Topic: How exactly are some of these words pronounced?

[Necro]

It's amusing- i've been running and jumping off of stuff for years, and only recently realized there was a name for it.  i'm sure i'm not alone in this.  just the same, what with the majority of the advent of this sport coming from France, i'm sketchy on a few pronounciations.  the title of this thread is quite self-explanatory; my idea is to create this thread as a place for peole of any given skill to understand pronounciations.  maybe this isn't really such a big deal to some, but it might be helpful to others.

first off- can someone give me the proper pronounciation for the word "traceur?"

[Brian Belida]

"Traceur" is pronounced - "trace-e-yur", just throw on a bit of a french accent and that's it!
Hope that helps, and welcome! I think you'll find a great community here willing to help in any way. If you havn't already, check out the "Locals only" forum for your specific area to find some trace-eyores where you live!

[Altimot]

and the word monkey is pronounced monk (like the bald brown robe guys) eeee....I am just kiddin. there aren't that many hard words to pronounce besides parkour and traceur that i can think of. parkour is pronounced par (like the golf par) core (like the center of the earth) and add in some french accent for style  .

[Mark Toorock]

actually, that description of Traceur could be misleading, the Trace is soft, like Tras, so it is more like

trah sewer

or

trah sur

with of course the appropriate French accent.



Next up:
Parkour

Par coor but the coor sounds more like the ure in manure than coor in coors light beer.

It is helpful to know that the original French term that it is derived form is parcours and that the s is silent in French as they often don't pronounce the last 4-6 letters of a word

[Altimot]

ya, i was telling my french teacher about parkour, and she was so sure that it was misspelled. She is so sure that it is parcour. So, i guess she was half right lol.  oh well.

adding on to what m2 was saying, french words ending with a constanant letter like the word "chat" (chat is used in the french terms for pk moves) when you say chat, you don't pronounce the "t" at the end, in sounds like you're saying shay. if chat ended with an e then it would sound like shate. get it? this happends with pretty much all french words.

you might be thinking that, "parkour ends with "r" so why do we pronounce it? I guess people have modified it over the years, or it is one of those odd exceptions, although i don't know for sure what the answer would be.

[Mark Toorock]

Again, both of the things you have sighted have to do with the history of the word. The reason the "r" is pronounced is that the original word, parcours ends in "s", so it is the s that is not pronounced. The French people I have heard say it don't pronounce the r very heavily, almost like parcooah ... but I think that's pushing it for us Yanks

As for your French teacher, she is correct, the "real" French word is parcours, however "Parkour" is a made up slang derivative of it.

[Anonimity]

It is really funny I have been running and jumping a long time too, people thought I was just crazy or I had add or something......wanna go ride bikes? Anyway I was talking to my friend (who speaks fluent french by the way) and they said they never heard of "parkour." I am guessing that they are just either derivatives or made up, I'm not sure.

[Asa]

Read the posts above yours before posting.