French Pronunciation

I bet there are tons of books, but the one I can think of right now is "Teach Yourself French for Dummies". It explains how to pronounce French r's and u's and it phonetically tells you how to pronounce words. The only thing is that...well, I personally can't learn how to pronounce words unless I hear them often. I found the "u" especially hard to pronounce. Here are some tips I learned from my teacher:

To pronounce the r, kinda gurgle in the back of your throat while placing the tip of your tongue on your bottom teeth.

To pronounce the u, form your lips like you're going to say a long E (like "see" in English) and then, without moving your lips from that position, with your throat and your tongue make an "oo" sound (like English "coo"). It took me a while to finally master this.

As for nasal sounds, they usually come before an n, such as an, en, in, on, un. You don't actually pronounce the n sound, but more like pronounce the vowel sound in the very back of your mouth, and lift your soft palate, or the soft piece of tissue at the very back of your mouth, before it becomes your throat.

The book I mentioned isn't a dictionary, but I'd imagine that there must be some dictionaries out there. Search around at your local bookstore. Barnes & Noble usually has a pretty wide selection of dictionaries.

Good luck!

Great advice from Honey! There is one thing that isn't quite 100% accurate though...

The French "u" as in "tu" (you) is pronounced with rounded lips like you were going to say "oo" (as in "Hoo!" like an owl), but instead try to pronounce "ee" (as in "feet") instead, while keeping your lips round.

The description Honey gave is a distinct sound with VERY SIMILAR phonetic properties to the one I described. It's actually pretty much the Japanese sound "u" as in "sushi". If you notice when Japanese people say "sushi", their lips don't round. French speakers will know something is funny with your "u"'s if you pronounce them like that, but they will be comprehensible (unlike English "oo").

Get yourself a French partner and practice practice practice!

Good luck!

Ah! I got it backwards! Thank you for correcting me.
I first started pronouncing it that way, but now my lips are neither round nor stretched...just kinda slack. I rely more upon placement, which is the space in the middle of behind my front teeth and the center of the roof of my mouth. Whether I do or do not change the shape of my lips, it still sounds the same.
What do you think about this? I don't know whether I explained myself clearly enough or not.

I see you're a Miyazaki fan.

Yup! I often use "kaonashi" as my user name...

I got to watched 3 Miyazaki movies around Thanksgiving time because a Japanese friend got an 8-DVD set on ebay.

As for the "u" pronunciation thing, I'm not sure if I followed your explanation completely, but it sounds like you form the sound more with your tongue and less with your lips, which can still produce a very similar sound.