The one snag was: We didn’t want to do this with actual pumpkins. Not fun to wear for any length of time, right? So we started brainstorming ways to create a base we could carve. Then I found this tutorial for paper mache pumpkins using a beach ball, and voilà.

Here’s the basic process for one disco pumpkin head. This takes about five days because of the paper mache, so use a real pumpkin if you’re short on time!

1. Blow up a 13–14 inch beach ball and tie string around it.
2. Paper mache this “pumpkin” 3–4 times, waiting 24 hours between each layer so it can dry.
3. Remove the beach ball.
4. Cut a hole for your head at the bottom, plus a face on the front.
5. Apply disco stickers all over.
6. Hot-glue a dried pumpkin stem on top.

In-depth instructions below!

What you’ll need

• 13 or 14 inch beach ball (make sure you’re looking at the inflated size)
• String
• Paper mache paste (flour, water, salt)
• Newspaper or packaging paper, torn into 1- or 2-inch strips
• Pocket knife or other small knife
• Mini square glass mirror stickers, aka disco stickers (I used 1 ½ packs per pumpkin)
• Pumpkin stem ripped off of a real pumpkin (more on this in a bit)

Step-by-step instructions

Prepare your beach ball.

Blow up your beach ball until it’s almost full. Tie string around it to create “ridges.” (It helps to follow the ball’s seams here.) Make sure the string is nice and tight.

Gather your paper mache supplies.

The ratio for paper mache paste simple: 1 part flour to 2 parts water. You want it to be relatively runny. Whisk it together and add some salt to help prevent molding. Then, tear some newspaper or packing paper into 1- or 2-inch strips. (Tearing is better than cutting—it helps the paper blend better.)

Paper mache the beach ball.

Make sure the nozzle of your beach ball is facing down before your start! Dip paper strips into the paste, squeezing off the excess, and then lay them flat on the surface of the ball. Make sure you overlap a little each time.

When you get to the bottom of the beach ball, turn it upside-down so that you can cover most of it. Leave a hole, but not a hole so big that your head can fit. You will trim the hole to fit later—you need it to be structurally sound for now.

Once layer #1 is done, set it somewhere to dry—I recommend a clothes drying rack—for a full 24 hours.

Repeat with layers #2 and #3. A fourth layer would be great for structure, but you can get away with three.

Remove the beach ball.

Remember how I said to make sure the beach ball’s nozzle is on the bottom? Open the nozzle and squeeze air out of the ball until you can pull it out. The ball will come right off of the paper mache, I promise.

Have a dog sniff your pumpkin to make sure it’s okay. (Kidding, but isn’t she the cutest?)

Carve your pumpkin.

Start by cutting the bottom hole large enough to fit your head through. Scissors work great here, and I recommend just going little by little until your head fits.

Now for the face! You can do whatever you want here. I loved the faces in that photo shoot, so I went with those. Nate drew the designs on a piece of paper, cut them out, and then traced them onto our pumpkins.

Tip: I recommend placing the face design right in the middle, regardless of where your eyes will be. This will have you looking out of the mouth, and your design will be nice and centered. Nate and I worried too much about getting the face’s eyes close to our own, and it had us carving the face lower than we should’ve.

We used a small pocket knife to cut the face out, and it was like butter. If you don’t have that, I imagine a smooth-edge paring knife would be the next best option. Just, for the love, be careful here.

Apply disco stickers all over.

Don’t worry. The stickers are tiny, but you don’t have to apply them one at a time! After doing this on two pumpkins, I have a few tips.

• Figure out which way your stickers will “tear.” They only tear into clean strips in one direction. (See my pic below for reference.)
• Start at the ridges. You can apply whole strands down the length of your pumpkin. I recommend starting at the ridges and applying strips on either side of each ridge to create multiple “prime meridians.” (Yay, geography.)
• Use strips 3–4 squares across for the bulk of your work. Anything wider is too wide to go on smoothly, but this width helps you make quick process.
• Don’t fuss about perfection. You’re putting square stickers on a round object. It inherently won’t be perfect. Once the pumpkin is fully covered, small bald spots and overlapping stickers will blend right in.
• The face is tricky—just muddle through it. This is wear you’ll be tearing smaller strips and getting more intricate. For instance, I tore strips 1 square across and applied them one at a time to create a smooth curve at the bottom of the mouth. The stars were tricky, and I left bald spots in places and overlapped stickers in others. Just do whatever creates the least amount of mess. You’ve got this.
• Taper as two areas come together. Remember how I said to start at the ridges? If you keep applying strips between those, the two areas will eventually meet. I found that the cleanest way to join two areas was to kind of taper as the areas started converging. Again, see my pics below.

