!) give you the O sound. bOnne chance


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## calembourde

JamesM said:
			
		

> To me, "bon" sounds something like "lonely", while "enfant" has a sound more like the first syllable of "hominy" or "haunted".  ("Haunted", I think, is closer, especially since "hominy" sounds different in the U.S. depending on where you live.)


This is where discussing pronunciation without using the International Phonetic Alphabet gets confusing... the way I pronounce 'haunted' is more like 'bon', although I have heard Americans pronounce it differently.

I would love to have the opportunity to study phonetics. Whenever I meet a French person who has no trace of French accent, I find out they have studied phonetics. I have read a few books on it but it's hard to learn phonetics without anything to listen to! Wikipedia has a recording of each sound, though. Also, I just realised there are plenty of threads here on the subject.

By the way, this is the thread which made me realise the sounds were not the same.

Here's another tip... I listen to the Radio Suisse Romand podcast called 'On en parle' so I hear those two sounds ('on' and 'en') together several times a day in the introduction to the podcast. Now it's like I have an exact recording of that phrase in my head and it's easy to remember how to pronounce it.  (With a Swiss accent, at least!)


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## JamesM

I agree. It is difficult, and while I studied IPA in college, that was many years ago.  

Do you say "lonely" and "haunted" with the same initial vowel sound?  Just curious.  As you say, it's probably not productive without actual sound recordings.  I'm trying to imagine what "lonely" and "haunted" sound like in a New Zealand accent.


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## englishman

calembourde said:
			
		

> This is where discussing pronunciation without using the International Phonetic Alphabet gets confusing... the way I pronounce 'haunted' is more like 'bon', although I have heard Americans pronounce it differently.


Right - AE "haunt" is closer to French "hante" than to BE "haunted" so it is an example that doesn't travel too well. Yes, I need to learn some phonetics too, to discuss this stuff. The best suggestion I've seen so far is that "bon" has the same sound as "good" in BE, but one of the comments above seems to indicate that it is pronounced differently in the phrase "bon enfant", which confuses things if true.


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## french4beth

For "bon" (from a non-native perspective), how about if you pronounce it the same way you would pronounce the English word _bone, _minus the 'n'? Kind of like the English word "_bow_" (as in bow & arrow) but more nasal?

And for "dans" - it's pronounced similar to the English word _dawn_, but much faster, and more nasal.

Hope this helps...


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## Napolitain

I'm surprised on how much you are focusing on the correct spelling of the nasals. 

There is definitely a major difference between "bon" and "dans". Both are nasals but the sound is completely different. Of course I realise it is not easy for learners, except for some like Portuguese speakers who use nasals in their native language. 

The tip given by Englishman (Acapela) is very useful : listen carefuly to both sounds several times and the difference (I think) will be obvious. You can also jump from "on" to "an" in one breath just changing the position of the lips. At this point I don't think it's so hard. The difficulty would be to reproduce the sounds in the conversation. It may ask some efforts... A useful word in French  

The difference between "un" and "in" ("brun"/"brin") is so slight that many French speakers do not even know there is a difference ! (However it is stronger in Southern France as someone said). But I don't think it is useful to try to reproduce such a difference, just because nobody will notice it, and it will cost such an effort ! Just forget it.


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## JamesM

I think the problem is that the nasal sound catches our ear.  We hear the similarity in the ending sound that overshadows the vowel sound that leads up to it.  My son is just beginning to learn French and, with him, _everything_ is nasal.    I think it's just an over-reaction to this "foreign" sound, so he thinks every French word has a nasal sound in there somewhere.


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## englishman

Napolitain said:
			
		

> I'm surprised on how much you are focusing on the correct spelling of the nasals.


The spelling isn't the problem. It's the pronunciation.



> There is definitely a major difference between "bon" and "dans". Both are nasals but the sound is completely different.


 I find the sounds almost impossible to distinguish. You're speaking from the point of view of a French native. I suspect the same problem in reverse is the pronunciation of the "th" sounds in "that" and "through" - easy for Brits, more difficult for the French.



