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Ah, ze nuances of froggy pronounciation!
I would say
Oh-DIL
where DIL is as in "dill" (the spice), not as in "deal".
I would say
Oh-DIL
where DIL is as in "dill" (the spice), not as in "deal".
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Isn't it the L that makes the difference? The way I remember spraining my vocal organs long ago, one has two different L sounds in English, the light L at the beginnings of words (or syllables) and the dark L, pronounced further back in the mouth, used post-vocalically. And French only uses the light-L version, wherever it appears in a syllable; this makes the ee sound less like itself to English ears. Eh bien, I was never much good at it and the only Odiles I've ever known weren't French anyway ...
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Yes, French is very front of the mouth where English does sort of swallow their L's. With Odile in French the tongue ends behind the front teeth with a tiny hint of smile-pullback on the lips whereas in English it ends behind the lower teeth on the floor of the mouth with a wide pullback grin. I try to cop out with 'it's delicate' because it's soooooooo hard to explain adequately in writing and a good audio file would probably clear it right up!
Devon
Devon
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