Dry your pumpkin stem and hot-glue it on.

Rip a stem off of a pumpkin and scrape off any gunk. (I used a pie pumpkin and made purée after, yum.) Bake the stem in the oven at 200°F for 3 to 4 hours, until the stem is noticeably lighter in weight.

Hot-glue the stem to the top of the pumpkin. Use a lot of hot glue here so nothing wobbles!

And you’re done! It’s a labor of love to be sure, but I guarantee you’ll win the Halloween costume contest.

One more tip? If your pumpkin head doesn’t sit well with your shoulders, stick a baseball cap inside and wear it that way. That’s what Nate and I ended up doing!

The post DIY Paper Mache Disco Pumpkin Heads appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

I popped on today to share some photos I took of my sweet girl, Margot. My husband and I adopted her from a rescue almost exactly a year ago today, and we’ve been smitten ever since!

Here’s the story of how we got her. After Christmas of 2020, Nate and I were really hoping to adopt a dog. It was the first time we lived somewhere that allowed pets, and it just felt like the right time. This was 2020 and early 2021, so remember: Adopting a dog was tough. Everyone wanted to adopt a dog. Rescues kept rejecting us just for living in an apartment, and when it wasn’t that, someone would snatch up a dog before we even had the chance to meet it. It was emotionally taxing, to say the least. To boost our chances of meeting a dog we were interested in, I fell into this habit of scrolling through “adopt a pet” searches every night.

Then one night in early January, I came across this cute 6-year-old Dalmatian girl named Paris. I fell in love with her! It was late, but I decided I better send in an application that night, just in case. I had to scramble to IDs and such so I could scan them in with the application—kind of a funny thing to be doing at, like, midnight.

Anyway, fast forward, and a few days later, we actually heard back from the rescue! We texted back and forth and did some initial screening stuff. Then we scheduled a time for me and Nate to come down and meet her that Tuesday.

Turns out we were the first of three families to apply for her. And we ended up being the first family to meet her. Paris was truly the sweetest girl in person and kept asking us for rubs. Naturally, we fell in love with her even more. When we left, the foster sent us a picture of Paris watching us leave through the window, and my heart just about melted.

The next two families were meeting with the foster over the next week, so all we could do is wait and see if the rescue chose us. It was the longest week ever!

Finally, when the following Monday rolled around, I texted Paris’s foster mom to ask if she had any updates. She read my text that morning (I could tell because she had read receipts on) but didn’t text back. It had me convinced that it was going to be a no, but I tried to hold it together. Nate and I went on a long walk outside that day just to distract ourselves.

When we got back from our walk, I just broke down crying because I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew it was going to be a no! Nate started consoling me, of course, and it was then that I got a text on my phone. It had to be the foster.

And it was! I made Nate read it because I was too nervous. He read it and slowly said, “I guess we’re going to have to…adopt a dog.” I started crying even more out of pure joy haha.

The text had said, “I am super excited to tell you that she would love to become part of your family!” We drove down the next day to take her home, of course.

So glad you chose us to be your parents, Margot Paris.

The post Our Margot Girl appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

These are a few pics we took at Chautauqua Park in Boulder—it’s so so gorgeous there and most definitely my favorite place I’ve been to out here so far. We just set up a tripod and used the Nikon app to turn my phone into a remote. I honestly didn’t love most of the photos we took since I’m so timid in front of the camera, but hey, I’m practicing.

Hope this post finds you well!

The post We Moved to Colorado! appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

Why did you switch from SiteGround to Bluehost?

Honestly? I have zero complaints about SiteGround, other than their pricing being a bit higher than Bluehost’s (at least for what I needed). SiteGround prides itself on offering fantastic customer service and solid, reliable hosting. I feel like I got that from them.

But since my website doesn’t get millions of visitors monthly, I didn’t feel like I needed the premium hosting with the premium price tag. Besides, my other, brand-new website, May Contain Sugar, was hosted by Bluehost (because it was well-priced when I’d gone web host shopping months prior) and I thought the service I’d gotten from Bluehost was just as good. In fact, I even felt like Bluehost’s user interface was more intuitive.

