How to pronounce Dessus vs Dessous + What they mean
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- My mom still makes this mistake after 39 years of speaking French. Do you? Let’s explore the problem of Dessous vs. Dessus.
💾 Read, save and/or print the full written lesson here (free): www.commeunefr...
🎓 Join my Everyday French crash course (free): www.commeunefr...
Last week, my son was crawling around our living room and managed to sit UNDER our couch. It was so funny that I sent my mom a photo, and she made a common mistake in her reply - mixing up “dessus” with “dessous”.
This is a problem I see among many of my French students (including my mom, who has lived in France for 39 years!) so I thought I would teach you more about the different pronunciations and meanings between “dessus” and “dessous” in French. Ready for your French vocabulary and pronunciation lesson? Let’s dive in!
Take care and stay safe.
😘 from Grenoble, France.
Géraldine
💾 Read, save and/or print the full written lesson here: www.commeunefrancaise.com/blog/dessus-dessous
You speak Spanish too?
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I was dumb forgot the password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me
@Zakai Makai instablaster ;)
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@Remy Hendrix It worked and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy!
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Merci Géraldine ! Im going to have to replay this many times lol
you can also check the written lesson on the blog! ;)
Nix Tax, bonjour. Moi aussi, je vais repasser cette vidéo plusieurs fois jusqu’à ce que je sache comment utiliser ces mots parfaitement. Géraldine est une prof parfaite, n’est-ce pas ? Je l’adore. Bonne journée à vous!
As a lyric diction coach, the formula I use for the [y] mixed-vowel sound is "[u] on the lips; [i] inside the mouth." That is, make "oo" with your lips while saying "ee" inside your mouth with your tongue. C'est facile!
That was how I was taught to make the sound. Even though I rarely get the chance to speak French I can pronounce it still without thinking about it. Once you get it it stays.
This is a great tip! Any tips for hearing the difference though?
when our french teacher taught us the [y] sound we all laughed that it sounded as if she was squeezing one out (we were teenagers). I know it's a bit cruel but this is how I learnt the distinction between [u] and [y] and it really stuck.
@@paradoxelle481
You can hear it more and more as. You practice pronouncing it. Also, it's possible to create audio flashcards to practice distinguishing.
More creatively, one could develop an association like think of a cello for ou and violin 🎻 for u.
👍
Excellent: your formula is precisely what my German father taught me when as a lad I asked how to pronounce the German "ü". It served perfectly when I learned French. En effet, c'est très facile!
I love your friendly presentation style - bravo :)
However, as an English person, I really struggle to even hear the difference between those two, let alone try to pronounce them !
I used to work with a French lady who was always trying to tell me the difference but I never did get it :(
Me, too, I've asked French friends about this before and they can't understand why I can't hear the difference. But then I try to get them to say "it" without saying "eet" and they can't hear the difference in that, either.
abbreviatedalex
Thanks for the explanation. I wish I’d known that all those years ago when my French colleague used to give me a hard time about this !
What abrevataledix said is mostly true. However you can actually train your brain/ear to hear these differences. However it takes regular work in something like a phonetics class and one to two years.
Hi, Julian - I tell my students to picture picking up something disgusting and saying "EWWWWWWW!" because it's so gross. Now say that "ewwwww" through a tiny circle made by your lips. So make a tiny "o" with your lips but try to say "ewwww" through it. Here's a video specifically about pronunciation. Maybe it can help? ruclips.net/user/shorts04wOmJ9kgN8
Lori S in PA
I’ve just recently started watching this channel and let me say, it’s been SUPER helpful and I’ve learned a lot, I’m especially enjoying the free email course! Thank you for continuing to put out great content Géraldine, merci!
Welcome, Nick!
This is an EXCELLENT explanation! Merci mille fois, Géraldine!! Mes élèves disent "merci" aussi!!
