From: "Christophe Grandsire"

> At 00:15 06/02/00 -0800, you wrote:

> >I'm glad someone else has mentioned this, because I've had a bear of a
time
> >convincing other certain non-native speakers of French I know that this
> >phenomenon exists. I, myself, (a non-native) do this quite regularly;
after
> >/i/ and /y/, a /C/ - after /u/, though, more of a bilabial "f" (forgot
the
> >IPA) à la japonaise.

> Now that you talk of it, I'm now aware of something like that happening in
> my pronunciation. But I wouldn't call that a fricative added at the end of
> a word, but more the fact that when a word stops with a vowel, my breath
> tends to continue after the vowel, with the same articulation as the vowel
> but without any *strength* (something like a colored [h]). That would
> explain why /i/ and /y/ would be followed by a palatal 'fricative
release',
> whereas /u/ would be followed by a bilabial 'release'.

Among the students to whom I now teach French (from the 'those that can
do,...' school), there are a batch of four-to-five year olds. While I don't
overplay the final /h/ card, what can I do? It's now my own speech pattern.
It's fun to hear the students first mimic my "chou" as /Suf/ or my "fini" as
/finiS/ until they hone in on what's really happening (and these kids are
fast). And thus, another generation of American students of French were
maimed ;)

Kou