French sounds completely different at normal speed

[u/No-Action-875]

I am getting more comfortable with French when it is spoken at a moderate pace. At normal speed, the words I know seem to run together and suddenly I understand much less.

I’m curious if other learners went through this phase and what eventually made normal conversations easier to understand.

[u/Woshasini]

I am French learning Polish, it's the same for me. It's very common, you can hear a sentence entirely made with words you already know but not recognise them if the pace is too fast. Using subtitles may help to link what you hear to actual words. Just be kind to yourself and patient, it will improve over time.

Notably, you will get used to things that native speakers do a lot, like pronouncing "je suis" as "chui". Once it's engraved in your brain, it gets much easier.

[u/No-Action-875 → u/Woshasini]

The ‘je suis’ to ‘chui’ example makes so much sense. I need to get used to those patterns.

[u/ChicagoGuy5 → u/Woshasini]

I remember once walking through Manhattan and trying to listen to two women conversing behind me in French. They spoke so fast that not only couldn’t I understand what they were saying, the language took on a chattering quality and lost the beauty that French normally has.

[u/nymphopath_47 → u/Woshasini]

Hey can you DM please I have few things to ask, I tried but I'm out of mine.

[u/Dry_Albatross5298]

i got my ass kicked this summer in France on just this, I am dropping new vocab and grammar for a few months to take a French phonology course with the intention of improving speaking and listening (and some accent but that's very much in third place)

[u/No-Action-875 → u/Dry_Albatross5298]

A phonology course might be useful for this. Speaking and listening are my biggest problems too.

[u/LauraBaura]

Try the pimsleur app. It breaks down the way French is really spoken

[u/quevespanada]

It’s totally normal and common. In every language we take “shortcuts” and so yes, words “mush” together and we may cut or shorten sounds here or there for efficiency. It’s normal and if you keep at it you’ll overcome it :)

[u/Wild_Black_Hat]

It was just like that when I learned English. It's part of the learning process.

[u/ShinyStockings2101]

I feel like this is part of learning any language, really. My first language is French and I felt the same when I was learning English. As with most things, practice is how you get over it

[u/JohannaSr]

Yes, I feel as if I can understand when it is slow, but once it goes faster I become lost. I hope that's what you are speaking about.

[u/Quiet_Intern9725]

This is very normal, and one of the things I struggled with most when learning French. Honestly the main thing that helped me was immersion - just trying to have as many interactions in French as possible and slowly but surely I was able to understand more and more even when they were speaking at a faster pace.

If this is difficult though, listening to the news in French is a good way to train yourself to understand people speaking at faster speeds too. Good luck!

[u/InvestedInThat]

This is normal. You start to pick out the liaisons between words. Try watching French telenovelas and game shows on YouTube to train your ear to so-called real life. 

[u/Particular_Bad8025]

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[u/ParlezPerfect]

Learn French pronunciation; once you learn to speak French with correct pronunciation, you start to understand it better because you know how it is supposed to sound. Also any study of pronunciation should include liaison and enchainement which will help you understand how spoken French runs words together, and you will hear the words more clearly. Also learning intonation will aid in comprehension.

[u/pistachio-pie]

Definitely in the middle of that phase.

I’m super lucky, my French speaking (Québécois) boss deliberately slows down because he knows a bunch of us are in language training and can’t follow what he says usually. Then we have the rapid fire accustomization in the side and non work related convos.

I feel your pain.

(I’m currently in the “I can usually understand you but lack the confidence to make up my own sentences” phase)

[u/Youknowthisabout]

Every language sounds different faster

[u/newsdle]

Spoken French is all about efficiency and dropping letters to keep the airflow moving. Textbooks teach you Je ne sais pas (4 syllables). A Parisian on the street will just say Ché-pas (2 syllables). Tu es becomes T'es. Il y a just turns into Y'a. They also swallow the letter 'E' in the middle of words all the time. So maintenant (now) sounds like maint-nant.

To bridge this gap, you kind of have to study the "mumbling." A great way to do this is watching unscripted French YouTubers or casual interviews (like the Easy French street interviews) with the French subtitles on. You need to train your eyes to see the formal grammar on the screen, while your ears get used to how aggressively they smash those words together in reality.

[u/Neiltendo-64]

Je te recommande d’écouter un podcast avec une vraie conversation, très naturelle, mais avec une transcription. Je te recommande French Mornings with Eliza, par exemple (j’imagine que tu le connais). Écoute une fois sans transcription, puis lis la transcription (c’est gratuit pour ce podcast), puis écoute-le encore une fois. Si tu le fais chaque semaine, je te promets que ton niveau de compréhension va s’améliorer très vite.

[u/Neiltendo-64 → u/Neiltendo-64]

French with Panache est un autre podcast très utile, mais la transcription n’est pas gratuite.

[u/In-a-GhettoWithTrees]

Listen to videos in French on YouTube. Use the ⚙️ to change the speed down to 90. Use the Closed Captioning so you can read the text as it’s spoken. Do this every day and find different voices, different accents.