Speaking and Singing in French

"Francais à dire et à chanter" (Speaking and Singing in French) takes a novel approach to French phonetics - karaoke. Marie-Simone Pavlovich, senior lecturer in the Department of French and Italian, and intern Molly Harnischfeger assembled French poems and songs in a web interface that helps students mimic and learn correct phonetic pronunciation while speaking and singing.

The site includes a wide range of songs - from the classic post-war style of Jacques Dutronc to current French hip-hop star MC Solaar. Problematic pronunciations in the songs and poems are broken down into phonemes and embellished with video examples of spoken French. Pavlovich said that often students come to Northwestern with better writing skills than speaking skills, and she wanted to make it fun for them to learn subtle but critical pronunciation by using poetry and music.

View "Francais à dire et à chanter" (password required)