Lori S in PA
Geraldine! J’ai une idée pour votre maman… how about remembering or thinking of a “sous-marin” (not the food, but the submarine)…that goes down under the waves (sous les vagues de l’ocean), “dessous” like a “sous- marins”…( the “sous” sound is in both) 😁 Perhaps it can help some to think this to remember dessous (under)versus dessus ( on top) 🍀 Cheers from 🇨🇦
Géraldine is such a nice name. Thanks for the video. 💜
Many years ago, the English woman that taught me French gave me a tip for the ou versus u. When you want to make the u sound, like dessus, she told me to first say oooooo (bear with me!), then say eeeeeee. Now say eeeee but make your mouth into the shape of the oooooo.. What comes out it roughly the correct sound - after a while!
Salut Geraldine! The first time I arrived in France at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I was scolded by the bus driver because I placed my luggage on (as in inside) the bus when he meant "dessous" and I thought he said "dessus" literally on top-which sounds impossible. He was of course, pertaining to the luggage compartment UNDERNEATH most airport buses. Unforgettable French lesson. Finally, there is someone who can explain the difference clearly. Merci!
Pour cette raison vous avez une super personnalité! Vous êtes moitié-Mexicaine! La chaleur hispanique est toujours speciale!
I was taught to make the u sound ([y]) in French by making my tongue say “ee” and my lips say “oo”. This seems to be correct.
Thank you so so so so much Geraldine for everything you do here for us! 🤗
Fewer mistakes, not less ! Merci pour les vidéos tellement éducatives!
By miles, the most useful lesson. And I say this as a pretty competent (English) French speaker. Dessus/dessous. Scary. But critical. Merci. mille fois, Geraldine.
Oh Thomas... you're absolutely welcome.
The ou/u sound lesson was SO HELPFUL!
German also has the "ü" sound. As a language coach I tell people to form a kiss mouth and then say "u" and it becomes "ü"
I love the "kiss mouth" tip.
In Hungarian "u", "ú", "ü", "ű" are 4 different sounds :D
Bonjour, comme Géraldine a dit, moi aussi, j’aime beaucoup l’astuce “kissing mouth”. Quelle explication merveilleuse. Cela m’aide aussi.
My mom is also Mexican, and also still makes equivalent mistakes in English after 42 years of the language. 🤣
The sur/sous comparison was very helpful. I still can’t hear the difference, but now I will read and write the, correctly.
Pour moi, même après qq années d'apprentissage de français, je ne peux pas entendre la petite difference entre dessus et dessous. C'est trop difficile pour mes oreilles anglophones ! Donc, merci pour cette leçon qui m'aide un peu, bien qu'elle ne puisse pas résoudre mon problème. Salut.
Courage Grassy ! Ce n'est pas facile. :)
Pas facile, mais il est important de pouvoir différencier « cou » et « c*l », « roue »et « rue », « tout » et « tu », « nous » et « nu ». Bon courage avec ça !
Grassy elle y est pourtant la différence entre dessus et dessous c'est le u et le ou qui fait la différence.
Bonjour Géraldine, cette vidéo est une explication formidable des mots : sur, sous, dessus, dessous, au dessus, au dessous, et surtout par dessus et par dessous. Votre explication n’était pas seulement utile pour votre mère, mais aussi pour moi. Je n’était jamais sûr comment utiliser par dessus ni par dessous, et maintenant je sais. Votre explication a tout simplifié pour moi et je vais m’entraîner jusqu’à ce que je sache m’en servir sans hésitation. Merci à vous et à votre mère pour avoir créé cette vidéo qui m’a tellement plu. Dès aujourd’hui, ces mots ne me stresseront plus car vous avez mis tout en ordre dans ma tête, pour moi. Enfin, quelqu’un a fait un cours sur ce sujet ! Et bien sûr, c’est Géraldine! Merci milles fois pour avoir simplifié tout cela. Vous est TOP ! Bonne journée.
Merci Géraldine
Mil gracias por tomarte el tiempo de hacer este video! Está hermoso, muy bien explicado y sobre todo de gran utilidad!!!
