[General] What are acceptable pronunciations for a foreign speaker to use ?

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Boxxun

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Apr 22, 2019
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Student or Learner
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French
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France
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France
Hi there !


I'm boxxun, a french self-taught english speaker that still has to this day (though I am quite young, objectively) trouble pronouncing some letters at times.

I definitely am not looking to make my english perfect, instead settling for ways to get a satisfying, understandable and consistent way of pronouncing the dreaded "th" and "r" that are O so present in the english language, and avoid stuttering every word or two for no reason.


For now, I've mainly settled with pronouncing "this" as "dis", as to not use the good old "Zis" associated with us frenchies, it works well ath the moment, but I'm not sure how it may be perceived by native speakers.

On the other hand, I can't seem to find a reliable way of pronouncing r's, because they have so many ways to be said, be it hard R's, the ones french and german people most often use, or the "round"/ soft R's as in "write" for example, but I always get stuck on them when speaking otherwise fluidly, so I want to settle for either of them, I just can't be halted every time I have to say "wrath" or "quarry", to cite the less common occurrences of my english nemesis.

So what is in your opinion the better sounding variant, only hard R's or "soft" R's ?



I think that will be all for now, though I'm open to any other constructive criticism you may give me.
Thank you very much for reading !
 
You will generally be understood fine if you pronounce /th/ like /d/ and use the French uvular /r/. Many native speakers substitute /d/ for /th/; it's a feature of Irish English and many Native American pronunciations of English. English also has a variety of /r/ sounds, including the uvular /r/ in a few dialects.
 
Hi there! Don't leave a space before an exclamation mark.

I'm Boxxun, a French self-taught English speaker that still has to this day (though I am quite young, objectively) trouble pronouncing some letters at times.

I definitely am not looking to make my English perfect, instead settling for ways to get a satisfying, understandable and consistent way of pronouncing the dreaded "th" and "r" that are oh-so-present in the English language, and avoid stuttering every word or two for no reason.

For now, I've mainly settled with pronouncing "this" as "dis", so as to not use the good old "zis" associated with us Frenchies. It works well [STRIKE]ath[/STRIKE] at the moment, but I'm not sure how it may be perceived by native speakers.

On the other hand, I can't seem to find a reliable way of pronouncing r's, because they have so many ways to be said, be it hard R's, the ones French and German people most often use, or the "round"/ soft R's as in "write" for example, but I always get stuck on them when speaking otherwise fluidly, so I want to settle for either of them; I just can't be halted every time I have to say "wrath" or "quarry", to cite the less common occurrences of my English nemesis.

So what is, in your opinion, the better sounding variant, only "hard" R's or "soft" R's ?

I think that will be all for now, though I'm open to any other constructive criticism you may give me.
Thank you very much for reading!

While you're digesting the other responses, please note my corrections above. You really need to concentrate on capitalising proper nouns.
 
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