What Is Prosody?
It is the music of a language. If you don't perceive this music, you will not understand French people well when they speak. And if you don't understand well, it's also hard to be understood.
Written language helps you comprehend through punctuation and the spaces between the words. [Ici, on évite de dire "points et virgules" car les américains risquent de ne pas comprendre le britannique "full stop," qu'ils appellent "period]
In spoken language, we speak of rhythmic groups. A rhythmic group is a group of words (up to 7-9 syllables) that are pronounced all in one breath. It often corresponds to a single idea.
In spoken French, what is important is:
–the rhythm. The rhythm of French is rather flat, as all syllables are unaccented and have the same length.
–the intonation. At the end of a rhythmic group, there is an emphasis on the last syllable; it lasts longer than the others, and the voice goes up to show that the speaker is not finished.
–the accents. In a French sentence, there is no accent on a specific syllable. The weight always falls at the end of the rhythmic group.
At the end of a sentence, the voice goes down, unless the sentence is a question.
