How to Learn French - Lamb to the slaughter

Bonjour*!

One of our long-term Chouchous*, Deb, told me of a pronunciation adventure she had while travelling and it has never left me. Granted, she was in Italy at the time, but the lesson she learned that day holds true for le français* as well.

Deb was at a butcher’s and decided she like the look of a cut of lamb. Though her Italian was limited, she did know the word for lamb (agnello) and so, in a communication style known to many of you called the “point-and-utter-the-one-word-you-know” trick, she indicated toward the lamb and said “agnello”. The butcher’s was blindée* with locals jostling to place their orders. The woman behind the counter seemed to not understand Deb’s request, so determinedly, she repeated the word ‘agnello’ pronouncing the word as she’d seen it spelled, with a hard ‘g’ as in ‘golf’.

Still, the butcher wasn’t getting it, so Deb had another go. No luck. Again she tried, this time softer as she was becoming increasingly embarrassed at holding everyone up. Finally, it twigged, and the butcher, loudly and in front of everyone, said “Ah ! Sí ! Agnello ! ” pronouncing the ‘g’ softly, as in the start of the English word ‘nuisance’. Possibly a poor choice of example (sorry, Deb!), but I use it to illustrate that the ‘gn’ sound in Italian, as in French, is pronounced like ‘nye’. Think of how the word champagne is pronounced in French and you’ve got the idea.

Though the butcher could now go about completing the commercial transaction, she wasn’t finished with her linguistic one. “Agnello ! ”, she repeated to Deb, emphasising the soft ‘g’ sound. Deb nodded and smiled, but the Italian woman repeated it again and again, in front of the whole shop, before it dawned on Deb that she wasn’t going to stop until Deb gave it a go herself, which she dutifully did.

The butcher’s face lit up at her refined pronunciation and, as if Deb’s reward was for her to trot out her own broken English, said “Yes! Lamb!”, heartily pronouncing the ‘b’.

Some very useful words contain the ‘gn’ sound. Here is a selection to get you started.

agneau
champagne
champignon
gagner
mignon
Avignon
campagne

So, let’s add our new sound to the table pour voir ce que ça donne*.

Line by line, your French pronunciation is improving. Bravo!

*Hello | *Teacher’s pet | *French | *packed | *Well done