Word of the Week #30 - Lots Of French “R's” - Mastering French Pronunciation w/ Geri Metz

WORD OF THE WEEK #30-the French “r” Learn how to say “réfrigérateur”
Bonjour! I'm Geri Metz and this is the "Word of the Week!" A mini video lesson in French Pronunciation!
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Word of the Week #30 réfrigérateur
Bonjour. I’m Geri Metz of Pronouncingfrench.com and I’m here with Word of the Week # 30, réfrigérateur, which is pretty close to the same in English as in French. This word has the same number of syllables in both languages, but if we look at the English version, we notice again that in English we neutralize vowels that are not accented; so we say re frig uh ray tuhr ; in French each vowel must have its full value and tone.
This word is heavy on the consonant “r”. We have looked at the way to say the French “r” in previous Word of the Week lessons, but let’s review it here. The French “r” is produced in the back of the throat; you raise the back of the tongue higher and higher until it just touches the uvula, which is the little appendage hanging from the soft palate. You can see it if you open your mouth wide and look in your mirror. Remember that I recommend you always have a mirror with you when you do these lessons, so you can check out what is going on in your mouth. You can start getting to this sound by saying “a” and then raise your tongue toward the soft palate until you make a contact; try it: say “ara, ara ara”. The “r” is a voiced consonant, so there is a friction with the vocal cords engaged.
The first “r” in our word is in initial position which always seems a bit more difficult to say. But remember to anticipate the vowel and take the position of the “é” even before forming the “r”. For the second “r”, the same rule applies: go for the vowel “i”. (ré-fri-) Just before the final “r” you have the vowel “oe” as in “oeuf” or “soeur”.
So putting it all together, we have ré-fri-gé-ra-teur: 5 equal syllables (un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq: ré-fri-gé-ra-teur.)
Now it’s really nice to know that most people use the abbreviation of this word, as we do when we say in English the “fridge”. The French say “le frigo” as a short replacement for the longer and harder word. But now you have both options to use.
If you haven’t yet joined my mailing list, please go to pronouncingfrench.com and enter your email to receive the Word of theWeek delivered to your inbox each week, and also to get the very informative document “Are you speaking French with an American mouth”. You can also check the progress of the course that will be released for sale probably in early July called Mastering French Pronunciation, where we look at how to correct the American mouth and develop a more authentic French accent. Merci, et à la prochaine.

[@theShaunus]

Vos conseils sont geniaux, madame ! J'ai fait votre connaissance par le biais de la video que vous avez fait avec Geraldine de "comme une francaise". D'ailleurs, ce monsieur a fait une bonne video au sujet de prononciation du R a la francaise. Jetez-y un coup d'oeil, svp ! :-) th-cam.com/video/b3HMQNae6ms/w-d-xo.html