251–260 of 474 posts
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…
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I'll be honest, I'm very interested in knowing how that polish phrase entered a Scotsman's, living in Czech Republic, canon and what it means
It's all down to this video where a Polish guy was amazed at a hedgehog he saw in some city centre somewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwR6KS6vJWg Edit: oh and it means “Here’s the carrefour (supermarket chain), and here’s the fucking hedgehog”
Because of categorical perception (as defined on the https://dictionary.apa.org/categorical-perception page), there's no general agreement on the "correct" way to pronounce a non-English name within English communication to a mostly English speaking audience. Some people argue that the right approach is to always use the closest equivalents within the English phonemic inventory. In this view, it's incorrect to sudden…
Even within English there are different accents. I'm British. If I meet an American "Annie" then do I put on a faux American accent while saying her name? Or do I just say "Annie" with a British accent? If it's allowed or even expected that I shift "Annie" into my accent, why not a non-English name? What about European names that have English equivalents but are pronounced differently in European languages? My own na…
It's frustrating that doing my best to sing with an Australian accent is surely entirely unacceptable in 2021, even if it's an Australian composer and the rhyming scheme makes no sense in an American accent.
At least for some reason it's perfectly fine to use a British accent at all times, even if it's a horrible accent. We almost always sing with a "British accent" by default because of particular ways it improves the understandability of the words when sung. We tend to only use an "American accent" (and even then, which one right?) when singing Gospel music.
The rules are a little strange and clearly asymmetric in the sense that adopting accents that have historically been over-emphasized or glorified or straight up were the accents of conquering empires is fine while the reverse is not. This is a reasonable guideline, but I admit it feels hollow as someone who simply wants to sing as best I can.
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…
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…
Also known as "pronouncing Latin alphabet vowels as in Latin" :) I like how English managed to offset for his relatively simple grammar by totally destroying its spelling. The whole fact that things like "spelling bees" can exist was very hard to grasp to me as a kid watching stuff dubbed in Italian. Seven years old me was always very confused by why the kids in TV shows were rewarded for knowing how to spell stuff,…
To make it obvious, I'll use the Romanian spelling for vowels, which is practically Latin (except for "ă" which is pronounced "uh").
A became ei.
E became i (ok, this one's the exception, but in practice it's still crazy, "Mercedes" manages to have 3 - three!!! - pronunciations for it).
I became ai.
O became ău.
U became iu.
So if you look at them, they're all 2 distinct sounds (ergo the 2 letters in the Romanian spelling, except for E, which is crazy enough anyway).
I'm not counting W, Y and such because I think they weren't used in Latin.
[1] I.e. they're need a single sound to be pronounced, don't need an additional supporting sound.
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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…
Same boat here. Vicente in Spanish so I go by Vincent most of the time (either the english or the French pronounciations, I don't care). Most people see my name in Spanish and pronounce it like it was Italian ("Vinchente", they always add an N). I've never been bothered by it one bit, at least they tried. For the curious, the correct pronounciation is either "Vee-sen-teh" or with the spanish voiceless-dental-fricativ…
Of course there's also names that have transformed to nearly unrecognizable forms; George over here has evolved into Sjors (or the other way around?), John into Sjon, etc.
Because of categorical perception (as defined on the https://dictionary.apa.org/categorical-perception page), there's no general agreement on the "correct" way to pronounce a non-English name within English communication to a mostly English speaking audience. Some people argue that the right approach is to always use the closest equivalents within the English phonemic inventory. In this view, it's incorrect to sudden…
This is very reasonable. But I wonder if there is a word (in any language) for the pointless pleasure of saying a foreign word in the foreign language pronunciation. And for the pleasure of observing someone mistakenly do so. How many Pauls build a Les Paul? For my part, even my two syllable first name can be hard for Anglophones, though they are usually very eager to learn how to say it (people are usually very kind…
I know it was a discussion for many decades about whether a piece of music should be in the original language or the translation. Everyone settled on the original, so we all sing with absolutely atrocious accents in foreign languages as best we can.
I feel like this whole area is a giant minefield for actors now, switching accents for roles is extremely normal. If that is suddenly interpreted as signaling a lack of respect for the real accent of the people they are portraying it makes an awful lot of everything harder.
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Also known as "pronouncing Latin alphabet vowels as in Latin" :) I like how English managed to offset for his relatively simple grammar by totally destroying its spelling. The whole fact that things like "spelling bees" can exist was very hard to grasp to me as a kid watching stuff dubbed in Italian. Seven years old me was always very confused by why the kids in TV shows were rewarded for knowing how to spell stuff,…
They had a crazy vowel shift where vowels, which for example in Romanian are defined as sounds that "stand by themselves" [1] all became 2-sound things. To make it obvious, I'll use the Romanian spelling for vowels, which is practically Latin (except for "ă" which is pronounced "uh"). A became ei . E became i (ok, this one's the exception, but in practice it's still crazy, "Mercedes" manages to have 3 - three!!! - pr…
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Don't know what kind of Spanish speaker you spoke to, but no Spaniard/Latin-American I know would pronounce a famouse people name lke Michael Jackson "wrong".
Not the original commenter, but I'll try to explain because something similar happens in Italy as well It's not a "wrong" pronunciation, but it's clearly influenced by how Spanish/Italian stresses individual letters way more than English. Let's take Hillary Clinton as another example: Italians pronounce it "Heel-lah-ree Clean-tone" (/ˈilari ˈklinton/), which is way different from the actual pronunciation.
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Italian is somewhat simple to pronounce (probably it is not, but I like believing that). - The cardinal rule is that EVERY SINGLE LETTER MUST BE READ. We don't write unnecessary stuff, we don't eat letters like in French. - The only exception is the letter h, which we use sparingly by itself as a Latin leftover, and is ALWAYS silent. Like "ho" and "o" sound the same. - there are only 7 vowels (English has around 16?…
There are some geminated sounds in English, mostly in compounds e.g. "roommate", "midday", "misspell".