At this point, I realized I could upgrade my plan with Bluehost and host both websites with the same plan. Such a money saver! So, as complicated as it might be, I knew moving Maurine Dashney from SiteGround to Bluehost would be worth it—at least for me.

Okay, so how did you make the switch?

I should start by saying that I am about as far from a web hosting expert as you can get. So much so that I feel like I have no business writing this! But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to pay someone to move my website from one host to another when I was doing so precisely to save money.

At first I was trying to follow this tutorial since I thought it applied to me, but after chatting with a Bluehost agent, I learned that the process was actually a lot simpler. And ultimately, I did it!

The process went more or less like this, with lots of help from Bluehost chat:

1. Download your site’s database and backup files.
2. Point your domain name to Bluehost instead of SiteGround.
3. Assign the domain in Bluehost.
4. Upload the website backup files and database to Bluehost.
5. Contact Bluehost to have them extract the files and get your website up and running.
6. Wait for all servers to update to your new host.
7. Contact Bluehost to have them install your SSL.

Don’t worry—I’ll go through each one step by step.

1. Download your site’s database and backup files.

I had to do two different things to get these two things.

First, to download my site’s database, I logged into SiteGround and navigated to the cPanel. From there, I went to phpMyAdmin. Within phpMyAdmin, I went to the Export tab and hit “+” next to “maurined_wp74” over on the left so it would look at only my site’s database. I hit Go, and it downloaded an SQL file. (Keep this file!)

Second, my site’s backup files. These are located in the wp-content folder if you have WordPress. I used FileZilla (FTP software), and it was easier than I expected. All you do is download FileZilla, open it, and type in four things at the top to connect: hostname, username, password, and port. (SiteGround’s FileZilla tutorial told me where to find these things.)

At first I thought it hadn’t connected properly since I got a security message after hitting Quickconnect, but then I clicked around the folders on the right side until I found the wp-content folder. Then I dragged it over to the left, into the computer folder where I wanted it saved, to download it. The downloading process took a couple of hours.

Downloading finished! Now onto easier things.

2. Point your domain name to Bluehost.

I did this with my domain name registrar (who I bought my domain name from), GoDaddy. I’ll share what I did in GoDaddy, and if you have a different registrar, I’m sure the process is similar.

I logged in, then navigated like so: My Products > Domains > DNS (located underneath the domain I was switching hosts for).

Once there, I changed the information under Nameservers so it would have Bluehost’s nameservers instead of SiteGround’s:

• ns1.bluehost.com
• ns2.bluehost.com

Cool. Onto step 3.

3. Assign the domain in Bluehost.

This is where it may be different for you. I was assigning a domain to Bluehost when I already had one there (May Contain Sugar), so I had to not only assign the domain but also decide how it would be assigned. But here’s what this step looks like:

I navigated to Domains > Assign and then followed the steps there. At step 3, it asked me if I wanted to do an addon or parked domain:

I chose addon because I wanted my websites to stay completely separate. Then, in step 4, it asked me if I wanted to use an existing directory or start a new one:

Once you get through all the steps, you can hit Assign and move on.

4. Upload the website backup files and database to Bluehost.

Remember FileZilla? I opened it again, this time connecting with my Bluehost info. (I actually got the Quickconnect info I needed from Bluehost, but you can get it by logging into Bluehost, navigating to Advanced, and looking under General Information on the right side. The shared IP address can be used as the hostname.)

Once I was connected, I found the folder on the left where my downloaded SQL file and wp-content were (from step 1). On the right, I found my site’s public_html folder (it was empty when I first opened it—this is me opening the folder having finished this process). Then, I selected both the wp-content folder and SQL file on the left and moved them into the public_html folder on the right. The uploading process took a couple of hours.

5. Have Bluehost extract the files and get your website up and running.

There really isn’t much explaining to do here, mostly because I didn’t understand it haha. I literally just hopped onto a chat with Bluehost and told them to “extract the files and get my website up and running” since a previous chat agent said I should do that once I finished with step 4. I asked the chat agent, and they did it for me!

6. Wait for all servers to update to your new host.

The final step in this whole process was to have Bluehost install an SSL certificate on my site, but before I could do that, all servers had to reflect my new host. I used whatsmydns.net to check this:

See how everything has green check marks and says Bluehost over on the left? That’s what I wanted.

7. Have Bluehost install your SSL certificate.

Another step that doesn’t require much explanation—I just hopped into another Bluehost chat and asked them to install SSL on my newly transferred site. It took a little fiddling around, but eventually we got it!