> listen carefuly to both sounds several times and the difference (I think) will be obvious.


It's not 



> You can also jump from "on" to "an" in one breath just changing the position of the lips.


Nice tip - I'll try that.



> The difference between "un" and "in" ("brun"/"brin") is so slight that many French speakers do not even know there is a difference !


Huh ? These are *totally* different sounds when I say them - maybe I say them wrong too :-(


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## moldo

Hi,

As Dutchman speaking a bit English and French, in my opinion the French word "bon" rhymes on the English word "dawn".

Regards, Moldo


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## calembourde

JamesM said:
			
		

> Do you say "lonely" and "haunted" with the same initial vowel sound?


Not at all...  the sound in 'lonely' is a diphthong. You can hear a sample of somebody else's New Zealand accent here. In fact it's probably a good idea for people to refer to that archive when they want to give an example of an English word that something in French sounds like... just to hear how the same word may be pronounced by the person reading their posts! I shouldn't have started it with that 'good/god' comparison. 

Now that I have read the suggestions and realised how different our accents are, I'm sure that the best way to learn the difference is to listen to French speakers or synthesisers rather than trying to pin down English words that it sounds like.



			
				englishman said:
			
		

> Huh ? These are *totally* different sounds when I say them - maybe I say them wrong too :-(


Maybe I do too, but to me it's the difference between an American and an Englishman (or New Zealander) saying 'dance'. (hopefully that is a difference which people on both sides of the Atlantic will recognise.) I have noticed that some French speakers have trouble pronouncing and hearing the difference in English, I suppose those are the same people who pronounce them both the same way in French.

I tend to pronounce both like 'un' in French because that's what most of the people around me do.


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## JamesM

I believe I am now cured from ever using English words as a reference for French sounds, calembourde.


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## vince

When I say the vowel in "bon", it sounds similar to a nasalized version of the vowel in British "lock".

When I say "dans", it sounds similar to a nasalized version of the vowel in American "lock".


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## timpeac

englishman said:
			
		

> Huh ? These are *totally* different sounds when I say them - maybe I say them wrong too :-(


Yes - strictly they are. But the vowel in "un" hardly occurs in any words in the French language (brun, embrun, words based on "un" such as "aucun", any others??!) and so there is a tendency to replace it with the vowel of "in", so in "un vin" you would have the same vowel repeated in the speech of some people. I remember studying this and coming across the example where a politician said "je suis un doux" and the reporter got confused and said "vous êtes hindou ???"


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## timpeac

vince said:
			
		

> When I say the vowel in "bon", it sounds similar to a nasalized version of the vowel in British "lock".
> 
> When I say "dans", it sounds similar to a nasalized version of the vowel in American "lock".


I agree with that distinction. Another one both within British English would be the nasalised version of the "o" in "bot" and that "ahhh" sound in southern English "bart" (no R).


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## irish_elmo

I have racked my brains to try and come up with an example of an English word that uses any of the vowel sounds in this post and have come up with one that I think is quite good.

If you know Sophie Ellis Bexter's song "Murder on the dance floor", where she sings with an accent that is the source of ridicule here in Ireland, you will hear a vowel sound very close to the "an" vowel of the French I speak. (I learnt it mostly in Paris, and have been mistaken for a native speaker.)

She pronounces the word "dance" as one imagines her majesty the queen would,  like "dahnss". (In Ireland, the words "dance" and "pants" rhyme perfectly, as I imagine they do in America, so hearing the british chart-topper sing "dahnss" makes people over here laugh.  )

The point of this message is, though, that if you completely drop the NSS sound on the end of Sophie Ellis Bexter's "dahnss", you will have an almost perfect vowel sound for the French "an" vowel sound. Starting with a posh British DAH, you still have to close the nasal sound, in order to fully pronounce the French word "dans".

It has been suggested by more than one user that the French word "dans" is pronounced with the same vowel sound as "dawn" in English. This is most definitely not correct. That vowel sound (i.e. English "dawn") to my ear is closer to the French "aune" [as in "à l'aune de"] but still nowhere near being the same sound.  

