In every part of lesson 1.4, whenever the phrase "Je voudrais un jus" comes up, no matter how I say it, Rocket recognizes it as "Je voudrais un jeu" ... what the heck am I doing wrong?
Pronunciation -- jus versus jeu -- 1.4 I cannot seem to ever say "jus" correctly
Rachelle117
August 20, 2019
Liss-Rocket-Languages-Tutor
August 20, 2019
Salut Rachelle117 !
This can indeed be a tricky one! Words like jus contain a vowel sound that can be quite difficult for English speakers to get their tongues around when first starting to learn French - or even after practicing French for some time! It's because this vowel sound doesn't exist in English, and it can take a little while to train your ears and your mouth to recognize and reproduce it.
The best thing to do might be to practice listening to phrases with jeu a few times, and then listening to phrases with jus. See if you can hear the difference. Here are a few examples for you to work with:
Jeu:
This can indeed be a tricky one! Words like jus contain a vowel sound that can be quite difficult for English speakers to get their tongues around when first starting to learn French - or even after practicing French for some time! It's because this vowel sound doesn't exist in English, and it can take a little while to train your ears and your mouth to recognize and reproduce it.
The best thing to do might be to practice listening to phrases with jeu a few times, and then listening to phrases with jus. See if you can hear the difference. Here are a few examples for you to work with:
Jeu:
le jeu
the game
Jeu de mots
Pun
Le jeu des enfants.
The children's game.
Jus:
un jus
a juice
un jus avec des glaçons
a juice with some ice cubes
un verre de jus d'orange
a glass / drink of orange juice
Once you feel that you can hear the difference in the vowel sound, practice saying those phrases aloud and using the voice recognition to see how you do, emphasizing the difference in the vowel sound between jeu and jus as much as you can. Note the positioning of your lips and your tongue when you say each word, and mark how the positioning is slightly different. When you feel that you've got the difference down, try the phrase Je voudrais un jus again.
I hope that this is helpful!
Bon courage !
Liss
Rachelle117
August 20, 2019
Merci Liss !
Liss-Rocket-Languages-Tutor
August 21, 2019
De rien, Rachelle117 ! :)
Jefluz
November 19, 2020
Just saw this. Good examples. Its also hard for me to pronounce the French ‘u’ consistently . For example, dessus dessous was a hard at first ( still is somewhat ).
I'm amused by the fact that, although I'm an native English (US) speaker, I can never get the speech recognition to recognize the way I pronounce ‘Rocket Review’.