Bonjour Géraldine, I just discovered you on RUclips and I cannot thank you enough for the wonderful explanation of French. You are a great teacher! Joyeuses pâques !🌼
A cool fact is that the u [y] does exist in English, but only in Australian English used as part of the diphthong "o" where they say [oy] while American speakers say [oʊ] in most dialects in the US.
Oh you are great. Thank you so much for your channel. Now I'm going to talk about how I learned to pronunciation and how I'd like to find the same teaching again.--> in college I had a French book that explains international phonetic alphabet sounds individually. For the sound in tu, it read these instructions:
Make your mouth firmly like you were going to say the letter o and Then, try to say the letter e. When I did that I absolutely recognized the correct sound. It was brilliant.
It was the same quality of instructions for every sound in French. This was decades ago..
I would love to have a copy of those instructions now.
And if I could find the same quality of instructions for the sounds in English, ah bien.
Perhaps I will write you an email one day, just in case you know of a source.
Thanks for your work and I hope it pays off well because it certainly pays off for me to listen to your videos.
Thank you very much, you helped me a lot! Very clear!
The -u vowel has a brighter (higher pitched) sound than -ou. That’s how I conceptualise the difference between dessus and dessous.
I'd swear that I hear a difference in sound between English words that have an "ew" sound vs an "oo" sound, and that reminds me of the difference between French words such as sur and sous.
I was taught that the French "u" sound is making your mouth like your going to say "e" but form the lips like an “oo". In practice, you make an “e” sound with your mouth and, while leaving your tongue in the same place, change your lips to form the “oo” shape. The tongue stays close to the front just behind the bottom teeth while making the “oo” sound.
I laugh at it bcoz you have a good humor on that but I must say you still look good and amazing. And your vlog really helps me a lot.
Cette vidéo était très utile pour moi. I have been learning French for 5 years but I still find new words and structures. Thank you
I’ve just begun following this series and love it! In particular, I appreciate how each lesson contextualizes the new vocabulary.
Brilliant video, très utile! Grand merci!!!
omg thank you. this was really helpful
I read somewhere (for native English speakers) in order to pronounce the French “u” one should pucker the lips (as if to kiss) and say it like “ew”.
It helped - bon courage!
Good tip!
Géraldine, you can help your learners pronounce the French u by telling them to round their lips as if to pronounce oo as in moon, hold your lips in the rounded position, and then say the sound ee as in beet without changing the position of the rounded lips. It works!!
Merci beaucoup. This is an excellent channel, but to make it absolutely the irresistible, a suggestion: why not do all your explanations in French (with French subtitles)? Most of your viewers are not beginners and have quite some background (at intermediate or advanced levels) and we need to improve our listening skills. Also by listening your explanations in French also help us pick up some new phases and vocabulary, etc.
Hope you can consolider that.
Merci.
Thank you.
Très bien expliqué et excellent contexte! Merci, Geraldine.
This was a revelation for me! Thank you so much!
I've never met a native French speaker yet who can hear the difference between the way we (Americans) pronounce the short "i" sound (like in "it") versus the long "e" sound (like in "eat.") They make amusing mistakes between "beach" and "bitch" or "sheet" and "shit." So I guess it is the same for us with these words, it is VERY difficult to tell those sounds apart!
Love to see your videos
C'est très utile, merci!
Hi Geraldin your lessons are very helpful thank you so much! As a beginner its so intresting for me to learn some things 'bout the everyday spoken french .Its going to be very nice if you make more lessons for the most used gramatical tenses in the spoken french and the constructions like: être en train de and venir de +verb and how could they be used not only in the present tense but also in other gramatical tenses to descbe diffrent situations in past for example .
Géraldine ces sont très bien! Merci beaucoup!!
Love your lessons, I have just recently discovered them and they are very helpful. I am Mexican, and my kids are starting to correcting me. I have been living in France for almost 7 years now and I just can't not make the "u", they make fun of me because not even my son's name can pronounce correctly 😳
Super leçon.
