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True! in English, there is a diphthong in tête ->[ei], not in French
[teit schwa teit]
In some English, that is - but quite a few native English speakers - often the ones who did French at school (and French is one of the more common second languages at school) - use /e/ (still the English sound, but less insistently English.
Sorry Bob! I did not get your paratactic message: Is it that tête is more commonly pronounced [e] and barely pronounced [ei] or is it a midway phoneme?
My Jones must be outdated now for [ei] is the only received phoneme for tête-à-tête. Essentially,there are distortions between dictionaries and the ever-changing phonological flow ( or lexical..)
Appreciate your answer ! pas de prise de tête yet.
Sorry Bob! I did not get your paratactic message: Is it that tête is more commonly pronounced [e] and barely pronounced [ei] or is it a midway phoneme?
My Jones must be outdated now for [ei] is the only received phoneme for tête-à-tête. ...
It's not a midway phoneme; some speakers do say [ei]. But quite a few don't. The Merriam-Webster link (thanks RK) is pretty close to the Br English variants I know - although we let the second syllable slip into a schwa.
b
Last edited by BobK; 19-Mar-2008 at 17:52.
Reason: Add last sentence
Re: tete-a-tete? 
- but quite a few native English speakers - often the ones who did French at school (and French is one of the more common second languages at school) - use /e/ (still the English sound, but less insistently English.
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