Rhythm & melody: stress the group, not the word
P45.pronunciation-and-liaison.03 · Audience: guest, language-pro, it-ml · Prerequisites: Liaison, élision & enchaînement
The single habit that most marks a Russian accent in French is word stress. Russian stresses one syllable inside each word, and moves it. French does not: it gives every syllable roughly equal length and puts a light stress only on the last syllable of the rhythmic group. Say a phrase as one smooth run that leans gently on its final syllable — not as a string of separately-stressed words. Each target plays a native model; record and compare your rhythm and melody (the score's prosody line).
Group-final stress — the phrase rises evenly and lands on the last syllable (je voudrais un cafÉ), not on a stressed root inside a word.
Say: Je voudrais un café, s'il vous plaît.
Equal syllables — resist lengthening the stressed vowel and reducing the others the way Russian does; keep them even, then land the group.
Say: La bibliothèque universitaire est fermée.
Question intonation — a yes/no question with no est-ce que is carried by a rising final melody. Same words, rising end = question.
Say: Tu viens avec nous ce soir ?
Continuation vs finality — inside a longer sentence each group rises slightly (more to come), and only the last group falls (done). Practise the two-group contour.
Say: Quand il fait beau, nous marchons au bord de l'eau.
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