Tongue Talk

Will I ever lose my Philly accent?

Apparently, I have a very cute accent. Or so they tell me.

This does not make me happy. I have tried for a very long time – nearly three decades – to get rid of the Philly twang when I speak French. It’s still there, much to the amusement of the good people of Rennes.

“British?” they usually ask. There is no way to confuse the Philly accent with London’s, but there’s something about our intonation that must sound similar enough. Even if they don’t come right out and ask where I’m from, I can tell they notice. They’ll either give me a sly peek, or – like that time I just couldn’t bring myself to use a French accent to ask for the “Pink Lady” variety of apples – they whip their heads, startled.

“My accent is American,” I explained to the woman with whiplash at the fruit stand. “Oh,” she said, “I love the American accent!”

Does she, though? What she’s most likely hearing is my struggle to make certain vowel sounds. I can’t understand how that could ever sound lovable.

It’s challenging for many English speakers to properly pronounce many French sounds because they often require specific movements of lips, tongue and breath. Americans have lazy mouths, I learned from the French instructor who teaches me the subtleties of French phonetics. She’s brilliant – and patient. Most importantly, she’s a native English speaker who has broken the secret code.

You might think a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y aren’t a big deal, but – oh – they are. They can mess you up even in English. I once asked an English-speaking bicycle-shop guy in Tours why all the cars and sidewalks were covered in sand that morning. He said it came in from the Sahara, brought by the . . . something I didn’t understand. As he continued explaining the Sirocco, I finally realized the sand was brought by the wind. I didn’t understand because, instead of saying that word as you would “a gust of wind,” he said it like you would say, “I need to wind the clock.” See? Vowels are bastards!

The French nasal vowel sounds of an, ain, in and on, are buggers. Without fine-tuning your ear, they can all sound the same. That phlegmy “R” also takes some work to achieve; throw it around a few troublesome vowels – as in the word serrurier (locksmith) – and you could get into trouble. Luckily, I haven’t needed a locksmith lately.

My true nemesis, though, are the eui and œi combos. Feuille (leaf) and accueillir (to welcome) kill me, but not as much as the word for eye (œil). I have such a block that I default to the much easier plural form of the word, and just tell the doctor that the headache is over juste un de mes yeux (just one of my eyes.)

Listen in on the lesson my phonetics instructor Frannie and I had while working on that one:

Her: “Say œil.”

Me: “œil.”

Her: “Try again: œil.”

Me: “œil!”

Her: “Almost. Œil.”

I desperately wanted to switch to, un de mes yeux.

Once you get past the self-consciousness of moving your mouth around a lot, you realize just how lazy your face really is. All that French talking makes your tongue and cheeks ache. Your jaw starts to throb from pouting out your lips so much while doing the damn u sound, but if you don’t pout when trying to say “above” (dessus), they might think you said “beneath” (dessous), because the two words are nearly identical except for that one crucial vowel that changes everything. And, really, is that fair?

I can’t hear my own accent, but I’m sure it sounds as foreign as those I can detect in others, like the Italian woman at the olive stand, the friendly tourist from Quebec, the British guy in a French class. Being frequently reminded of sounding like a foreigner got me thinking about all the people of other nationalities, many of whom speak multiple languages, who have a non-native lilt when speaking French. Even people from different parts of France have their own special pronunciation and, sometimes, even their own vocabulary. (Just check out the national debate between pain au chocolat and chocolatine.)

French is the official language of 27 countries around the world, from Canada to Cameroon. They’re not all speaking it like Parisians. But, is everyone’s accent considered “cute,” or do we unconsciously place judgment on people based on their intonation?

In an episode of her podcast, “My Polyglot Life,”, French language coach Cathy Intro delves into the political and cultural aspects of speaking French with an accent. Intro says that saying someone has a “cute accent” isn’t always a compliment. It can, she says, feel reductive, judgmental or even disturbing – especially if there is discrimination attached to the accent.

“[W]e will see that not everyone has the same needs to erase your accent,” she says in the podcast.* “It depends on the environment in which you evolve but also because the privileges of some are apparent here too, but also that not all accents are equal. This is where I will return to the concept of glottophobia (the belief that certain accents are bad or inferior). . . We're not going to lie, a white man who has a French accent in English or a white English-speaking man who has an English accent in French, that can be a selling point.”

I see this argument from both sides. I watch my accent register as non-native on the faces of some people I speak to, and I also acknowledge a bias sneaking in when I hear a non-French accent because layering another inflection on top of the French language is harder for me to understand. I also have absolutely no idea what French teenagers are saying, but I feel the same about US teens.

I do observe subtle signs of my progress. I hardly ever get asked to repeat myself anymore. Even Parisians no longer immediately resort to speaking English to me. I do, however, still see a glint of amusement now and then, which causes me to spend the rest of the day wondering exactly which word or grammar rule I flubbed.

It can be frustrating, but even when I am wrestling with that “u” sound, I’m still being understood. The purpose of language, after all, is communication. Understanding and being understood. It’s why I pronounce my name the French way, otherwise they don’t understand it. It’s why I don’t use a French accent to say words like Paris and croissant when talking to an English speaker. It’s also why I will continue working on phonetics even as I try to accept that I may never shed my Philly accent. When that embarrasses me, I remind myself that I still have language cred. I’m one of the few in this country who can pronounce, “Schuylkill Expressway.”

* Translated from the French by me, not an official translator