Karambolage - Les Nasales

Well, you know,
every language has its peculiarities,

and the French language,
with its nasal vowels,

often gives the Germans
quite a hard time,

as their language doesn't
have this specificity.

So, there are 4 nasal vowels.
Yes, 4!

I mention this because the French

usually only know of 3:
on, an, in.

And yes, they are few in number,
my fellow countrymen,

who pronounce the fourth one
correctly: un.

I repeat: un.

You can hear that
it's different from: in.

un, in!

Unfortunately,
its use is fading away,

because most people don't even hear
the difference anymore.

What a pity!

French nasals are written,
as you've seen, with the vowel

followed by an "n" or,
more rarely, an "m".

But French is not
the only language to have

nasal vowels. Examples:

Portuguese, which marks
this vowel with a tilde;

or Polish, which adds a kind
of comma, called an ogonek, under the vowel.

So, why are they called
"nasal" vowels?

Well,
you're about to understand

by doing a little exercise with me.

Let's take the vowel "o".
What do we do when we say "o"?

We round our lips,
the mouth almost closed: "o".

Put your hand in front of your mouth.
All the air comes out of the mouth: "o".

Now, let's try the nasal "on".
What happens? "on".

Something happens
at the back of the mouth:

the tongue moves back, and the soft palate,
the velum, lowers,

which causes some of the air
to pass through the nose,

while the rest continues
to pass through the mouth.

Put a finger under your nostrils,
like this,

and you should feel the air
on your finger: "on".

Again: "on".
You feel it?

That's why we call "on"
a nasal vowel.

Well, it's the same
with "a",

slightly rounded lips,
mouth wide open,

and "an", where, you can feel it too,
the soft palate lowers

and directs some of the air
toward the nose: "an".

Same movement
between "i" and "in":

lips stretched,
mouth almost closed,

tongue forward,
for both,

but the soft palate lowers
when transitioning to nasal.

And in the sound "un",

you can also feel that
something's happening

at the back of the oral cavity,
to divert the air towards the nose: "un".

Well, there you have it.
You know everything.

Now, you just need
to practice.

Here's a website I found
on the internet that offers

phonetics exercises.
[IT NO LONGER WORKS]

Have fun!