I know this might sound obvious, but looking for phonetic "equivalents" between languages is often a vain pursuit. The best way to learn French pronunciation is by listening to native speakers very closely. Perhaps some free French podcasts could help in this regard?


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## calembourde

Indeed... I recommend listening repeatedly to the introduction of this one 

I'm now comparing the phonetic symbols in my French phonetics book with the phonetic transcription of that New Zealand accent sample, and it looks like I pronounce bon correctly, but maybe not dans, since it looks like the non-nasal version of that sound doesn't exist in my accent (although the sound is in exactly the words I thought it was in, in the Staffordshire accent!) I think this would be a useful exercise for everyone (at least everyone who can find their own accent in that archive), to see whether the English sounds you are comparing with/using really are the same as the French ones. We don't always hear the differences if they're not in our native 'phonetic inventories', that's why it's so difficult for anglophones to distinguish 'u' from 'ou'. (Incidentally, I am amused that that site has a phonetic inventory for sign language, which is 'coming soon'. )


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## timpeac

calembourde said:
			
		

> Indeed... I recommend listening repeatedly to the introduction of this one
> 
> I'm now comparing the phonetic symbols in my French phonetics book with the phonetic transcription of that New Zealand accent sample, and it looks like I pronounce bon correctly, but maybe not dans, since it looks like the non-nasal version of that sound doesn't exist in my accent (although the sound is in exactly the words I thought it was in, in the Staffordshire accent!) I think this would be a useful exercise for everyone (at least everyone who can find their own accent in that archive), to see whether the English sounds you are comparing with/using really are the same as the French ones. We don't always hear the differences if they're not in our native 'phonetic inventories', that's why it's so difficult for anglophones to distinguish 'u' from 'ou'. (Incidentally, I am amused that that site has a phonetic inventory for sign language, which is 'coming soon'. )


Be really careful of drawing conclusions from the phonetic symbols in dictionaries!! By convention dictionaries of languages use the same symbols to represent the same type of sounds - and usually in the beginning these symbols are phonetically appropriate, but sounds change and the symbols used in dictionaries don't!! To give just one example, by convention the vowel of French "vin" is written as a curly E with the nasal tilde over the top. However, in standard French today that vowel is pronounced like this symbol "a" with a nasal tilde on top. In other words, all dictionaries of French may use that curly symbol consistently to represent the vowel of "vin" or the second vowel of "matin" but if an alien landed in Paris who could speak French but used our system of phonetic symbols to describe the speech of the natives they would use the "a" + nasal tilde instead!! The curly E symbol nasalised would sound something like "veng" without the "g". The same can be said of English. One example is the "ae" sign which commonly represents the vowel of "hat". The pronunciation of that "ae" gives what we recognise as that chummy BBC accent of the 60s - very odd to modern ears. Most English speakers, to my ears, actually pronounce is as "a". So you can't draw any conclusions by comparing the phonetic symbols used by convention of two languages in dicationaries!!

Edit - rereading what you wrote I see that you actually said "your phonetics book" rather than "a dictionary" so maybe the above isn't relevant to you. If so, sorry - but I'll leave it for others, as it was certainly a big revelation to me when it was pointed out that you can't trust the phonetic symbols in dictionaries necessarily to give the standard pronunciations!!


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## timpeac

Just to be clear, after I question I had, in the above I am not saying that "vin" and "vent" would be pronounced the same way.

The vowel of "vin" as it is pronounced in reality is more like a nasalised /ã/ (a nasalised front "a" as in "la"), and is certainly nothing like a nasalised/ɛ̃/, despite this being the conventional dictionary symbol (/ɛ̃/ would represent the vowel of "mène", but nasalised - nothing at all like what it is meant to represent today!). (Vent causes no problems as it is written in dictionaries and pronounced in reality with a nasalised /ɑ̃/ (a nasalised back "a" as in "las", for those who make the difference between that and "la").


