Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers • Hacker News Board

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#191

Post by remarkEon » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:34 AM UTC

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…

My last name is French, but in reality the name comes from Germany. My family has been pronouncing it incorrectly for 100 years, and I … just don’t care enough to enforce the correct pronunciation. It feels snobbish to me, like you said. Might be an artifact of being an American.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#192

Post by JPLeRouzic » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:34 AM UTC

nielsole wrote: post #146

silisili wrote: post #129

I appreciate the effort, but I don't like this attitude of blaming the speaker. My company once even had a video saying that mispronouncing a name was a 'microaggression.' That insanity aside, there are sounds and consonants people just cannot make past a certain age. As long as we aren't being demeaning, why go for perfection? Nearly every foreigner pronounces the short 'i' in my name as 'ee', and I've never once ca…

When I (German) was ~15 I was blaming esp. US folks for not managing to pronounce my handle correctly. That changed when I completely failed to pronounce Baltic and Arabic names to the name-holders satisfaction. I can't even hear where I am going wrong.

> I can't even hear where I am going wrong.

Same effect for me, once on a flight between Florida and New York I asked for water (I'm French), I did my best to pronounce it correctly but the flight attendant couldn't understand me. Another passenger told him "I think he wants water". For me, he used the exact same pronunciation as me.

I never understood what was wrong.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#193

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:41 AM UTC

22c wrote: post #173

darkwater wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In any case, my pet peeve is people expecting speakers of English to accommodate foreign sounds, but not extending the same ask to foreign speakers who often mangle English name sounds just as much. Sorry... what? Us non native speaker live in a world where English is taught in almost any school on the planet and where you have a peer pressure to know and speak decently English. This on top of one of the most irreg…

As a native English speaker, for the most part I typically know what someone means when they say "gl-OW-kester square" or "Green-witch mean time", so don't worry about it. I have a Russian friend who has specifically asked me to go out of my way to correct their mispronunciations, but for the most part if someone says an English word in a weird I don't even blink. I'd say part of being an effective English communicat…

> I have a Russian friend who has specifically asked me to go out of my way to correct their mispronunciations, but for the most part if someone says an English word in a weird I don't even blink.

Yes, English has so many weird native dialects that weird foreign pronunciations shouldn’t throw you off either.

The Finns seems obtuse in their insistence on using Finnish phonology when speaking English, which is easy to make light of on the surface, but when you think about it it’s not actually a bad system. It’s consistent, easy to understand and it lets them focus on gaining fluency over memorising pointless irregular pronunciations.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#194

Post by Markoff » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:42 AM UTC

Wrong title, should read Pronouncing Chinese and Japanese Names For English Speakers

I thought it will be some great tool where I enter nationality/language of certain person, enter their name and I will get pronunciation in English, meanwhile all I got is some blog about pronouncing Chinese and Japanese names (which I already knew anyway)

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#195

Post by jaimebuelta » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:43 AM UTC

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 have an strategy of two pronunciations for my name (Jaime, it's a Spanish name):

- Quick chats, like answering your name at Starbucks, talking with the electric company on the phone, etc. I use directly the English pronunciation of my name (like Jamie). It's faster, easier and who cares, frankly... Gratefully, I can now use "wrote as Lanister" and fix some writing problems

- With more meaningful relationships, like coworkers or acquaintances that I will be talking several times, etc, the only thing that I care about is an honest try. Most people tends to have problems with the ending vowel, and the initial "hard H" sound, so it sounds more like "Hi-me", but that's absolutely no problem. Different languages have different sounds, and I mispronounce things all the time. All I care about it's the other person putting a bit of effort into it, but that's about it...

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#196

Post by Markoff » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:44 AM UTC

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…

What about rz, is it same as ř in Czech? Good luck with this letter to any native English speaker. :-))

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#197

Post by thedravidian » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

Epenthesis wrote: post #2

A good addition might be to point out good first guesses for the vowels in non-English names (Examples used assume a General American accent): * "A" as in "ah" (like "ah, I see") * "E" as in "e" in "pet", or the "ai" in "pain" * "I" as in the "i" in "pit" or the "ea" in "peat" * "O" as in the "o" in "cot" or the "o" in "cone" * "U" as in the "u" in "put" or the "oo" in "doom" (Americans might notice that this approxi…

> If you know the name is from an Indian language, read "a" as the "u" in "putt"

Please stop making up stuff like "an Indian language". If you mean Hindi-Urdu and that language family, then just call it that, don't subtly encourage people to think that is the language for all of India.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#198

Post by speleding » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

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 feel the same way. I avoid the problem by pronouncing my (Dutch) name the way an American would pronounce it when introducing myself. (If there happen to be other Dutch people present, they'll figure it out, as it's a common name)

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#199

Post by dorkwood » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:51 AM UTC

> First, if you can remember only 3 things:

> Zh is like a J sound (as in "Jam") > X is like a Sh sound (as in "Shot") > Q is like a Ch sound (as in "China")

This is very useful to know, but I have a question. When converting the original characters into English, why didn't the creators of this system choose letters which more closely match the native pronunciation? For example, why "Qi" instead of "Chi"?

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#200

Post by smcl » Mon, Jul 26, 2021, 7:56 AM UTC

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

That's a much better example! I'm not sure how to accurately describe the w/wh difference in text. A comment in this thread suggested that it's like prepending a "h", like "hwhen" which is actually incorrect - this exists but it's what you'd do as part of an over-the-top impression of an old fashioned upper class accent :) In reality the pronunciation is just like blowing a tiny little bit of air when your mouth makes the shape for the "w". I didn't know it was largely just a Scottish/Irish thing nowadays, though.

Also while we're all gathered in our shared appreciation of pronunciation weirdness I have one more "wh" example. Where I'm from (Northeast Scotland) English words following a "wh-" pattern are transformed in the local dialect to be spelled and pronounced differently as "f-". So "fit" instead of "what" ("fit like?" = "how's it going"), "far" instead of "where" ("far dae ye bide" = "where do you live") etc. Dialects are weird :)