Dataset abstract This dataset contains two types of data on the production accuracy of French nasal vowels realized by L1 Belgian Dutch learners, i.e. listener-based and acoustic measures. By focusing on these two measures, we shed light on two different dimensions of production accuracy, i.e. vowel intelligibility and phonetic nativelikeness. First, this dataset contains acoustic data of 20 L1 Belgian Dutch speakers and 12 L1 Northern Metropolitan French speakers (Carignan, 2014). Vowels were produced in high-frequency monosyllabic French words during a reading task. F1 and F2 values were calculated for the midpoint of each vowel and normalized using Lobanov z-score calculation both across and within speaker groups. Secondly, this dataset contains perceptual data of 71 L1 French speakers respectively representing the Ile-de-France region (France) and Liège (Belgium). Participants performed an online identification task that assessed both listeners’ actual understanding of non-native accented nasal vowels and their category goodness judgments on a 5-point scale (1 = "bad", 5 = "good").

Article abstract This paper examines the production of French nasal vowels by Belgian Dutch learners. It is innovative in that it combines the analysis of ‘intelligibility’ of non-native accented vowels, assessed by listeners representing Paris and Liège, with an acoustic analysis focusing on ‘phonetic nativeness’. The stimuli were high-frequency monosyllabic words produced by 20 Belgian Dutch learners. The results indicate that the intelligibility of non-native accented nasals is rather high, except for the /ɑ̃/-vowel. Furthermore, the two listener groups do not differ in their actual understanding of vowels, except for the /ɛ̃/-vowel, which is identified more often by listeners representing the Liège region. This difference may be related to the impact of (i) L1 variation or (ii) Belgian listeners’ familiarity with Dutch-accented speech on speech perception. Finally, the study shows that it is not so much nasality itself that poses production difficulties for Dutch-speaking learners, but the interaction with vowel quality.

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