Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 January 23

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January 23

Ramaré

How do you pronounce a French name Ramaré? --Analphil (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

[ʁamaˈʁe], roughly rah-mah-RAY. Lesgles (talk) 02:38, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Why do you think the stress is on the final syllable? I'd expect the stress to be on the middle syllable; I normally associate the end-stressing of French words ending in e-acute with Americans. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

AlexTiefling -- In French, the stress (such as it is) is normally on the last non-schwa vowel of a word, or of a group of closely-linked words pronounced together as a connected unit. There's not much variability in this pattern, as far as I'm aware... AnonMoos (talk) 11:50, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I think the relative lack of stress overall in French may have misled me, then. Thinking about it, I sometimes stress the final syllable and sometimes the penultimate - and the pattern I'm thinking of in American pronunciation of French may be in part due to a fairly common failure to distinguish accented terminal -e from unaccented ones. But yes, the fact that French has so little stress variation as a rule means that such distinctions are less critical. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

See Isochrony#Syllable timing for an explanation of stress in French. --Jayron32 13:00, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That's actually about how (non-schwa-vowel) syllables typically have approximately equal prominence; the only thing it says about stress in French is that it's not strong. More specific info at French phonology#Stress. -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:14, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Trnaslation to French

Hello

How we translate this sentence in French : The episode earned a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating. Is 3.8 mean 3.8%?

Thanks. Rabah201130 (talk) 08:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The sentence doesn't make any sense, can you provide a link to an article/where it was taken from? - filelakeshoe 10:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I think it may mean something like a rating of 3.8 out of 10, or 3.8 out of 5, depending on the scale chosen...all of this in the age range of 18-49 years of age, and given by viewers of a tv-episode. Lectonar (talk) 10:07, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I found it here. Rabah201130 (talk) 10:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I found the answer here. Rabah201130 (talk) 11:04, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

These are Nielsen ratings. Rmhermen (talk) 14:19, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

With the given explanations, to be understood by French people, I would say: Cet épisode a été vu par 3,8 % de la population [américaine] âgée de 18 à 49 ans. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:27, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Bien fait! —Tamfang (talk) 06:04, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of French names

How do you pronounce French names Deshouillers and Saouter? --Analphil (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

In closest English equivalent (the vowels will be wrong, but close), I'd say "day-zoo-ee-yay" or "day-oo-ee-yay" (depending on whether liaison occurs before the unprounounced "h"; it may be a dialectical difference) and "sah-oo-tay". --Jayron32 17:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Addendum. Here is a native french speaker saying Deshoulliers. It's closer to my second attempt at it. I could find no similar guide for Saouter. --Jayron32 17:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

There are only three syllables in Deshouillers. In IPA, it’s [de.u.je]. I’m not sure whether Saouter is two or three syllables, [saw.te] or [sa.u.te].—Emil J. 17:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding "Saouter": A-O-U is a relatively rare combination of vowels in French, but most times it is pronounced with the "a" silent (août and saoul are the two words that come to mind with this combination). So "Soo-tay" may be the correct pronunciation. However, this is with no degree of certainty, since I've never heard the name pronounced, and if it is of foreign origin, it may have a non-intuitive pronunciation. --Xuxl (talk) 09:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

First of all, I agree with [de.u.je] for Deshouillers (the "h" in houiller is "aspirated", so there is no liaison). Saouter is a name of Breton origin (the spelling "aou" is sometimes encountered for one of the Breton diphthongs), and I would go with [saw.tɛːʁ] or [sa.u.tɛːʁ] as my best guess. The sequence [aw] isn't a native part of French and many speakers will replace it with [a.u]. The final "r" would indeed be pronounced as, in general, they would be in names ending in -er (except -ier, -yer and some common exceptions like Roger, Boucher, and Boulanger). —Iceager (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)