And that’s it! I hope this comes in handy for someone who is stressed out about moving web hosts haha.

The post How I Moved My Web Hosting From SiteGround to Bluehost appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

Oh, hey, chocolate cranberry granola that smells incredible while it’s baking.

I actually started this thing last fall, so there are already a few (dang tasty) recipes on there for you to enjoy! My goal with this blog is to post only those recipes that I 100% stand behind and would go to again and again. Like this microwaveable hot fudge sauce:

…and these soft ginger cookies:

That’s it for now! I’ll leave it to the two of you to get acquainted. As for this blog, you can except me to continue posting about goings-on in my life, things I’m loving and photographing, etc.

Happy almost spring!

Love, Maurine

The post Meet: May Contain Sugar appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

I don’t often do portraits of myself, but I decided that it was time to brave the camera haha. So Nate did a little photo shoot with me on the bridge

I also snuck some pics of Nate too

…and of course I took pictures of this dog I saw haha.

Sooo many people.

After we crossed into Brooklyn, we looked for some pizza and got in line at Juliana’s. We chose Juliana’s over Grimaldi’s because Juliana’s takes credit cards haha.

Guys. Juliana’s is amazing! It might be the best pizza I’ve ever had! We got in line at 3:30ish and waited for them to open again at 4. (They close between 3:15 and 4 to stoke the coal ovens.) We realized that that’s the perfect time to go because when they open at 4, you get right in and don’t have to wait in line forever for a table.

Then we explored the area a bit. It’s so charming, if you can say that about a city. A really great place for food. Just look at this ivy-covered wall! It’s part of the grounds surrounding The River Café, which is crazy expensive but looks incredible.

The post Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

It started with our vintage Manhattan print. We bought a map of Manhattan and framed it so we could use it to plan our trips into the city. (We used this frame from Target and a 10×13 mat from Michaels.) It looked awesome, but it definitely wasn’t enough to stand on its own above our couch. I’d been wanting to start a collection of nicer looking frames anyway, so we decided to buy five more frames.

I scoured Pinterest for a layout I liked (I feel like a lot of gallery walls look kinda campy, ha), and finally found a picture of one that looked organized, yet not “too” organized if that made sense. (I wish I could find that photo, but I don’t know how to find it again!) Then I recreated the layout on Photoshop, like this:

Once I did that, buying the remaining frames and mats I needed was easy. Target carries smaller sizes of that frame I mentioned earlier here.

While I waited for our prints to come in the mail, I created a mockup design of our wall in Photoshop:

I found my prints at a few different shops on Etsy:

• Manhattan map print from reclaimer
• Yellowstone print from Purple Moose Basics
• Bison digital download from Positive Change Art
• Antelope Island digital download from Life Adventures
• Cheetah digital download from synplus

And then the Whatever Is Lovely print is from Lindsay Letters—but I actually bought it about five years ago!

I tried to include a variety of art types that were personal to me and Nate. The Yellowstone print is because Nate and I went to Yellowstone when we were dating. The bison is Nate’s spirit animal. The cheetah is my spirit animal. And we took our engagement photos at Antelope Island

Since three of the prints I bought from Etsy were digital downloads, I had to get them printed. I ended up printing the cheetah, bison, and Antelope Island prints at AdoramaPix for only 7 bucks plus shipping!

As for the hanging process, I highly recommend saving the pieces of paper that come in your frames! That way you can tape them to the wall and get a general idea of placement (even though the pieces of paper are slightly smaller than the frames.) This really helped us decide how to center things vertically and how much space to have between each frame. We ended up deciding on two inches between each frame.

Other than that, successful frame hanging was really just a matter of measuring meticulously with a tape measure, drawing and erasing lines on the wall, and using a level over and over to make sure things were straight.

Sorry I didn’t document those steps, ha.

Anyway, that’s it! If you’re planning a gallery wall of your own, good luck!

The post Our Gallery Wall appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

I knew when Nate and I moved to the area that I would want to take advantage of all of the wonderful bakeries that would be nearby in the city. Mille-Feuille is one of them. It’s your classic French bakery complete with croissants, macarons, baguette, mille-feuilles, tarts, and more.

I was stoked when I found out that they did baking classes, so I checked them out immediately. They do one for macarons, one for croissants, one for mille-feuilles, and one for éclairs. I was on a real macaron-making kick when I found out about the classes (still am!) but ultimately decided to do croissants — because when am I going to teach myself that??

