Learning a French Accent: What You Should Know Before You Start

It's Valentine's day. You don't have time to learn a whole language to impress your significant other, so you decide to speak English with a French accent.

Before you begin it's important to know:

There is more than one version of a "French" accent!

French is the official language of 29 countries, each with their own variations on the French language.  On top of that, two speakers from Belgium could have vastly different "French" accents in English if one learned from a British teacher and one learned from an American teacher.

The two biggest things that are going to affect how a French speaker sounds when speaking English are: WHERE they are FROM and WHERE they LEARNED to speak English. 

The good news is that all you have to do is choose a real person to model your accent on.

Here are a couple of examples of different French accents to spark your inspiration:

Audrey Totou: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCL5W1iolM8&t=29s

Tony Parker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XqTKivWjQ&t=9s

Celine Dion (French-Canadian!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZa3838xrq4&t=24s

Happy listening and good luck!

You can learn more about dialect coach Jack Wallace at AccentCoachJack.com