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## calembourde

timpeac said:
			
		

> Edit - rereading what you wrote I see that you actually said "your phonetics book" rather than "a dictionary" so maybe the above isn't relevant to you. If so, sorry - but I'll leave it for others, as it was certainly a big revelation to me when it was pointed out that you can't trust the phonetic symbols in dictionaries necessarily to give the standard pronunciations!!


Even my phonetics book (Phonétique Progressive du Français) writes that sound as a curly E with the nasal tilde over the top, and so does the About.com page.  I guess it's more of a phonemic transcription rather than a phonetic one (which makes some sense since the actual sound would depend on the accent, I suppose, but it's a misleading choice of symbols and it doesn't help me compare with the phonetic transcription of my accent. And the book is supposed to be 'phoné*t*ique.' It's a good thing I already knew what that particular sound sounds like.)

Thanks for warning me... now that I think about it it does seem like the wrong symbol for that sound. I actually hadn't paid much attention to the symbols before (to tell the truth I haven't really looked at the book much, I got to the sounds which should be hard for anglophones and then realised I should have bought the tapes that go with it. )


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## timpeac

calembourde said:
			
		

> Even my phonetics book (Phonétique Progressive du Français) writes that sound as a curly E with the nasal tilde over the top, and so does the About.com page.  I guess it's more of a phonemic transcription rather than a phonetic one (which makes some sense since the actual sound would depend on the accent, I suppose, but it's a misleading choice of symbols and it doesn't help me compare with the phonetic transcription of my accent. And the book is supposed to be 'phoné*t*ique.' It's a good thing I already knew what that particular sound sounds like.)
> 
> Thanks for warning me... now that I think about it it does seem like the wrong symbol for that sound. I actually hadn't paid much attention to the symbols before (to tell the truth I haven't really looked at the book much, I got to the sounds which should be hard for anglophones and then realised I should have bought the tapes that go with it. )


Oh, I'm really glad I pointed it out then. It _is_ bizarre, isn't it? I've always thought so from the first time it was pointed out to me. It is _definitely_ a phonemic description rather than a phonetic one, but given that that is quite an involved distinction unless you study phonetics specifically it's always surprised me they haven't got round to change it. Once it's pointed out though, it's easy to confirm by saying the "curly E" sound to yourself and nasalising. The resulting "veng" sound doesn't sound much like "vin" today!


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## bernik

_- listen carefuly to both sounds several times and the difference (I think) will be obvious.

- It's not_


If you try typing something like this on the voice synthesizer:
a, o, a, o, a, o, 
an, on, an, on, an, on, 

... maybe you cannot tell what is the difference between the two sounds, but at least, you can tell there are two different sounds.


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## JamesM

bernik said:
			
		

> _- listen carefuly to both sounds several times and the difference (I think) will be obvious._
> 
> _- It's not_
> 
> 
> If you try typing something like this on the voice synthesizer:
> a, o, a, o, a, o,
> an, on, an, on, an, on,
> 
> ... maybe you cannot tell what is the difference between the two sounds, but at least, you can tell there are two different sounds.


 
I tried this!  Very interesting result.  For me, it worked better to use:

dans, dont, dans, dont, dans, dont

with the voice set on "slow".


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## Julz

irish_elmo said:
			
		

> She pronounces the word "dance" as one imagines her majesty the queen would, like "dahnss". (In Ireland, the words "dance" and "pants" rhyme perfectly, as I imagine they do in America, so hearing the british chart-topper sing "dahnss" makes people over here laugh.  )


Dance and pants rhyme here too. In fact, when that song came out some people weren't sure what she was saying until they searched the lyrics  

I've always said 'dans' _similar_ to the sound described (dah, nasalized)... *Not *exactly the same however. It really depends on what you learn and how you learn it. But I've always known a slight difference between 'un' and 'in' (maybe because I am aware of a slight distinction, but people won't always pick it up?), and 'en', 'on' and 'an' for me have always been different.


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## mplsray

Curiously, the _Oxford English Dictionary, _2nd ed., shows in its section on pronunciation _two _symbols for the sound in _vin: _a small epsilon with a tilde over it and a small ae ligature (representing the vowel of _cat_) with a tilde over it.


