they often have a French accent

but what does this actually mean?

in this video

I'm going to break down the features

that create a French accent in English

my reference speaker is going to be

Emmanuel Macron - the current French president

he speaks very good English

but you can still tell he sounds French

here are some reasons why

in English we use aspirated /p/ sounds

this means we add air to them

in French

/p/ sounds are not aspirated

this means words like "part" and "passport"

in a French accent become:

TH sounds are not common in the world's languages

and cause many problems for non-native English speakers

Emmanuel Macron replaces

the voiced TH with Z

and the voiceless TH with S

this means the words "that the" become

and the word “thanks" becomes

If someone knows they are

replacing TH sounds

with S or Z

they may start hypercorrecting

and turning every S and Z

into TH sounds

this means the word “civil” may become

"series" becomes

and "strong" becomes

the French language does not have a /h/

an H sound

this means it's often not pronounced

when speaking English

so the word “have” becomes

and the word “history” becomes

there may also be hypercorrection here

when a syllable begins with a vowel sound

a French speaker may insert an H sound

this is called intrusive H

so a word like "reaction" becomes

it's pretty challenging to work out

the pronunciation of an English word from the spelling

so a French speaker may use the French

letter-to-sound correspondence

to pronounce English words

the words “other” and “budget”

have the same vowel in my English accent

but for a French speaker

they may sound different

the words “ship” and “sheep”

have different vowel sounds in my accent

but when a French person

says the word “ship”

it may sound like “sheep”

the word “look” and my name “Luke”

are pronounced with different vowel sounds

but for a French speaker

they may be pronounced with the same vowel sound

this means if a French person says “look”

it may sound like my name “Luke”

word stress is really important in English

if you don't stress the right syllable

you may be misunderstood

the words “idea” and “negotiate” are

stressed on the second syllable in my accent

but Emmanuel Macron stresses them on the first

the word “energy” is stressed

on the first syllable in my accent

but on the second syllable in his

these are just a few features which indicate a French accent in English

thanks for watching

and please share it with all of your French friends