German → French
French uses 36 sounds. You already own 21 of them from German. The other 15 are the work — and 14 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: close, but not identical
French: good · written "on", "om"
Your /ɔ/ is the one in Sonne (sun).
the move: close, but not identical
French: brown · written "un", "um"
Parisians merge it into /ɛ̃/: brun = brin.
Your /œ/ is the one in können (can).
the move: velar → palatal
French: mountain · written "gn"
Your /ŋ/ is the one in singen (to sing).
the move: alveolar → postalveolar
French: day · written "j", "g (e,i)", "ge (a,o)"
Your /z/ is the one in Sonne (sun).
the move: near-close → close
French: bed · written "i", "î", "y"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in Kind (child).
the move: near-close → close
French: you · written "u", "û"
Round your lips for /u/, say /i/. NOT English 'oo'.
Your /ʏ/ is the one in fünf (five).
the move: near-close → close
French: day · written "ou", "où", "oû"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in Mutter (mother).
the move: close, but not identical
French: summer · written "é", "-er", "-ez", "es (les, des)"
Your /eː/ is the one in See (lake).
the move: close, but not identical
French: little · written "eu", "œu (open syllable)"
Your /øː/ is the one in schön (beautiful).
the move: close, but not identical
French: water · written "o (final)", "ô", "au", "eau"
Your /oː/ is the one in Brot (bread).
the move: close, but not identical
French: bread · written "in", "im", "ain", "ein"
Your /ɛ/ is the one in Bett (bed).
the move: close, but not identical
French: yes · written "ou+vowel", "oi = /wa/"
Your /j/ is the one in ja (yes).
the move: close, but not identical
French: eight · written "u+vowel"
Say /y/ and glide into the next vowel. nuit, lui, pluie.
Your /j/ is the one in ja (yes).
Words you may say identically
Two or more French sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in German sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
child
Closest thing you own: — but open-mid → open.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| German | French | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Stress-timed | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | Contrastive in a very German way: with separable-vs-inseparable prefix verbs, the stress tells you which grammar you are in — and therefore what the sentence means. Otherwise stress sits on the stem syllable, and the unstressed prefixes (be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent-) never take it. | This is the one that surprises everyone: French words have NO fixed stress. Prominence lands on the last syllable of the rhythmic GROUP, not of the word — so the same word is stressed differently depending on where it sits. 'Un chocolat' stresses -lat; 'un chocolat chaud' moves it to chaud and the word chocolat loses it entirely. There are no French minimal pairs by stress, because there is nothing to contrast. |
What you have that French doesn't
22 sounds with no job in French. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your German has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned French from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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