Anyway, so I signed up months ago and finally got to attend the class last weekend

Apparently croissant making is actually a three-day process—at least for this bakery, it is. Here are the abbreviated instructions:

Day 1: Make the dough by mixing all purpose flour, sugar, salt, butter, fresh yeast, whole milk, and vanilla. Wrap the dough and let it set overnight in the fridge.

Day 2: Roll out the dough and set a large square of butter on top of it. Fold the dough around the butter and roll out the dough. Fold again. Let the dough set again in the fridge.

Day 3: Roll out the dough and cut into triangles. Roll them into croissants and set them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Proof, then brush the tops with egg yolks. Then bake until a semi-dark golden brown.

Now that you know a little bit about the process, these pictures will have some context…

That’s Jean-Denis, our teacher. (Thanks for creeping, Nate.) His French accent made my francophile heart so happy!

These are Nate’s croissants. They turned out the best in the class!

One day, I will be able to make croissants that look like this. Doesn’t that almond blueberry croissant on the right look amazing??

Don’t mind me while I eat all thirty croissants that Nate and I went home with!

Anyway, this was so much fun! If you’re ever in Manhattan, I highly recommend taking one of Mille-Feuille’s classes!

The post Learning to Make Croissants with Mille-Feuille Bakery appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

It’s only been about a month, but we love it so far. We’re about a ten minute walk from a light rail station which (almost) takes us right into the city! I think we’ve gone into Manhattan every weekend since we’ve been here — save for the very first weekend because it rained.

Anyhow, here are some pics from our adventures!

The financial district — taken from the IKEA ferry which takes you from Manhattan to the IKEA in Brooklyn. It’s free on Saturdays!

Skyscrapers. Skyscratchers. Skyitchers. I just think that word is funny (:

The language houses for NYU students are the cutest. On the left is the French house (la maison française) and on the right is the German house. Had my twin and I gone here, we could have lived right across the street from each other!

Nate and I tried pizza from Percy’s Pizza because it’s only a dollar a slice. Not bad.

…and then we tried a slice of Joe’s Pizza. Definitely better — it’s your quintessential “New York slice.” Still, I wouldn’t turn down Percy’s Pizza the next time I’m hungry in Greenwich Village!

Neon sign in Sweets by Chloe. I haven’t tried their sweets yet (they’re all vegan!) but I have tried Eats by Chloe. Very good!

The chocolate chip cookie from Levain Bakery. Many claim that they make the very best chocolate chip cookie. I’d say the answer is yes for people who 1) like walnuts in their cookies and 2) like a little crunch in their cookies. Definitely worth trying!

They’re so chewy inside!

Hey, Manhattan Temple! It’s under construction, so I cropped out all the awnings and such haha.

Stay tuned for a blog post about my French baking lesson in Greenwich Village!

The post We Moved to New Jersey! appeared first on Maurine Dashney.

You know how as a blogger you can have that one random blog post that goes viral? That one post that is way more popular than anything else you’ve written? I kind of have one of those. It’s this post called The 25 Most Useful French Phrases I Learned While Studying in France. I wrote it off the cuff thinking maybe it would be useful to someone, and then it got a lot more attention than I ever imagined!

Anyhow, I tell you that to give this post some context! This is another French-themed blog post with a lot of simple information that I think could be really useful to any student of French. I’m not a French expert by any means, but I did study it formally for about eight years. I was a Linguistics major and a French minor, which means that I spent a lot of time dissecting what makes French sound so different from English. While I’m still not perfectly fluent, I actually do feel like I have a lot to say on what native English speakers can do to perfect their French accents!

Before I start…

This post is best for French students who already know some of the basics, so if you’re brand-new to French, maybe come back to this I do come from a background in Linguistics, so I may get a little technical at times. Don’t worry! I explain everything as I go. Plus, I made a video to go along with it (scroll to the bottom!)

Without further ado, here are my five tips for better French pronunciation!

1. No diphthongs!

I thought I’d start off with some funny vocabulary  Diphthongs are vowels that have kind of a “glide” to them. We have them all over the place in English. Just say “boat,” “why,” “house,” “right,” and “week,” emphasizing the vowels as you do so. Do you feel your mouth “gliding” when you say those words?

While English has a ton of diphthongs, French has none. In other words, you should not move your mouth while making a French vowel sound. This makes French vowels sound more “pure,” and it can make it feel like there’s more tension in your mouth when you’re speaking French.