1:26 le livre est sous la girafe
does that mean that the BOOK is under the giraffe? because the picture right after has the giraffe under the book
OMG your mom is Mexican? I'm Mexican learning French!!! Tambien hablo Espanol jajajajaja
Bonjour Geraldine ! I have to say, I absolutely love your videos. You have a very warm way of presenting things and I just get so engaged. I'm not always on YT as I'm trying to learn a million things everyday in other places but I get excited when I'm on here and I see one of your videos. Keep up the great work ! Merci mille fois :)
Vous êtes une excellent professeure.
I think I already understand the difference, my tongue gets used to sounds quickly but that depends, lol
Merci beaucoup pour cette leçon ! J’ai appris beaucoup :)
Geraldine, my brother used to live in a house named 'au dessous du moulin'. But I have always wondered what a French person would understand if I said the house name to them. How would they know whether it was below (au dessous) or above (au dessus)? I never realised till now that the French ear is capable of distinguishing between such close-sounding words!
"Bras-dessus, bras-dessous", Jacques Brel, Les Vieux!🎶
This really helped. I can make the two different sounds but they still kinda sound the same to me.
Merci beaucoup pour vos videos Geraldine !
Merci bien! J'aime bien apprendre comme ça.
I don't really have a problem with sur and sous, but when you French say dessus and dessous (and all variants attached to them), very often you don't make enough of a distinction between 'u' and 'ou' for my English ear to hear it, especially when you speak quickly. As much as I try to train my ear, I was using an old version of Rosetta Stone a few years ago and quite simply couldn't hear the difference and had to guess the right answer.
Merci beaucoup . C'est génial.
It's refreshing to find a video acknowledging the difficulties foreign speakers may have understanding the difference between the 'u' and 'ou' sounds. A French lecturer of mine many years ago thought the difference was obvious, and would become very irritated if a poor student pronounced au dessus with an 'u' sound.
What she was probably irritated about is the fact that the 'ou' sound is obvious meaning that the more difficult 'u' sound should be pronounced as anything other than the 'ou' sound.
Une petite question : pourquoi à 6:41 vous avez mis un "e" à la fin du mot "passée"? Le lapin est masculin non?
C'est une erreur, je pense
Lapin est effectivement masculin.
Very good lesson, one of the most helpful you've done! Question: Is your mom fluent in English? I suppose she is if she understands your video in English (rather than Spanish!)
61/5000
Le talon d'Achille pour moi. Vous le faites sonner si simple et merci.
Bonjour Professeur, je voudrais demander quelle est la différence réelle entre
AU-DESSOUS
EN DESSOUS
Puis j'ai compris que le premier est en dessous sans contact dans le sens vertical.
En dessous est en bas mais décalé à droite ou à gauche (comme si j'avais une maison et en bas à droite j'ai la cave à gauche une salle de bain). Serait-ce une interprétation correcte ? Merci d'avoir répondu. Je vous remercie. À très bientôt. A
At 1:26 she says "Le livre est sous la girafe." At 1:29, the video shows la girafe est sous le livre!
Merci,merci,merci. En fin,cela du sens
Also, I remember that “le dessous” means “underwear” but I’ve seen it only in the old fashion magazines like “La mode illustrée” of XIX and XX centuries
you can sometimes say "dessous" for underwear, especially for women, but it's rarely used and there is a little seductive innuendo in the use of the word. As in the song "les dessous chic" by Birkin.
great, many thanks
Super! Merci
Well have to set on replay :-)
You'll find the notes about the lesson on the blog, CC.
@@Commeunefrancaise I've downloaded it..parfait!
Merci Geraldine. I understand now. Signed. Your Mother.😊
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Geraldine, I studied french, I speak English, but I am mexicaine as your mother, can you donne a française class pour personne comme moi qui parle espagnol, s´vous plais, I know my writing french is not so very good, I am only speak even I spend like two years in training, please, because or only speak french!
