Pronunciation of Chartres

Edmund Lewis writes:

It's 'SHAR-TR'- that 'e' is not pronounced at all, nor is the 's'. But
you *must* say the Rs as the French do to sound authentic- the French R
is pronounced at the back of the mouth, unilke most English ones. The
way I was taught it is 'try gargling without the water', sounds odd but
it's accurate.

I think the goal is to be understood, not to be authentic.

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Tom writes:

Thanks everyone, I think you helped me to the point that it will work
out. I do have this secret desire to pronounce it with my native Texas
accent as "charters". That should cause a good scene at the train
station!!

I doubt it. But you may not be understood.

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Yes, just about right. The last syllable is barely pronounced.
PJW

On 12 Feb 2005 06:51:37 -0800, "Tom" wrote:

OK everyone - silly question here. But we are visiting France in a few
weeks and would like to visit Chartres on a day trip. No French
language background but have been listening to CD's so that we are not
total idiots. Could someone please enlighten us on the correct
pronunciation of Chartres? I am thinking something like "shar-tre".
Is that close? Thanks a lot!

Alan Harrison writes:

However, if you visit London and go to S. Paul's Cathedral, you will find
that the prelate persiding over the diocese, the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard
Chartres is indeed pronounced "charters". :-)

If you go to Kowloon, you might hear still a different pronunciation.
So what?

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On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:21:18 +0100, Wolfgang Schwanke
wrote:

Klare Sache und damit hopp!

According to Google, this means "Clear thing and thus hopp!"

Gotta love web translators!
--
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DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
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--

"Edmund Lewis" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
It's 'SHAR-TR'- that 'e' is not pronounced at all, nor is the 's'. But
you *must* say the Rs as the French do to sound authentic- the French R
is pronounced at the back of the mouth, unilke most English ones. The
way I was taught it is 'try gargling without the water', sounds odd but
it's accurate.

Edmund

I'd say it (and when I hear the French say it) SHARTr - with the "r" just
about audible.

www.cpmac.com/normandy

cpmac

I think an idiomatic translation would be "Plain as your face and
Bob's your uncle"!

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:54:34 GMT, Deep Foiled Malls
wrote:

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 16:21:18 +0100, Wolfgang Schwanke
wrote:

Klare Sache und damit hopp!

According to Google, this means "Clear thing and thus hopp!"

Gotta love web translators!
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On 12/02/05 18:22, in article ,
"Magda" wrote:

On 12 Feb 2005 06:51:37 -0800, in rec.travel.europe, "Tom"
arranged
some electrons, so they looked like this :

... OK everyone - silly question here. But we are visiting France in a few
... weeks and would like to visit Chartres on a day trip. No French
... language background but have been listening to CD's so that we are not
... total idiots. Could someone please enlighten us on the correct
... pronunciation of Chartres? I am thinking something like "shar-tre".
... Is that close? Thanks a lot!

You can't go wrong with shart-tre. There is an E in the end, just don't overdo

it.


I would emphasize the differently and say Char-trah. But light on the trah
part, more like an "eh".

Here is my discourse on pronunciation and "The War in Lyon"

*****

THE WAR IN LYON

One of the difficulties of high school French is that it is quickly
forgotten and probably never really learned. Two years of the
stuff at the age of 16-17 evaporates by the time one is 40 or 50. *
The most difficult part of the language is that even familiar words are not
pronounced the same. The Europeans` pronunciation of *the alphabet *from Ah
to Zed is already different than the American (A as in hey, *to Z as in
Zee). *About 30% of French vocabulary uses the same words as in English, but
*the pronunciations are different . Nation. In American English it is
pronounced as "nay-shun" and in French as 'nah-cee-own". *More or less.. *

One of the most common errors English speakers make is when they jump into
a cab and mutter *"guerre de Lyon " when they want to go to Lyon train
station in Paris; The driver usually understands since he or she has
encountered it thousands of times; The French ear wants to hear "Gare"
(train station) *which rhymes with the English word "bar", not "guerre"
(war ) which rhymes with "bear". *

Historically Lyon is not known for its wars. It escaped being a battle zone
in WWI and WWII although was an active site for the resistance. *My French
history is poor but I remember no famous battle in the region. Certainly it
has escaped modern military attention so asking the taxi driver to take you
to any *contemporary conflict in the region will fail and lead him to let
you off at the Gare to Lyon . *This successful arrival will deceptively lead
you to believe that your French is not that bad at all, perfect in fact
since your desired destination has been reached.

The above subject popped into my head because of the Gare de Austerlitz and
the habit of *Europeans to name train stations after famous victorious
battles in history. *Napoleon, a war criminal from a few centuries back,
actually won a battle at Austerlitz which the French have not forgotten.
The bottom line battle of his career, however, *was at Waterloo. *He lost.
There is no Waterloo station in Paris, or elsewhere in France. To find this
train station one will have to go to London, where they still crow about
the job they did on Napoleon. Note, however the Brits have no train station
named after the battle at Yorktown (which they lost to the French, with
some minor help from the Americans). *On the other hand, the Paris
Gare du Nord (North) and Gare de l'Est (East) could be taken in a general
sense when it comes to wars, since both of those regions have had so many
of them. *

The Americans, believing that history is bunk, have never, to my knowledge,
named any train station after a *battle. *The Americans, however, never
have had a clear idea on which battles or wars they won or lost. The war of
1812 did not go that well, and the Alamo was a defeat. Pearl Harbor rallied
the nation, Corregidor and the loss of the Philippines was a historical
incident. *True, Vietnam is not a proud moment in the nation's history, but
history never influenced train station naming as in Europe.

Anyway, you can be assured that the French will accept your bad French
gladly if they can get an inkling of an idea of what you are trying to buy
from them. The exchange of money greases the tracks of international
exchange and good will. *Pronunciation is secondary.

On 12/02/05 22:39, in article
, "JX Bardant"
wrote:


"Tom" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
OK everyone - silly question here. But we are visiting France in a few
weeks and would like to visit Chartres on a day trip. No French
language background but have been listening to CD's so that we are not
total idiots. Could someone please enlighten us on the correct
pronunciation of Chartres? I am thinking something like "shar-tre".
Is that close? Thanks a lot!

Yes, just don't pronounce the "e".




But a French person from the south of France would!

Take the word 32 in French, "trente-deux"

The Parisian will drop the e, some it comes out "trent", a bit like tr-aunt
in English English (in American English, the "aunt" comes out as "ant" the
insect).

But down in the Province or South-Ouest, the trente comes out tren-tah,
and the "e" does not get dropped.

So Chartre can be done as "Chart" or "Char-trah". Depending on the last
action of the tongue.

As an American I prefer the basic idea of those from the South of France
to supply all the "information" that a word has through its extended
pronunciation.

American English has some confusion along these lines. The word "mister"
is "mistah" in Southern American English due to "r" dropout. However
the "r" is not forever lost because people from Boston will pronounce
"Cuba" as "Cube-r". The "r" merely appears in another word!

Earl

Earl Evleth wrote:

[]
American English has some confusion along these lines. The word "mister"
is "mistah" in Southern American English due to "r" dropout. However
the "r" is not forever lost because people from Boston will pronounce
"Cuba" as "Cube-r". The "r" merely appears in another word!

Bostonians are compensating for all the words they drop the 'r' from-
e.g. cAAh, pAAk, and hAAv'd.

--
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usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk