Pronunciation / Should you raise or lower your voice when asking a question?

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We often hear that the intonation in a question is rising, is this always true? Learn to spot rising questions ⇡ and falling questions ⇣.

This is an automated translation and it may contain errors. If in doubt, consult the French content.

Should you always raise your voice when asking a question in French?

Raising your voice systematically when asking a question is a common misconception that needs to be qualified. In fact, although some questions require an upward intonation, in particular to avoid any confusion with a statement, most of the time questions go down.

Here are a few key points covered in the video:

- Questions with interrogative pronouns or inversion of the subject do not require rising intonation.

- Unnecessary rising intonation can be perceived as aggressiveness or insistence.

Have fun practising with this video by replacing words with "da da da" to better understand whether the voice is rising or falling. Adopt this practice to enrich your expression and make your communication in French more authentic and effective.

Video explanations

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This is an automated translation and may contain errors. If in doubt, consult the French content.

Magali Boureux, phonetics expert

In this World Media and Information Literacy Week , 7 jours invites us to ask ourselves questions to verify information. Well , let' s take a look at a common misc onception about the intonation of questions, in other words their music. We are often told that questions are louder ↑ but is this true? Check it out with these extracts from the show.
Programme extract
What's your name?
Magali Boureux, phonetics expert
Da da da da da ↓
Extract from the programme
What's your name?
Magali Boureux, phonetics expert
Da da da da ↓
Extract from the programme
What subjects have you been working on recently ?
Magali Boureux, phonetics expert
Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da ↓ So? The questions don' t always come up ! The reality is a little more complex: generally speaking, questions are obliged to rise, to go towards the high end when they could be confused with an answer or a statement. Are you OK? I'm fine. Da da ↑ Da da ↓ And the rest of the time ? If I use an interrogative pronoun ...
Programme extract
Who, what, where, when, how, why?
Magali Boureux, phonetics expert
Or if I reverse the subject and the verb, the person I'm talking to already knows I'm asking a question, so I don 't need to raise my voice, I can lower it. Is that clear? Da da da da ↓ So be careful, if I raise my voice in these questions, I risk transmitting tension. The person I'm talking to could interpret this as insistence, surprise or even aggression , and could lose patience. So try this little exercise yourself : listen to some words or statements and repeat them immediately , replacing the words with "da da da" and trying to imitate the rhythm and music of the form as closely as possible . In short, have fun "singing" French. This will make your communication more authentic and more effective, whatever the variety of French you 've chosen to learn . Can I count on you? Da da da da da da da da da ↓ Ça va? Da da ↑