May 2, 2008 - 7:18pm
BBA: How Do You Say......
I have no French, but I do have BBA, and I want to know how to say "Pain a l'Ancienne" without sounding stupid. Anyone?
On a related note, today I made my first BBA recipe, the aforementioned bread that I don't know how to pronounce, and the family absolutely loves it. My 14 year old daughter is begging for more and more is on the way for tomorrow.
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That's the closest I can come at this late hour.
Of course, I can't help with your English accent, especially the difficulty with nasal vowels.
David
"Pain" is like the English for hurt "pain" except you don't do the 'n' sound you make precisely at the point where your toungue touches the roof of your mouth. It would come out more like "pai-eh" instead of "pai-n"
"a" is like the a in apple
l'Ancienne is broken in two parts:
l'an... is like lawn but dropping the "n" sound again
'...cienne': is "sienna" without the "a" at the end, so "sienn(a)" but end with a bit of "uh" at the end: see-enn-uh
so...
pai(n) a(pple) law(n)-sienn(a)-uh
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Paul
Wow, that's a great break down Paul.
I made this for a German friend of mine and she told me that the name means bread of the old regime (of France of course).
Thanks for the responses! Now I don't feel like such a dork when I try to tell people what kind of bread I've made.
You really have to get a little nasal-sounding with the "n" in French, but I wouldn't worry about it.
I think of pain as pan with the n only 1/4 pronounced.
Except that you should be pronouncing the n because the next word starts with a vowel. If the next word started with a consanant, or pain was by itself at the end of the sentence, the n would disappear up the nose. But because the next word starts with a vowel it gets pronounced almost as in English. So I would say:
pan a lahnsien (and the n at the end gets fully pronounced as well, because it is the nne).
It's a short "e" sound with "ai" en francais, sorry can't find the accents on my keyboard.