When we speak words that have been written on a page, they take on a life of their own. When we read out loud we add rhythm and emphasis, or vary the pitch of our voice. The technical term for the additional baggage of spoken language is “prosody” – and it’s a very important part of successful communication.
The prosody of French is quite different from that of English.
The Rhythms of Poetry
When Shakespeare wrote his sonnets, he wrote them in iambic pentameters. Iambs are two syllable “feet”, with the stress on the second syllable. There were five of them hence, pentameter:
Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum /mers day? /
Thou art / more love /ly and / more tem /per-ate: /
Rough winds / do shake / the dar /ling buds / of May, /
And sum /mer’s lease / hath all / too short / a date. /Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
On the other hand, French playwrights such as Racine, Corneille or Molière wrote in Alexandrines. These are twelve syllable lines with an emphasis on the sixth and twelfth syllables:
Où suis-je ? Qu’ai-je fait ? / Que dois-je faire encore ?
Quel transport me saisit ? / Quel chagrin me dévore ?
Errante, et sans dessein, / je cours dans ce palais.
Ah ! Ne puis-je savoir / si j’aime ou si je hais ?
Jean Racine, Andromaque, Acte V, Scène 1
Why the difference between English and French authors? Fast forward to the poets of the 1950s and it’s still there:
Deep down / in Louis /ian / a close / to New / Orleans
Way back / up in / the woods / among / the ev /ergreens
There stood / a log / cabin / made of earth / and wood
Where liv’d / a count /ry boy / named John /ny B. Goode
Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode
Les gens qui voient de travers / pensent que les bancs verts
Qu’on voit sur les trottoirs /
Sont faits pour les impotents / ou les ventripotents /
Mais c’est une absurdité / car à la vérité / ils sont là c’est notoire
Pour accueillir quelque temps / les amours débutants /
Les amoureux qui s’bécotent sur les bancs publics /
En s’foutant pas mal du regard oblique / des passants honnêtes
Georges Brassens, Les amoureux des bancs publics
It’s because poetic styles reflect underlying differences between the two languages.
The Rhythms of Everyday Language
Most of us don’t speak in rhyming couplets, but our spontaneous language shares more with poetry than we might imagine.
English speech alternates stressed and unstressed sounds, very much like iambic pentameters. We don’t like having two stressed syllables together and spontaneously shift stress to stop it happening. So we’ll put weight on the row in HeathROW if using the word is on its own. But if we add the word airport we’ll move the stress to heath: HEATHrow AIRport. We also conveniently swallow vowel sounds when needed to help keep the rhythm: so, for example, Barbara is often Barbreh and Emmanuel eMANyule.
French never swallows vowels. Barbara is always pronounced Barbara and Emmanuel is pronounced Emmanuel. And French does not have an alternating stress pattern. Instead sentences are broken up into blocks of meaning, typically no longer than seven syllables long, and extra stress will be laid on the last syllable of that block. Not unlike the Alexandrines of the French poets.
You can verify this for yourself by listening to the speakers in our online audio reports at La Guinguette. Here for example is a teacher talking about her primary school in La Rochelle. Notice the extra emphasis on the syllables in italics:
-Nous avons été classés / à partir d’un certain nombre d’indicateurs, sociaux essentiellement, / parmi les 250 collèges / les plus difficiles / de France. / Alors, difficile, donc, pour le ministère, / c’est, à partir d’indicateurs essentiellement sociaux / et de, comment dire, / de handicap à l’entrée au collège, / en somme : / lorsqu’on n’a pas tout à la maison, / lorsqu’on n’a pas de parents qui peuvent aider, / lorsqu’on habite dans des conditions difficiles, / on a accumulé déjà un certain nombre de difficultés. / Donc le pari / qui est fait en France / c’est qu’en donnant plus / aux établissements / qui sont dans ces zones, / en donnant plus de moyens, / un encadrement plus nombreux, / on réussira / peut-être / à combattre / une partie des handicaps.
How You Can Use This
When you start out learning French, it can seem that people are speaking very fast. Listening out for the rhythm of the language helps you break up what you hear into manageable parcels of information. Once you start noticing this, you will more quickly notice different speech patterns returning again and again. So instead of trying to understand word by word or even worse syllable by syllable, which is what gives the (erroneous) impression that people are speaking very fast, you will begin to absorb information in a much more digestible way.
Similarly when reading what can seem to English speakers like very long sentences in French, remember that the structure of the language is intended – unlike English – to accommodate the accumulation of successive miniature blocks. Once you’ve got the idea, it’s not so very difficult to follow.
And finally your own expression will become more authentic – and comprehensible – if you attempt to iron out the natural tendency to impose an alternating rhythm of stress. Instead compose your sentences with building blocks of meaning, emphasising the last syllable in each one.
