Pronunciation of foreign words by foreign speakers

Question

I've used English for a long time and it isn't immediately obvious to others that I'm native French. Whenever I say a French word or place name in English I wonder whether I should pronounce it like English or French speakers would. (Of course I always use English pronunciation for common place names like Paris.) Using French pronunciation can sound pretentious, but English pronunciation can too, especially if part of the audience speaks French and knows that I am native French.

This question is similar. My question focuses on native French speakers that speak in English to an audience of both English and French natives. Which pronunciation draws less attention?

Answer 1

I'd recommend the following strategy:

• For place names that actually have an anglicised name, always use that ("Paris", "Normandy", "Brittany", "Brussels", "The Dordogne");
• For place names that are well-known in England, if your pronunciation of English generally is fairly proficient, then try to "anglicise" your pronunciation a little, e.g. by pronouncing "Marseille(s)" and "Lourdes" without a French 'r' and moving the vowels a little closer to their English counterparts;
• For place names with alternative pronunciations in French where English speakers tend towards one of the pronunciations, try to notice which one tends to be used in English and use that, even if it's not the pronunciation used by inhabitants of that town. So for example, English speakers tens to be used to pronouncing "Chamonix" without the final [ks], or to pronouncing "Metz" with its "German" pronunciation [mEts] (whereas actual inhabitants of the town don't usually pronounce the 't').
• Subtly, consider adopting "mispronounced" versions of names that are commonly used by English speakers. For example, English speakers tend to pronounce "Bayeux" with [be-] rather than [ba-] at the start and commonly omit the final [s] of "Saint-Saëns" (either as the town or the composer) when they come across it-- not because these towns really have "English" names as such, just that English speakers commonly mispronounce them when attempting to call them by their "French" name;
• For lesser known place names, where English speakers aren't used to hearing the name pronounced either with an "English" or "French" accent, I would suggest just adopting the French pronunciation without trying to give it an "English accent".

Answer 2

As a native English speaker who has reasonable command of French and especially enjoys the sound of it, I tend to keep the proper-noun pronunciations consistent with the language I am speaking.

Take for example the French surname Jacques, which is reasonably widespread in Britain (among people of Huguenot and Walloon descent). In Britain it is mostly pronounced JAKES, which is understandable and fits with the sounds of an English sentence.

Using the French pronunciation of Jacques when speaking English really sounds discordant, as indeed would Shackleton (CHAC-LE-TON) if pronounced the English way when speaking French.

This is only my opinion, but the sounds and mouth movements of English and French are quite different. And if you try and conflate the two you end up with something that is less than poetic.

Answer 3

This is really simple. When speaking English, you speak English. The correct English pronunciation is the correct English pronunciation. And English doesn't so much as have all the sounds needed to pronounce words borrowed from French the French way. The French pronunciation is plain not possible in English. That's why the English pronunciation is different in the first place.

So if you think that using French pronunciation makes you sound pretentious, that's because it does. One major reason for that is because it is utterly random. Just ask yourself these three simple questions:

1. What is so special about French?
   Why do you want to pronounce Paris the way it's pronounced in French, but not Los Angeles the way it's prounounced in Spanish, bistro the way it's pronounced in Russian, or kindergarten the way it's pronounced in German? For that matter, are you even aware for every single word which language it comes from?
2. What is so special about that particular word?
   You don't pronounce car as [vwa.tyʁ], or girl as [ʒœn fij], so why do you want to pronounce Paris as [pa.ˈʁi]? It is just yet another pair of words for the same thing from different languages.
3. Why trace back the etymology exactly one step?
   Most of the words we got from French, French in turn got from Latin. So why stop at French? Why do you not want to use the Latin pronunciation? Or the Proto-Indo-European one?

To sum it up: You wouldn't use the English pronunciation of Paris when speaking French, except in very particular circumstances to drive home a specific point. Likewise, you don't use the French pronunciation of Paris when speaking English, except in very particular circumstances to drive home a specific point. If you don't have a point, then you just speak English. Like everyone else.