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Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

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Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#161

Post by AYBABTME »

Some people take this idea to heart a bit too much. Barely anyone can pronounce my name properly and I really don't bat an eye at it. It's not pragmatic to expect most people to do so, especially in a place like the US where so many people come from different backgrounds. And that's nothing to say about the fact that the same name, written the same way, can be pronounced very differently depending on the bearer's background. At last, it seems to me that the people who care the most about this issue are monolingual.

It's one thing to do a quick effort at it; you can ask "how do you say your name" real quick and let it go after a try. Or just try to catch how I'll introduce myself, and say it the same way.

On the other hand, some folks get hung up on pronouncing my name "properly" and get very annoying about it: "no no no I reaaally want to say your name properly, it's important _for me_". In a 30min meeting, I don't feel like spending 5 minutes giving a useless French pronunciation class for something so pointless. I much prefer hearing my name pronounced wrong by mistake, than wasting time in a useless woke-posturing session with someone using my time to teach them how to make sounds their mouth hasn't been trained to make, supposedly out of respect for my foreignness.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#164

Post by fishywang »

prvc wrote: post #40

One thing that has puzzled me about complaints about English speakers' pronunciation of transliterated Chinese words (the only topic of TFA), is why the speaker is blamed rather than the transliteration. If the official transliteration into the Roman alphabet leads to less accuracy in pronunciation than some other (for example see the second vs third columns in the table in TFA), then would it not make better sense f…

Do you also blame French system when you mispronounced Guillaume Dubois? Like, French should use a better system to transliterate into Roman alphabet for English pronunciation?

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#165

Post by ajuc »

ithinkso wrote: post #159
smcl wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same sound as in 'when'/'why'/'when' Note: this is ONLY applicable if your "wh" is non-aspirated. If you pronounce Łukasz as "Whookash" you're going to get some funny looks :) I'd have written this as "It's the same sound as in 'wise' or 'weather'"

That's interesting, could you elaborate on the difference in 'w' between 'wise' and 'when'? I'd say 'Wookash' as in star-wars 'Wookie' is a good way (way, hehe) to say Łukasz. I'm not a linguist though so I'm curious

Some English speakers pronounce "w" differently than "wh". They will say sth that sounds like "hwhen" instead of "when" for example. I think it's a dialect thing I only met like 5 people online who spoke like that but they were all native English speakers so it must be correct?

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#166

Post by ithinkso »

ajuc wrote: post #132
ithinkso wrote: post #115

People are giving pronunciation tips for other languages in the comments, here are tips for polish. Polish often seems incomprehensible for english speakers because of the sheer amount of consonants though it actually flows quite nicely if you know the rules 'sz', 'cz' - those are equivalent to 'sh' (shop,shell) and 'ch' (chop, check) 'w' - it's a hard 'v' as in 'very', 'vary'. Always, no exceptions and never anythin…

Yup Polish is actually quite regular in pronunciation, there are very few exceptions and only about a dozen rules to remember to be able to pronounce any word. The reputation comes from different conventions. In English letter+h is the escape code (gh, th, sh, ch) in Polish it's letter+z (rz,sz,cz,dz,dż,dź,dzi). Especially vowels are much easier than in English. Each vowel in Polish maps to exactly one sound and vice…

>There actually are exceptions, but they are regular as well - w before last syllable is often devoiced to f. Levandofski. But even most Polish speakers doesn't know that it's the rule, they just speak that way without thinking :)

Well, true, but I don't think devoicing w in 'Levandofski' is correct, sounds a bit sloppy but hard to hear the distinction to be honest so maybe

There is though a clear devoicing not only before the last syllable but before 'sz' as in 'wszystko'(all), 'wszędzie'(everywhere). Not sure if there's a surname that that applies to.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#167

Post by mkotowski »

ithinkso wrote: post #115

People are giving pronunciation tips for other languages in the comments, here are tips for polish. Polish often seems incomprehensible for english speakers because of the sheer amount of consonants though it actually flows quite nicely if you know the rules 'sz', 'cz' - those are equivalent to 'sh' (shop,shell) and 'ch' (chop, check) 'w' - it's a hard 'v' as in 'very', 'vary'. Always, no exceptions and never anythin…

To elaborate on ⟨ł⟩ – there is quite a good reason for the way it is spelled. Originally, its pronunciation was /ɫ/ (“dark l” in English) so it was very close to /l/ in sound quality.

It evolved to /w/ over time. During the first part of 20th century, it was already used only in dialects and by professionals such as actors and singers (because of it, it is also called “scenic ł” — „sceniczne ł”).

Ironically, if I remember correctly the original sound quality of ⟨v⟩ in Latin was also /w/, so in some roundabout way you could say that English and Polish both swapped traditional pronunciation of their letters.

⟨y⟩ is often transcribed as /ɨ/ but it is in practice closer to English schwa.

And to correct one thing: because of Polish orthography rules, ⟨w⟩ can also be pronounced:

• as /f/ if preceding consonants are voiceless as in the second w in Lewando__w__ski, although I think one would still be understood if that rule was ignored

• as /w/ if the word is an English loanword, as in „weekend” /wikɛnt/

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#168

Post by Veen »

AYBABTME wrote: post #161

Some people take this idea to heart a bit too much. Barely anyone can pronounce my name properly and I really don't bat an eye at it. It's not pragmatic to expect most people to do so, especially in a place like the US where so many people come from different backgrounds. And that's nothing to say about the fact that the same name, written the same way, can be pronounced very differently depending on the bearer's bac…

I find the same. My (English) name seems very challenging for French people to pronounce correctly. Probably because it has a diphthong in the middle that doesn’t occur in French. I’ve basically never heard a French person say it right (even my French ex-gf). It doesn’t matter. So long as people attempt some approximation and it doesn’t sound too outlandish, who cares. It’s just part of their accent.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#169

Post by AYBABTME »

prvc wrote: post #40

One thing that has puzzled me about complaints about English speakers' pronunciation of transliterated Chinese words (the only topic of TFA), is why the speaker is blamed rather than the transliteration. If the official transliteration into the Roman alphabet leads to less accuracy in pronunciation than some other (for example see the second vs third columns in the table in TFA), then would it not make better sense f…

In some place, the transliterated rules aren't up to the name bearer. There's official rules and when you apply for international documents, the government decides how your name looks like in romanized form.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#170

Post by [deleted] »

AYBABTME wrote: post #169
prvc wrote: post #40

One thing that has puzzled me about complaints about English speakers' pronunciation of transliterated Chinese words (the only topic of TFA), is why the speaker is blamed rather than the transliteration. If the official transliteration into the Roman alphabet leads to less accuracy in pronunciation than some other (for example see the second vs third columns in the table in TFA), then would it not make better sense f…

In some place, the transliterated rules aren't up to the name bearer. There's official rules and when you apply for international documents, the government decides how your name looks like in romanized form.

[deleted]
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