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## AlistairCookie

Johnny Blaze said:
			
		

> If you pronounce *dans* like the way the English say dance......well you won't go very far.
> 
> If dans is followed by a vowel you pronounce the s if not you don't.
> 
> The closest thing I can think of is the name Don except don't pronounce the n.


read the post again:


_ "dans" is a bit pronouced like the British "dance" (without the /s/ sound at the end)._


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## Julz

AlistairCookie said:
			
		

> Johnny Blaze said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you pronounce *dans* like the way the English say dance......well you won't go very far.
> 
> If dans is followed by a vowel you pronounce the s if not you don't.
> 
> The closest thing I can think of is the name Don except don't pronounce the n.
> 
> 
> 
> read the post again:
> 
> 
> _"dans" is a bit pronouced like the British "dance" (without the /s/ sound at the end)._
Click to expand...

What were you trying to establish?


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## Outsider

Perhaps this page can help you.

A few comments of my own:

- The vowel written "on" in "bon" is a nasalized "o", and the vowel "an" in "dans" is a nasalized "a". Can you go from "a" to nasal "a"? Try to do the same with "o", letting some of the air come out through your nose as you pronounce it.

- By the way, the vowel "o" I'm talking about is the one you hear in "hôtel", or "dos", or "beau". In fact you just have to nasalize the vowel, to turn "beau" into "bon".

- I do not agree with the explanations that say "o" is like English "aw". Close, but no cigar. It's more like "oo" in words like "poor", "Moore", or like "ou" in (English) "pour", "tour".


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## jimreilly

JamesM said:
			
		

> I think the problem is that the nasal sound catches our ear. We hear the similarity in the ending sound that overshadows the vowel sound that leads up to it. My son is just beginning to learn French and, with him, _everything_ is nasal.   I think it's just an over-reaction to this "foreign" sound, so he thinks every French word has a nasal sound in there somewhere.


The fact that the nasal o and nasal a tend to come out the same for American speakers and singers of French is a constant problem. I have found, in coaching singers who not only have to pronounce these vowels, but sustain a tone on them, that James M's hint above is very helpful, along with Napolitain's suggestion about changing lip formation. If one can't "hear" the difference when one is making the sounds, then at least one can "feel" the difference in one's lip position.

One parenthetical note the other nasal vowels: I recently had a French teacher here in Minneapolis (she is from France) insist to me that there were only three nasal vowels; she always pronounces the one in "un" as if it were "ain", no exceptions, and she refuses to listen to talk about four different nasal vowels in French. An extreme example of the widespread tendency to substitute "ain" for "un"! I recently looked at my French textbooks from over the many years I've been studying French, and found that the "disappearance" of "un" has been gradual over my lifetime. Unfortunately for classical singers, we must still use all four nasal vowels--life would be easier if there WERE only three, or two, or one, or.....


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## timpeac

jimreilly said:
			
		

> I recently looked at my French textbooks from over the many years I've been studying French, and found that the "disappearance" of "un" has been gradual over my lifetime. Unfortunately for classical singers, we must still use all four nasal vowels--life would be easier if there WERE only three, or two, or one, or.....


There are many many French natives who still have 4 nasal vowels, and don't let her tell you otherwise!


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## calembourde

I thought that it was the other way around, in some accents 'in' is pronounced like 'un' and the 'in' sound is disappearing.


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## timpeac

calembourde said:
			
		

> I thought that it was the other way around, in some accents 'in' is pronounced like 'un' and the 'in' sound is disappearing.


Definitely not, Calembourde.


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## Cath.S.

> she always pronounces the one in "un" as if it were "ain", no exceptions, and she refuses to listen to talk about four different nasal vowels in French.


Dis-lui de ma part « Egueule a dit qu'il ne fallait pas que tu prennes ton cas pour une généralité. » 
Dis-lui aussi de s'exercer en répétant plusieurs fois
Un fin brin brun.


