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Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

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Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#331

Post by bloak »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #204
narag wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'w' - it's a hard 'v' as in 'very', 'vary'. Always, no exceptions and never anything else I've been interacting with a Polish web and got very confused because what happens with stand-alone w , that seems to mean in . Indeed Google Translate pronounces it as a v. First time I see a word in any language that consists only of consonants :-m

English has a couple of pure examples: 'Mrs' and 'Nth' I can think of. You can extend this with exclamations/onomatopoeia (eg: 'hmm', 'shh', 'brr'), but can see that these are not 'normal words'.

Interjections can contain sounds that don't occur in ordinary words. In German there's "tja", and in English there's "tsk", which is a click, quite an unusual sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_click

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#332

Post by peteretep »

toastal wrote: post #299

No one could produce the sounds for my name in Thailand, so I just picked a nickname (as is the local custom) and I've rolled with that as my primary name ever since.

Having a common name they’ve heard before helps to some degree here, but also there’s a Thai way of saying it and woe-betide you if you don’t say it the Thai way…

My favourite Thai pronunciation is the common Thai nickname “Apple” which is a loanword. However they pronounce it “ah-poon” because the character they use for the l sound (ล) is pronounced as an n in the terminal position. Also, Thais like to shorten words, so sometimes this nickname becomes simply Ple, pronounced “Poon” O_o

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#333

Post by jpxw »

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…

Agreed. Changing pronunciation mid-sentence to a language you don’t even speak is very difficult, and in any case comes off as pretentious.

Non-native speakers will be used to the English pronunciation, even if it’s wrong. If you try and pronounce the name “correctly”, the chances are you’ll mess it up and cause even more confusion.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#334

Post by qalmakka »

jagger27 wrote: post #328
qalmakka wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if your name is “ Friedrich” you should accept that it’s unpronounceable for an Italian and that “fredrik” I think that the only unpronounceable things in "Freidrich" for an Italian speaker are the guttural Rs and the /ç/ sound at the end. Most Italians are acquainted to the fact that 'ei' is /ai/ in German thank to South Tyrol and names such as "Einstein" being common knowledge - nobody would ever pronounce it /'e…

I think people really overdo the idea that certain sounds simply cannot be replicated by non-native speakers. If there is any remote proximity to native speakers and a bare minimum effort is made to practice tricky sounds, it's totally doable. I certainly picked up French quite easily in school. Later, in university, I picked up Italian very easily (though I had some exposure from older relatives). More recently, I a…

Sure certain sounds can definitely be picked by non-native speakers. I'm not an English or German native speaker, but I've learned to pronounce /x/, /ç/, /θ/, /ð/ and the guttural Rs just fine, all sounds I didn't grow up with. It took time, exercise and willpower, and I'm kind of a language nut so I always put in some extra effort to get my pronunciation right. A common person that doesn't know the slightest amount of German is definitely not going to put in the effort to learn how to say [ch] right, just to say "Freidrich".

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#335

Post by soperj »

neltnerb wrote: post #248
seszett wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family has been pronouncing it incorrectly Well, the French usage for names generally is just to use either a straight French pronunciation based on how the name is written, or an approximation of the foreign pronunciation using sounds that exist in French. Only a handful of well-known names get to have a special pronunciation. If your family has been in France for 100 years, I wouldn't say they pronounce the na…

This reminds me of the story of the town of Versailles, Indiana. It was common knowledge nearby that anyone who came in and pronounced it "ver-sai" was from out of town. Because everyone living there called it "ver-sails". I use this as an example of how if anyone gets to decide how something is pronounced, it's the people who live there. The city is simply called "ver-sails" and that's all there is to it. It is not…

> This reminds me of the story of the town of Versailles, Indiana.

