81–90 of 147 posts
Now I try to pronounce it the American way just so my name isn't the center of the conversation. I get surprised when I make a mistake and tell someone the correct way of pronouncing it and they get right the first time.
Happy it worked out that way...
I don't think this will help as much as they hope it will. In my experience, people are generally incapable of pronouncing anything, even when it is said to their face. My name is Nat, which is about as simple a name as you could ask for. But quite often, I will introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Nat", and the response will be "Nice to meet you, Nate". My wife experiences it too (even from her mother!), so I don't think my p…
Or even worse: When a barista takes my name for my order, I say "Andrey." Usually they'll spell it "Andre" but whatever. Five minutes later, more often than not, they call out "Aubrey." That's reading their own handwriting. You can't explain that. :P
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/73900/when-does-t...
Yeah, I think it's a clever concept, but it seems almost egotistical to say, "Look, I care enough about how you pronounce my last name to embed a link in my email sig " Many people classically mispronounced my name - it's not a big deal, I move on. If we're not going to be having many conversations where you say my last name, I'm not even going to correct you.
It's nice when people care enough about how their name is pronounced that they give you the tools to do it correctly.
It would be nice to be able to highlight a name, search for it in this database, and play an audio file from a browser extension, for example. Or from an email client, or a linkedin profile, or wherever. Having to visit this site to look up a name is enough of a barrier that once the novelty wears off, I can't see it being too well used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno; as somebody who's name gets mispronounced essentially all the time, I'm pretty sensitive about trying to pronounce other people's names properly. If they embed the pronunciation in their email, then a) I don't have to ask, and b) I can practice on my own time with a reference to make sure I have it correct. It's nice of them.
My name gets mispronounced, too, and I'm fine with it - I actually prefer the incorrectly pronounced version of my name. It has taught me, though, that when someone tells you "you can just call me X", you should not keep asking them how to really pronounce their name. If you're an American, you are not going to be able to fluently pronounce some non-Indo-European names. It's downright rude to quiz people for minutes…