Shortened pronunciation of 60, 70...?

In Lesson 17.2, the 4th line down in the conversation part, the guy says he like's the music of the 70's. In saying this, he says something to the effect of "soin dix or sans dix". I have just recently heard this elsewhere (not RF) where the person was talking about their height and said "cent soin (ou sans) deux."

Obviously this is a shortened version of "soixante" but could someone tell me more precisely (ie write it out) what they're saying.

Also, are there other "shortened" versions for numbers 20-90 or just 60 & 70? If so, how are they pronounced?

It would be nice if, in addition to others, a native French speaker could give their input. Do the tutors answer Forum questions anymore?!?

Merci a tous

Hi Michael - The "regular speed" pronunciation is more like SWAH-zn-T (60) and SWAH-zn-TDEEHZ (70), but Eric pronounces the 'zn' part quite glided. There's  also an enchaînement to the next word that follows the "te" of soixante (true for other numbers) so there's a pronunciation "emphasis" that happens after the 'zn' that ends up "de-emphasizing" the 'zn'.

Hi Torusan,

Thanks again for your response. You should bill RF. It's interesting that I never see Marie-Claire (or any other native RF French speaker) answer questions anymore. I hope she's OK. Maybe they've just left the students to figure it out for themselves-right or wrong! Anyway, this Eric (or Jean) character can be a bit annoying in his over-emphasized (and unnecessary) effort to talk fast. Il mange les mots trop souvent!!!

A la prochaine fois
Mike

Héhé, c'est vrai. C'est un petit sermonneur aussi, Eric, surtout au sujet de l'environnement !  :)

Anyway, I just thought of something that's also affecting his pronunciation in soixante-dix. In spoken French, the 'e' tends to disappear, and they will roll together the letters on either side of it. So, for soixante-dix, he's also skipping the 'e' and mashing the 't' and 'd' together between 'soixante' and 'dix'. That's why we're not hearing a distinct 'T(uh)' sound at the end of 'soixante-..." either (and why it sounds like 'soin dix' instead).

Bonjour vous deux!

Je suis de retour! I think that it may actually be an audio glitch because although we do tend to glide over numbers because at times they can be a mouthful, in this case there is an odd elongation of the 's' and an omition of the 'oi' which makes the number sound more like 'cent-dix'. This is not normal and sounds very unnatural which leads me to believe there is some sort of glitch in the audio. I will have this sent to our technical support and see if we can't get that cleared up.

Sinon, merci de nous avoir notifié de ce problème et comme d'hab, bon courage!

   -   Marie-Claire

Hi all - This has been fixed! Thanks for pointing it out!