How to practice your French (or Chinese, English, etc) pronunciation on your iOS device. For free.

Do you have a lousy French accent?

Never fear, it's better than mine. What we need is a victim, a native speaker, who will type whatever we say. Someone who never tires and never complains. Someone who is poor at interpreting foreign accents.

Someone like your iPhone.

Here's the trick for an English speaker:

1. In Settings, General, International, Keyboards enable French (or Chinese, English, etc) keyboard.
2. Go to an app like Notes. Tap world icon to switch to French keyboard.
3. Tap microphone icon and dictate your French phrases. Watch the iPhone get them completely wrong. Keep practicing until they come out right.

It's even easier than doing the same thing on OS X. Handy for kids learning foreign languages. (I'm certain Android does this as well.)

 

(Credit to Talking to Siri by Sadun & Sande for discussing this in terms of Siri control.)