Detroit would be the same way if it wasn't such a big city. Easier to see when you add back the accent, Détroit.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#336

Post by s3cur3 »

neltnerb wrote: post #248
seszett wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My family has been pronouncing it incorrectly Well, the French usage for names generally is just to use either a straight French pronunciation based on how the name is written, or an approximation of the foreign pronunciation using sounds that exist in French. Only a handful of well-known names get to have a special pronunciation. If your family has been in France for 100 years, I wouldn't say they pronounce the na…

This reminds me of the story of the town of Versailles, Indiana. It was common knowledge nearby that anyone who came in and pronounced it "ver-sai" was from out of town. Because everyone living there called it "ver-sails". I use this as an example of how if anyone gets to decide how something is pronounced, it's the people who live there. The city is simply called "ver-sails" and that's all there is to it. It is not…

Here in Missouri (or rather in Missourah country), we have a ver-SAILS, MAH-l'n (Milan), New MAD-rid (Madrid), BALL-ah-ver (Bolivar), and La PLATE-ah (La Plata). :)

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#337

Post by empeyot »

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…

In English the /v/ in the phonetic spelling [edit, was: transcription] vee usually represents a voiced labiodental fricative (as /v/ in Italian Vincente) whereas most Spanish speakers will pronounce v (just like b) as voiced bilabial fricative or approximant. That is, I'd expect Vicente to be phonetically spelled bee-sen-teh (well aware that English /b/ is not a fricative as Spanish /v/ and /b/).

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#338

Post by jejones3141 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #256
eyko wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yup. Take Bob; in English, especially American English it's pronounced like "Baawhb" (exaggerated, weirdly phonetic), but over here (Dutch) it would be pronounced as "Bop", with a very short / clipped O sound. 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.

That's more the New England pronunciation of "Bob". Here in the Midwest it's shorter. It was a fun part of _This Old House_ back when Bob Vila was on; he'd ask a subcontractor (this was in Boston) how things were going, and they'd say "Well, Baawhb..."

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#339

Post by rootsudo »

notafraudster wrote: post #300
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 am E/F bilingual. I taught in an educational institution which is multicultural with dozens of cultural origins. When I get names wrong, I see grimaces on their faces. When I hear other people get common but foreign names -- like Nguyen for instance -- wrong, I grimace too. I am now at an institution in a country where basically no one outside the country knows how to pronounce anything. It takes me about 5 minutes…

That seems so much work, to not ask or help someone pronounce a name.

The world is globalized, it's not expected as a norm to be able to pronounce every name properly.

My name isn't in "English" and I grew up in the USA. The people whom act like you when I introduce myself and talk are the most annoying. I don't have any onus on everyone pronouncing my name properly and if they say it with English phonetics then that's acceptable because they're trying to adapt their language to my name.

That is much more polite then having this internal monologue and judging/having bias to everyone else that they're "inconsiderate."

Just ask how to pronounce if you can't, read the room and then apologize if it needs to be said.

Loosen up.

Re: Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers

#340

Post by cabalamat »

retrac wrote: post #126
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.

The Wikipedia articles on it might be approachable for a layperson with no particular background. I studied some linguistics in university and it's a hobby interest so I can't really judge that anymore. The articles have plenty of sound examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics) English actually has all the relevant sounds in most dialects so I will try…

> Unvoiced stops (p/t/k) in isolation "pat" or "cap" are moderately aspirated. Voiced stops (b/d/g) are not like "dog" or "bad". (Leaning on this pattern as a partial hack using a feature common in a lot of European languages, is why p and b are what they are in Pinyin, and many other Chinese romanizations.)

Some languages, such as Hindi, have both the voiced/unvoiced and aspirated/unaspirated distinction, so they have 4 consonants (/t d th dh/) where English only has two (/t d/).

Hindi also has retroflex equivalents of those 4 consonants, and there are minimal pairs between all 8 of them. A typical English speaker would struggle to tell the difference between them.

For these sorts of reasons, a Romanisation of names in different languages that (1) is easy to pronounce for English speakers, and (2) sounds like the word in the original language, is going to be a tall order.

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