Fewer. Fewer mistakes. Mèrci!
It sounds incredibly complicated, but come to think of it, it's exactly as complicated in Portuguese (my native language)! So there's hope, haha
Merci Geraldine. Une petite question: est-ce que on fait la liaison avec "est"? Il me semble que tu la fais dans cette vidéo...!
this lesson was very difficult
mdr. quand j’ai habité à Rennes, je crois que j’ai rendu la mère de mon corres absolument fou avec comment j’ai utilisé dessus et dessous 🤣 je comprends la différence, mais la prononciation c’est un peut bizarre pour un anglophone
Salut Geraldine... Je voulais te dire que j'aime tes videos. Sera-t-il possible pour toi de faire videos complement en français stp? Je pense que il serait très utile pour les étudiants avec un niveau un peu plus élevé .. Merci!! :)
I realize that this wasn't the subject of this video, but I was struck by the feminine 'e' in 'passée' in the example sentence 'Le lapin est passée par-dessus le livre'. What is the reason for that?
Good question.
Le lapin est masculin non ?
Yes its a mistake ! ;) It should be "le lapin est passé par-dessus le livre".
So dessus is literally the opposite of dessous. Thanks French, so logical 😂
Can you do tant pis et tant mieux?
Oh, *Géraldine,* t'es en vrai tellement charmante; tes enseignements tout bien pareil! Et sincèrement je le trouve être ravissant quoi que ta mère aurait encore peu de "difficultés" en la langue - comme la plupart d'entre nous "étrangers" [ ...même si 'y a bien assez looongtemps depuis qu'on en étudiait ({: \ ...!! ] Et au fait: je me demandais si peut-être tu parles (peu d') espagnol en plus? ~Comme toujours, une autre vidéo carrément utile; merci autant de ça ({: D ...!
oui oui, je parle espagnol.
@@Commeunefrancaise En vrai je pensais c'est très bien probable que tu le parlerais. Cuando viene al espanol, puedo decir que, de verdad, trato mucho por lo "hacer" bien, pero tristamente no estan siempre los resultados de mis tratas ({: \ / ({; D !Aunque realmente me gusta muchisima la idioma! ~Con muy buenos saludos a tù querida madre ({: D /
un tres bon lecon!
Even after living 2 years in France, my ear can't hear the difference. I learned how to speak the difference, but my ear still can't hear it.
Same :(
Super, c'est la lesson que j'attendais depuis longtemps, parce que en fait je l'avais posé cette question a un ami français et même lui ne pouvait pas m'expliquer bien la difference entre dessus et dessous. (Ou peut-être que je n'ai pu m'exprimer bien 😅) Merci beaucoupe, Géraldine!
Ravie que ça te serve !
Fewer mistakes not "less mistakes" (just to help you with your english) ;-)
native english speakers dont do that
Sounds the same to me, heck, some English words sound alike to me.
Ma mère est mexicaine aussi comme moi. Alors tu parles l’espagnol toi aussi?
The way I was taught to pronounce the French "u" is to form your lips like you're going to say "ou" (French) but say the letter "e" in English. Don't change the shape of your lips while saying it.
Entonces tú hablas español??? Haha! Saludos a tu mamá. Es paisana! ;)
i know i should understand since you explained it very well but i still don't get it
Mija, hablas español también? 😳
¡¿Qué?! ¿Tu mamá es mexicana? ¡Eso explica la María, el alebrije, y el cuadro del fondo!
on peut aussi dire « la lapin est passée sous le livre » je crois.
Wait do you speak Spanish as well ?
Pourquoi le lapin est déçu? 😅
"non mamie, je préfere qu'on se met en dessous du canapé" :)
Aaaaaah! J'entends pas la différence entre -sus et -sous! Aide-moi!
Je comprends comment DIRE les sons mais quand tu les dis, ils sont la même chose.
Oh my gosh! Eres Mexicana? 💃
Si!