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Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

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Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#271

Post by Zababa »

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 think you have to understand that "international English" is not the same as English. We have the same thing in France where lots of people come to study from other countries where they speak French, and their French is a little different. I'm not going to waste anyone's time on correcting someone because they said "le table" and not "la table". Same thing with the pronunciation. I can understand them, they can understand me, and that's what matters. That's the "price" of having a huge influence in the world.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#272

Post by rendall »

If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do, nor are they expected to.

Just pronounce it the way it's spelled, and if you're speaking English, that is the correct way. Join me in my militant quest to aggressively redefine what it means to "correctly" pronounce foreign words in English: go ahead and proudly say "g'nock-chi" for gnocchi and "buy frost" when you mean the Bifrost Bridge.

If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. "When I speak Japanese, I will say Kyoto with only two syllables, even accent on each. When I speak English, I shall proudly, without shame, pronounce it KEE-oh-toe. When I speak Dutch, I will pronounce Van Gogh with a soft consonant at the end. While speaking English, it shall remain van go."

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#273

Post by wccrawford »

wodenokoto wrote: post #154

> The way English speakers say Tokyo as 'Toh-Kee-Oh' is the mistake you want to avoid here. Toh-kyoh. I once came across a “how to speak English like a native” video on YouTube aimed at a Japanese audience. It spend a lot of time teaching the viewer to say Tokyo with 3 syllables instead of 2.

Which is funny, because pronouncing it correctly doesn't cause any confusion. I've been learning Japanese for like 10-15 years now and that has changed my pronunciation of Tokyo, and nobody is confused when I say it correctly. They never even try to correct their pronunciation, but I take that as further evidence that they don't even hear anything different.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#274

Post by mbel »

ajuc wrote: post #179
mkotowski wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wszystko and Lewandowski both are subjected to the same principle, namely: in Polish consonant clusters, including across a word boundary, the obstruents are all voiced or all voiceless.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_phonology#Voicing_and_d...

I wonder if there is a rule that lets people get away with "Lewandoski" :)

There is, it’s called „dialekt małopolski” ;)

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#275

Post by edanm »

qalmakka wrote: post #222
wink wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (limited) experience there is no discernible difference between Americans and British people mispronouncing Italian (or German, for that matter) and to a degree Spanish words. I think this is what the parent poster meant. If your native language is English AND you don't know any others, then your mispronunciations will be similar.

This, exactly. I also saw a quite big difference between monolingual English speakers and Italian speakers. The average monolingual Italian speaker that has had a basic exposure to certain English words through TV or media in general WILL definitely mispronounce the words, but the result is never so corrupted and garbled to result incomprehensible to an English speaker. For instance, the average Italian might pronoun…

I wonder if it is indeed a difference in base language, or just a difference of exposure. I assume that, even without "trying", almost every Italian has more exposure to English than English speakers have to Italian.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#276

Post by morebortplates »

feintruled wrote: post #269

Youtube is surprisingly great for this, has a "how to pronounce" video for just about every name going. (Usually more than one, so you can verify).

It is definitly a good advice to check out more than one source in that regard ;) :

https://youtu.be/d3_DjiLLDfo

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#277

Post by [deleted] »

ylyn wrote: post #117
akersten wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a resource (maybe with sound samples) that expands on the voiced/unvoiced vs aspirated/unaspirated distinction? It sounds fascinating, but I'm struggling to conceptualize it just with the text here.

Compare the t in 'stellar' vs the t in 'tell'.

[deleted]

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#278

Post by Mordisquitos »

ajmurmann wrote: post #93
mastazi wrote: post #45

Four points for Italian: 1. Vowels are like in Spanish ("a" always sounds "ah" etc.) 2. The group "ch" sounds like a "k" sound, e.g. bruschetta is "broos-keh-tah" 3. The groups "gl" and "gn" sound like Spanish "ll" and "ñ" respectively. Those are hard to pronounce for English speakers, the easy shortcut is just imagine that the "g" is silent and that the "l" or "n" are a bit more pronounced. 4. Double consonants need…

"Vowels are like in Spanish ("a" always sounds "ah" etc.)" This is mostly true for every language that uses the Roman alphabet and isn't English. The great vowel shift in English changed his vowels get pronounced in English when they were a lot more similar. This even holds for transliteration systems like Hepburn and painting. If you try to pronounce vowels in a language other than English you are likely gonna be le…

> This is mostly true for every language that uses the Roman alphabet and isn't English.

That is not actually the case. In Catalan, for example, "e" and "o" may be pronounced either open or close (/ɛ/ vs /e/, /ɔ/ vs /o/), and the difference may only be marked with an accent mark (è, é, ò, ó) if that syllable was to be accentuated according to the rules, or if it happens to distinguish two differently pronounced words that would otherwise be spelt the same. Also, the most prevalent dialect of Catalan will pronounce non-stressed "a" and "e" as schwa (/ə/) and non-stressed "o" the same as "u". I believe something similar to this happens in Portuguese.

And don't even get me started on French...

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#279

Post by flyinghamster »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #130
eliseumds wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there's a subset of American-English speakers that would pronounce "caught" as "kaat". I've always heard it like a longer/smoother "cot" though. I'd say a good first guess is the "a" in "about" instead.

In southern English English, it rhymes with the number 0 (nought).

That's also how it rhymes in northern Illinois (Chicago/Rockford/Quad Cities). I've never pronounced "cot" and "caught" alike. Using different pronunciations is a pretty good indicator that someone came from the Chicago area.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#280

Post by FroshKiller »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #192
nielsole wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No kidding, try asking for "agua" (Spanish) next time.
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