qu'il s'agissait de mon groupe de rock préféré - it says europe and not rock

Question

qu'il s'agissait de mon groupe de rock préféré -> I even checked with google translate and it never ever said rock but d'europe. Can someone please confirm this ? Found other issues with this exercise as well, like eating up of alot of à and de. Why have it in the language if you are going to just eat it up, like having contractions weren't enough, now you need to eat them up as well?

Accepted Answer

Hi Robin,
Thank you for your input.
This audio has been re-recorded at a slower speed.
Hope you like it!
Bonne Continuation !

Answer

Robin, 
I can feel your frustration, and indeed I often have, and expressed it as well !
 However, the speaker here definitely says 'mon groupe de rock' - there is a subtle difference in the vowel sounds following ‘d’ at the start of  'de rock' and 'd'Europe' , as well as a difference in the consonant sounds at the end of the words. 
My wife is French, and she immediately identified " mon groupe de rock préféré " as having been said without knowing the query raised.
Not a perfect way of checking, but perhaps having a listen to some online pronunciation in dictionaries may help identify some of the differences, at least between "rock' and "Europe". 
You can also type the phrase 'mon groupe de rock, d'Europe préféré' into DeepL French side of English to French translation and get another (slower) complete sample to practise picking the differences. 
As for the prepositions, they are not especially poorly enunciated - this is B2, and faster, reasonably natural speech is to be expected. 
 https://www.wordreference.com/fren/rock
 https://www.wordreference.com/fren/europe

qu'il s'agissait de mon groupe de rock préféré -> it says europe and not rock

qu'il s'agissait de mon groupe de rock préféré -> it says europe and not rock

qu'il s'agissait de mon groupe de rock préféré -> it says europe and not rock

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