Abstract
Chinese learners experience various pronunciation challenges when learning French, such as the nasal vowel //, due to the negative transfer of their mother tongue. However, it has been noticed that there is an improvement in pronunciation as proficiency improves. This paper, therefore, explores whether there is a stable relationship between proficiency and pronunciation accuracy by acoustically analysing the pronunciation of // in four participants with different levels of French proficiency. The author uses PRAAT software to extract the values of the first and second formants for comparison with native speakers. The experimental results show that, in general, participants in the high proficiency group pronounce the words closer to native speakers and with greater accuracy. However, the degree to which proficiency affects pronunciation accuracy varies depending on the environment in which // is found.
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