How do you pronounce SSPX founder Lefebvre's name?

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Javl said:
In all Indo-European languages, of which French is one, the vowels are all pronounced one way no matter what the word. a=ah; e=eh, i=eee, o=oh, u=ooo. Therefore Lefevbre would be pronounced LEH-FEHV-REH, with the b being silent.

Hope this helps.

PAX DOMINI :signofcross:

Shalom Aleichem Totus Tuus Domini
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Um, no. French is my mother tongue and I speak it daily. The “e” caduque (“obsolete”) at the end of the word is either silent or very nearly so.

Huge issue when trying to render plainchant in French especially psalm tones.

In the case of Lefevbre, it’s nearly silent with a French Canadian accent. Where I live it would be prounounced

Le-feh-vrr (the B is silent and the e is “caduque”).
 
Well, I must admit I am enjoying this thread (comparing my 4 years of French instruction to the native speakers), and my imagination is going wild with a French version of “My Fair Lady”!! 😉
 
Phemie said:
The b is not pronounced

Luh-fai(as in fairy)-vruh(this uh, very soft)
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Phemie is right. I’m French and that is how I pronounce it. Now when you are American born, it’s probably too hard to pronounce unless you have a French person in your home speaking french all the time. Don’t worry, nobody can pronounce my frist name correctly but I still answer! Good luck with that and bien joué, Phémie!
 
I’m glad we’ve all finally reached the correct conclusion haha.

I guess I couldn’t quite depict the sounds right in my first post haha:
jdc209 said:
Je parle francais aussi mais je pense que le nom est prononcé “Luh-feh-vruh.”

In French, “le” is not pronounced “leh” but rather “luh” with kind of an uh sound (not quite sure how to depict it.)
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legeorge said:
Well, I must admit I am enjoying this thread (comparing my 4 years of French instruction to the native speakers), and my imagination is going wild with a French version of “My Fair Lady”!! 😉
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I was definitely feeling like Henry Higgins. 😃
 
When I took French in high school, I learned that “le” would be pronounced “loo,” as in “look.” As for “du,” I learned it as “dyoo,” with “oo” pronounced like the oo in “root.” In English we tend to hold on to the sounds (dipthong, I think they’re called), but with French, I learned that you say it as I’ve written above but cut off the sound immediately.
 
lizziej said:
When I took French in high school, I learned that “le” would be pronounced “loo,” as in “look.” As for “du,” I learned it as “dyoo,” with “oo” pronounced like the oo in “root.” In English we tend to hold on to the sounds (dipthong, I think they’re called), but with French, I learned that you say it as I’ve written above but cut off the sound immediately.
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No, in French the syllable ‘du’ doesn’t sound like dyoo (as in the bill is due). It doesn’t have that ‘y’ sound. The mouth is shaped the same but the tongue doesn’t behave in quite the same way.
 
Guess my teacher was wrong on that “du.” 🤷 (I can’t get into those links because I have to sign up, which I’m not going to do.) It really is difficult to describe in words how to pronounce words, because the way you purse your lips or place your tongue can make all the difference.

Was the “le” right, Phemie?
 
lizziej said:
Guess my teacher was wrong on that “du.” 🤷 (I can’t get into those links because I have to sign up, which I’m not going to do.) It really is difficult to describe in words how to pronounce words, because the way you purse your lips or place your tongue can make all the difference.

Was the “le” right, Phemie?
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The vowel sound in “look” has more rounded lips than the the sound in French “le”. It is fairly close though. It seems like your teacher was teaching pronunciations that would be easy to learn and would be close enough to recognizable.
 
I know exactly what you mean, floresco. My teacher didn’t teach “le” as “look” and “du” as “dyoo;” she taught them as they should be (we worked a LOT on correct pronunciation), but for the purpose of this thread, I didn’t know exactly how to describe them, and I figured “look” and “dyoo” was as close as I was gonna get when writing a description. LOL
 
:eek: I was saying it wrong all along! I feel like such an idiot!
I was saying LEH-FEV-REE and LEH-FEH-VRAY, stupid me.
 
How on earth could this thread have reached four pages? All that was needed was one, accurate response. :confused:

Every language has sounds which non-native speakers will never be able to imitate the way a native-speaker would. Just as Japanese are unable to pronounce the letter “L” (using “r” instead) and Germans, Dutch, French, etc. cannot imitate the “th” sound in their speech.

I’m sure there are many ways one could pronounce the name “Lefebvre”, however, unless you’re a native French speaker, when referring to Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the FSSPX, it is pronounced “Luh-FEV”. That is the closest to the original sound we can get.
 
For me, it was fun reading and contributing to this, and perhaps some of us learned something.
 
MarineGuy said:
How on earth could this thread have reached four pages? All that was needed was one, accurate response. :confused:

Every language has sounds which non-native speakers will never be able to imitate the way a native-speaker would. Just as Japanese are unable to pronounce the letter “L” (using “r” instead) and Germans, Dutch, French, etc. cannot imitate the “th” sound in their speech.

I’m sure there are many ways one could pronounce the name “Lefebvre”, however, unless you’re a native French speaker, when referring to Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the FSSPX, it is pronounced “Luh-FEV”. That is the closest to the original sound we can get.
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I had fun with this one. It made me really think about how words are formed. For the record, this French woman can pronounce ‘th’ quite well. It does matter how old you are when you learn a second (or third or fourth) language. I attempted to learn Hindi as an adult. The man attempting to teach me showed me three words, spelled the same except for the accents, and pronounced them for me. They all sounded exactly the same.

I think when we hear a new language we unconsciously compare it one(s) we already know and make connections to sounds that are familiar. The local aboriginal community speaks a language that I first heard about 15 years ago. I have an album of songs in that language and often think I’m hearing French words in the songs when looking at the lyrics show no such words. It’s just that my ear is trained to listen for French or English words and so certain sound combinations will be heard as words rather than just as syllables.
 
preV2tradcath said:
I cannot say how accurate this link is, but I got the link from a yahoogroup that is mostly pro SSPX. Have your speakers on. forvo.com/word/lef%C3%A8bvre
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The pronunciation on that site is very good since the speakers are speaking there native language. Unfortunately, I seem to have exhausted my ‘tests’ of the site and must now register and log in to hear anything.
 
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