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## ChiMike

englishman said:
			
		

> Apparently I've been pronouncing "bon" incorrectly all these years (like "dans") so I've been trying to figure out how to say it properly. I think that it goes like this:
> 
> 1. Say the English word "bawl", but drop the "l"
> 2. Pout the lips a bit more than English people are wont to do.
> 3. Add a nasal French "n"
> 
> How does that sound ?


 
Try starting with "awning" (to bad you're a Brit - this works very well in AE), but make sure that you put the "awn" well back in the throat, where you may (but I don't know) put it when you say the word "awl" to distinguish it from "all" (if you do). Then nasalize furiously, as if you had a very bad cold. You might also try it with "owning" - but that is prononced in Britain much too far forward (for this exercise), and therefore will result, probably, in the problem you have already. In some pronuciations of English, the proper position for the vowel sound can be isolated from the pronunciation of OIL.

If you can put the vowel far enough back, this will come near the proper pronunciation of "on". Then you just add the "b" or whatever else is needed.

Here in the US, I try to have people do the following to position for French nasals (which then really have to be nasalized - bad cold day):

-in: faint - isolating the "in" sound from the a - "fay-int" (taking off the "t" after the vowel sound is isolated)
-un: dumb (taking off the b and isolating the "um" and then nasalizing)
-an: aunt (in the alternative pronunciation to "ant" - the vowel sound taking off the "t")
-on: as above.

A proper French nasal not only sounds strange to an English speaker, pronouncing it properly FEELS strange. You need to practice with someone with a good French accent but with a command of English so she can try to correct what you may be doing wrong in trying to get an approximate vowel sound to nasalize.

In the end, you want, of course, to be able to produce sounds which are distinctly different (and, one hopes, appropriate to French) in the little phrase:

UN BON VIN BLANC.


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## Julz

I will try again.



> read the post again:
> 
> 
> "dans" is a bit pronouced like the British "dance" (without the /s/ sound at the end).



Why quote to post about "Don", then write the above, when it's not pronounced like British dance without the s? It's closer to Don, although still not the same.

My question to you continues to be- why point that out?


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## Julz

Ok because we pronounce basically all 'a' sounds as Americans would, so to me that would be awkward to pronounce 'dans'... I have only known British 'dance' like 'dahns', and always thought only pretentious Brits said 'donse'.

In which case, I think the best way to tackle things is to get in touch with a native speaker and learn from them. We have plenty here


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## irish_elmo

Julz said:
			
		

> I have only known British 'dance' like 'dahns', and always thought only pretentious Brits said 'donse'.



I've actually had a discussion about this very subject with ten or so British friends of mine, all of them students in Oxford University. Most (say 60%) of them pronounced dance much the same as I do [i.e. as most English speakers do] but the rest of them didn't, and employed the "donse" varient instead. That's just how they speak in some parts of Britain, or in some families. 

I don't think one's pronuncation can be deemed "pretentious" if it's not put on. If that's the only way one has ever pronounced the word "dance", well then it's just a variation, isn't it?


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## Cath.S.

Anyway, the French - on does not sound like_ any_ sound of any variation of the English language, the only way of acquiring a good accent is to forget about that it-sounds-a-bit-like-whatever-if-you-don't-pronounce-the-end-bit crap.

Go to the  acapela synthetic voice site (relinked) and *you'll hear a very convincing rendition of bon.* That is, if you're at all interested.


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## irish_elmo

egueule said:
			
		

> Anyway, the French - on does not sound like_ any_ sound of any variation of the English language, the only way of acquiring a good accent is to forget about that it-sounds-a-bit-like-whatever-if-you-don't-pronounce-the-end-bit crap.



Tout à fait! Heureusement qu'un orthophoniste français m'a appris à prononcer le français lorsque j'étais plus jeune. Il vaut bien la peine d'aller en France et d'apprendre le français par le biais d'une sorte de baptême par immersion totale dans la culture française. 

C'est quand-même inévitable que les apprenants en langue étrangère cherchent à comparer les nouveaux sons à ceux qui leur sont familiers...


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## OlivierG

The issue about the pronunciation of "Bon" having been fully addressed, this thread is now closed.


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