Practice keeping your mouth still while saying the vowels in the following words:

• bon
• je
• les
• tout
• tu
• beaucoup

2. Know your letter combinations.

This tip mostly has to do with vowels.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from French language students is that French words are not pronounced how they are written. Well…what if I told you that they actually are? The secret lies in knowing your French letter combinations. Certain letter combinations consistently make certain sounds, so if you can remember them and spot them in French words, you’re golden.

Here’s a handy cheat sheet (note that some letter combinations sound the same):

• ai | pronounced [ɛ] as in “jet” (except when at the end of a word) | e.g., mail (email) or pair (even)
• au | pronounced [o] as in “boat” | e.g., faux (false) or sauté (sautéed)
• eau | pronounced [o] as in “boat” | e.g., beau (beautiful) or peau (skin)
• eu |pronounced [ə] as in “wood” | e.g., feu (fire) or deux (two)
• gn | [pronounced [ñ] as in “onion” | e.g., campagne (country) or gagner (to win)
• (vowel) + ill | pronounced [j] as in “yes” | e.g., taille (size) or feuille (leaf)
• ou |pronounced [u] as in “too” | e.g., pour (for) or amour (love)

Now, look for these letter combinations in some longer French words, like beaucoup, Tautou, and citrouille. Try pronouncing these words by breaking them up (beau+coup, Tau+tou, and ci+trou+ille). Things are sounding more French now, aren’t they??

3. Know when to nasalize a vowel.

Nasalized vowels are vowel sounds that you make using your nasal cavity. English doesn’t have any nasalized vowels; French has four. You’ll hear them when you say the French words an [ã], bon [õ], main [ɛ̃], and brun [œ]. To identify a nasalized vowel in a French word, look for a vowel + m or n. Any time you see this, instead of saying the vowel and then making an [m] or [n] sound, you should say a nasalized vowel without pronouncing the m or n.

This nasalized vowel thing becomes especially important in longer words, where you might be tempted to pronounce that silent m or n. Try saying the following words, making sure not to pronounce that silent m or n. (Some words have two nasalized vowels!)

• gant
• enfant
• bon
• tomber
• bain
• peinture
• brun
• lundi
• champignon
• Bon anniversaire! (Trick question—because you end up pronouncing the n due to a liaison, you don’t nasalize the o!)

Note: Here’s a nuance that you should only worry about if you feel ready. You know how the “liaison” makes you pronounce the last letter of a word when the next word starts with a vowel? Like in bon anniversaire? You’re forced to pronounce the n there. Well. If you end up having an m or n because of a liasion, you actually don’t nasalize the vowel like you normally would. So yeah, don’t nasalize bon in bon anniversaire!

4. No aspirating!

Put your hand right in front of your mouth and say “pear,” “time,” and “car.” Did you feel a puff of air hit your hand when you made those initial [p], [t], and [k] sounds (underlined)? That’s called aspirating. English speakers do this naturally when pronouncing the consonants [p], [t], and [k]; French people don’t.

If you want to sound more like a native French speaker, make sure you don’t let that puff of air leave your mouth whenever you make those three sounds. Practice it by saying the words Paris, toi, and carte. It will almost sound like you’re saying “Baris,” “doi,” and “garte.”

5. Use your vocal cords earlier.

I didn’t know what to name this tip haha.

So I just told you that French speakers pronounce [p], [t], and [k] differently. Well…they also pronounce [b], [d], and [g] differently. [b], [d], and [g] are voiced consonants, meaning you have to use your vocal cords to say them. French speakers actually start moving their vocal cords sooner than English speakers do when making these sounds.

Practice saying the words bon, de, and gare, moving your vocal cords a little bit before actually starting to say the word. Your b’s, d’s, and g’s will start to sound a little “harsher,” if that makes sense. (This one is a little harder to describe in writing, so be sure to check out the video below!)

5 Ways to Perfect Your French Accent (Video)

Here’s my video! Sorry it’s kind of low quality—I felt like such a dweeb making this haha. But at least I made one, right??

And if for some reason the embedded video doesn’t work, you can always find it on YouTube here.

Want to practice?

Check out these two blog posts filled with useful French phrases! Remember my five pronunciation tips and practice them as you practice saying all of the phrases:

• The 25 Most Useful French Phrases I Learned While Studying in France
• 25 (More) Useful French Phrases I Learned While Studying in France

Be sure to leave any questions you have in the comments!

The post 5 Ways to Perfect Your French Pronunciation (with Video!) appeared first on Maurine Dashney.