This study investigates cross-linguistic phonological errors in the production of French oral vowels among Tamil-speaking undergraduate learners, with English as their second language. The research focuses on identifying pronunciation challenges influenced by the learners’ mother tongue (Tamil) and prior exposure to English. Twenty second-year undergraduate students, each with a minimum of 120 hours of formal French instruction, participated in the study. Their pronunciation skills were assessed through a reading test, with each participant recorded for ten minutes. These recordings were systematically analysed to identify phonological errors resulting from cross-linguistic interference. The findings reveal frequent vowel mispronunciations attributable to phonemic differences across Tamil, English, and French. Based on the analysis, pedagogical strategies are proposed to help learners improve their phonetic accuracy and oral proficiency. The study underscores the importance of developing phonological awareness to overcome cross- linguistic barriers in French language acquisition among Indian learners.
Koothottil et al. (Thu,) studied this question.