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How to pronounce loan words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4304 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 25 of 39 30 June 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged | ||
I really wonder if this is an inherent trait of native English speakers? The insistence that the only "proper" way to pronounce English loanwords in other languages, is by using English phonology. I mean, I cringe whenever I hear an English speaker mangle about 99% of any Asian name, city, country, but I don't get all annoyed or self-righteous about it. Yes, you are being pretentious. You're not speaking English, you're speaking Spanish. If that's how the name's supposed to be pronounced in Spanish, then that's how you're supposed to say it when speaking Spanish. That is the way to properly pronounce the name in Spanish. Who cares if Shakespeare is English or not. Also, if that really bugs you, we really need to get a new world map. Or how about including not only the original pronunciation but also the original writing system. Russian words should be written only in Cyrillic, Indian languages in Dravidian, Korean in Hangul etc... Edited by wber on 30 June 2014 at 9:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4293 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 26 of 39 30 June 2014 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that the name or word should be pronounced using the form that is used in
the target language. When I pronounce "Manchester" in Spanish, I always pronounce it (and spell it) the Spanish way, viz., "Mánchester", pronounced "man-chays-tayrrrr". There are quite a large amount of Hispanophones (mostly from Spain) in Manchester, and they appreciate the Spnish spelling during Spanish conversations. The same applies to Liverpool, or "Líverpool", as "lee-bayr-poul". It only makes sense, and seems fair--looking at Anglophone maps of Europe, one sees "Seville" instead of "Sevilla", "Lisbon" for "Lisboa", "Munich" for "München", so I see no reason why not vice versa. Likewise there is already an amount of lenience--I have insofar meant no native Anglophone who pronounces properly "Amsterdam", "Breda", or "Rotterdam" with stress on the last syllable, much less the major international aeroport "Schiphol" properly. Yet no native Dutch speaker insists ion using the Dutch "g" for "Los Angeles" or "Glasgow". It seems quite excessive to ask for a more Anglophone pronunciation for Anglophone names in other languages. Edited by 1e4e6 on 30 June 2014 at 9:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6706 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 27 of 39 30 June 2014 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would generally prefer using something close to the original spelling and pronunciation, but it isn't always possible, 1) because people might not understand the original versions, 2) because it might look resp. sound weird in a concrete context. On the other hand, if I decide that something has become part and parcel of the Danish language then I don't mind a rather brutal 'danification'.
For instance I normally write and say London, but in English the last vowel tend to become schwa-like (/Londn/). In Danish I say London with two almost identical vowels. On the other hand I normally say Venezia and Roma instead of the normal Danish forms Venedig and Rom - and I make a tongue trill on the R in Roma. Paris is a problem because it would make me sound like an extreme Francophile if I said Pari. But if I mention other French cities (which don't have a standardized mutilated pronunciation) then I say Pari, because I also have to pronounce the other cities in a French way. And finally Hamburg/Hamborg, Flensburg/Flensborg: I sometimes use the Danish versions with -borg, but again: if I mention other German cities plus Hamb*rg, then I use the German form. And only cities close to Denmark have a special Danish form (which in many cases is the old one from the time where most of those cities were part of Denmark (Hamb*rg never was - just Altona)). Curiously enough I am more prone to translate country names than city names, partly because it is more likely that there is a standardized Danish versions of country names. But I do my best to say either the original name or something close to it if it is reasonably understandable (so "Bolivia" and not Bolivien, but only "Japan", never "Nippon"). Computer words are generally pronounced in a more or less English way here, but abbreviations are mostly pronounced with Danish letter names. So it is "ee te' " and not "ay tea". Edited by Iversen on 04 July 2014 at 12:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4831 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 28 of 39 02 July 2014 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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"It seems rather rough
on Vincent Van Guff When those in the know Call him Vincent Van Go For unless I'm way off He was Vincent Van Gough" (Joe Ecclesine) Edited by montmorency on 02 July 2014 at 4:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5383 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 29 of 39 03 July 2014 at 6:01am | IP Logged | ||
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I never knew Van Gough wasn't "Van Go" until I saw him on a Doctor Who episode, of all things. :)
dampingwire made a very good point about not knowing how to pronounce things like Facebook in your target language. My circa 1961 FSI Spanish CDs are not helping me in this regard! If you want a great example of Anglicized names, look at the geography of California. The multitudes of Spanish named cities are pronounced mostly according to English ways, but not entirely. Non-Californians are often thrown by Ojai, San Joaquin, La Jolla, and so on. "La Jolla? no - la hoya. What??" So there is some original Spanish pronunciation left. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 30 of 39 04 July 2014 at 3:19am | IP Logged | ||
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In Chinese country names and names of people get assigned the phonetics of the closest Chinese
characters. In a typical news broadcast you hear foreign sounding names all the time. In some cases the Chinese would say the original after the Chinese version, in other cases they would stick to the Chinese version. A country name that was mentioned in the World Cup Football / Soccer was Uruguay. The Chinese version is 烏拉圭 (Wūlāguī). If you break the syllables into 3 the "Wū" and the "U" sound isn't too distinct. The last syllable "guī" and "guay" isn't too different. The "lā" and "ru" is totally off. Out of hundreds of countries you might get a few that are very close phonetically such as 瑪麗 (Mǎlì) and Mali in Africa. In Hong Kong the people use a few words borrowed from English including: 巴士 (baa1 si6*2) for bus instead of the Chinese Cantonese version 公車 (gung1 ce1) "leeb" for lift / elevator instead of the Chinese Cantonese version 電梯 (din6 tai1). "Leeb" is a spoken word used in a casual conversation. When writing they always use 電梯. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 31 of 39 06 July 2014 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
Is it how it's always pronounced though? I'm doing a coursera course, and the Spanish speaker has just pronounced it as Chekspir, kinda. no diphthong in the first syllable and ch instead of sh, but close enough otherwise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lugubert Heptaglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6870 days ago 186 posts - 235 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Danish, Norwegian, EnglishC2, German, Dutch, French Studies: Mandarin, Hindi | Message 32 of 39 06 July 2014 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no hard and fast rules for how I do it. Like others have mentioned, my choice is heavily influenced by with whom I'm speaking.
I try to feel what's easier to understand. If you're discussing travels, it would probably sound fairly ridiculous if you switch accents for every name. My French is worse than my Dutch, so for Belgian names, when speaking Swedish I try to use the Dutch name if I know it and if there are multiple Belgian versions and no established Swedish name. In most cases, it also sounds less exotic to the listener. Oops, thinking of examples I realize that I contradict myself. For Dunkerque, I use an approximation of the French name and pronunciation in Swedish. In English, I'd use Dunkirk. There's of course lots of overlap between choosing a pronunciation and choosing a local established name for a foreign person or geographical place, and sticking to a traditional name in either language when a state demands change. During the years when Kampuchea was in vogue, I still used Swedish Kambodja. Now that we're back, I saved myself the trouble of adjusting twice. And I still prefer Burma to Myanmar. Newspapers invariably write Beijing, but rather than (sadly, way too imperfectly) try to use the correct tones, I most often use the traditional Swedish name, Peking. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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