WordReference:
http://www.wordreference.com/
Ultra-simple, ultra-quick loading, super practical. Your browser will remember if you pick "English to French" so you just need to save it as a favorite and immediately type the word, which will appear anyways as automatic options. Ask me anything whenever on PM man, my pleasure. Just remember it is a hard language, but nothing is hard if you take it a step at a time. Don't get discouraged.
Why you learning, planning on being the 357th Saffa playing in France ?
And yes, English is like 50% French in its building blocks anyways. It's interesting because some words in English are from old French that we French don't even use anymore. Like "Purchase" comes from old French "Pourchasser". Now, 'pourchasser' in French means "go after", as the meaning has moved on in its semantic evolution while "Purchase" still means the same archaic thing: pay money to acquire.
The good thing about phonetics in French is the rules are standard. There are no "tonic accents". Like in English, how do you know if you've never *heard* it before, to pronounce "laboratory" ? Do you put the emphasis on LAboratory, or laBOratory, or laboraTOry ? In fact, this example is special as the Americans pronounce it differently, although they spell it the same way. English would go laBOratory, tonic accent on "BO". Americans, LAboratory, tonic accent on "LA".
In French, "laboratoire" is read like la bo ra toire, as if they were separate little words. Putting those little words together doesn't change the pronunciation of the bigger word.
There are no diphthongs in French phonetically: in English there are, for example, "oh !" you really pronounce two sounds, "o" and "w". "Ow".
In French, "oh !" is just that "o" flat vowel. There is no diphthong continuation of the phoneme. So again, La bo ra toire with "oi" you read "Wah". Like, "to see" is "voire", pronounced "V Wah Rr" with the French/German "R". No rolled R's, or hard American "ARRRRE's".
good man !
