English may be a hot mess but at least we don't have to worry about this nonsense - eviltoast
  • force@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    “Pré” and “prè” consistently sound distinctly different in most, dare I say almost all, accents in mainland France. The difference is the same with basically all words spelled with those vowels. “Ê” also sounds like a long “è” in most words for most people. “e” also sounds like “é” when before silent letters except for “t”, and sounds like “è” when before multiple letters or before “x” or before silent “t” or if it’s the last sound except for open monosyllabic words, and it sounds special or is silent elsewhere. “-ent” is always silent too. Obviously doesn’t apply to “en/em”, also special exception for “-er/-es”.

      • SorryQuick@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Maybe not in proper Quebecois, but I feel like most people here use the é/è sounds interchangably. Take “Il prétend” for example. It feels like that accent could be either é or è and people would still pronounce it the same.

      • force@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The vowel sounds in “près” and “pré” are very clearly different, and the sound in “prêt” changes from “è” to “é” when in liaison because it always sounds like “è” at the end of words (and separately, in closed syllables) and always sounds like “é” in open syllables otherwise (liaison triggers a change in the syllable structure which changes the vowel here). This does not contradict what I said. You said “(pr)é” and “(pr)è” sound the same, nothing about “(pr)ê”.