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Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

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Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#311

Post by GoblinSlayer »

nindalf wrote: post #282
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…

> it seems to me that the people who care the most about this issue are monolingual. Sort of. I’d speculate that those who care about it the most are people who’ve never struggled and failed to pronounce a name in another language. In my limited experience of knowing 3 languages I never had trouble with any pronunciation. So I came to the unfounded conclusion that a. I can pronounce anything and b. everyone should pr…

I have no problem learning foreign languages, but when I saw how Chinese phonetics works I ran away screaming.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#312

Post by k__ »

I know a Xue, and her pronounciation didn't sound like shoe.

More like kshoe but the end was something in between an "u" and a German "ü".

Languages are hard. I just have to think about "Ш" and "Щ" which both sound a bit like "sh", but with subtle differences for English speakers.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#313

Post by jan_Inkepa »

neltnerb wrote: post #253
rlpb wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I personally think it's entirely fine to switch between accents to try to match the locals, but I get the argument that it's offensive. I think it's unfortunate that this is the perception because I really really really really like phonetics. I'm a singer, this is our bread and butter. It's frustrating that doing my best to sing with an Australian accent is surely entirely unacceptable in 2021, even if it's an Austra…

Good points.

Yeah; it's possibly ironic that a lot of efforts/values in this direction have a strong indirect effect of enforcing the status quo and the cultural norms of the prevailing power. ("It's always ok to wear jeans" is my shorthand).

I remember being surprised at Hugh Laurie's blues recordings. He's the person I can think of off-hand that went all-out on accent while singing with his mother tongue.

OTOH if you go all out and sing in another language it's regarded as ok try to try render things more exactly (But most people make lots of mistakes that native speakers pick up on and so the audience may not enjoy the aesthetic outcome. It's super hard!)

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#314

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

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…

I heard from a linguist that the best way to learn foreign pronunciation as an adult is to learn to imitate the accent of a native speaker of that language. Which of course is also a microagression, so you just can't win no matter what you do.

It makes sense, though. Trying to learn the grammar, vocabulary and phonology all at once makes you task saturated, learning them separately is easier.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#315

Post by fqye »

enriquto wrote: post #232

The "opposite" side of this issue is people who intentionally adopt a pronounceable name of their destination country. I may have observed that, but I'm not really sure. Some of my Chinese students, who could barely speak French, were called totally french-sounding names like "Cédric" or "Pauline". I guess they invented them on the spot, to avoid people butchering their real names. But I never thought of a non-awkwar…

Chinese has this idiom 入乡随俗, meaning in other people's land you follow other people's custom.

It is a culture of us to make the hosts feel comfortable by giving ourselves a name of the hosting country, though of course some Chinese chose not to.

A french friend who worked in China for a long time gave himself a very nice Chinese name 欧大壮, literally Europe, Big And Strong. It is a very down to earth Chinese name.

He was liked instantly when he introduced his Chinese name.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#316

Post by brezelnbitte »

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 a German last name that not even my family pronounces “correctly” and myself didn’t learn the “correct” pronunciation until I studied German at university. Most other Americans butcher it, Germans get the German pronunciation right but never the way I grew up hearing it.

My opinion is just call me what you want as long as I know to respond to it.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#317

Post by kortex »

eyko wrote: post #245
jaimebuelta wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I totally read it as "Vincente" and didn't even notice there was no n until you pointed it out. Brains are super weird.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#319

Post by rendall »

ithinkso wrote: post #281
rendall wrote: post #272

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…

Celebrating incorrectness, eh? Nothing wrong with being wrong, but not willing to learn... I don't know. > 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 It's not unique, you think is unique because you are English-language speaker. Anyone speaking X natively will correct others learning X if they ask, bu…

> you think is unique because you are English-language speaker

I am a native English-language speaker, but I speak other languages as well. In all languages, there is exactly zero expectation that speakers will pronounce English words like English-speakers do. Because in all languages, foreign words are remade into native words. As it had been in English until the mid 20th century.

>And if you mean the names of people/places/movies/etc. how can you not be corrected?

Not sure what language you speak natively, but no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland, nor Spaniards for saying "Nueva York", nor the French for saying "Angleterre".

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#320

Post by carlmr »

mc32 wrote: post #306
carlmr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's crazy how often the news talk about China nowadays and almost nobody pronounces the names correctly.

It’s not a big deal. Watch some news in Chinese and you’ll hear similar butchering. It’s so exaggerated US cities are given totally different names in Chinese -there is little resemblance to the North American name of the city.

That's true, although in Chinese these are official transliterations as Hanzi.

I think if someone says Milan in English instead of Milano it's fine because the city has an English name as well.

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