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How to pronounce loan words

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39 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
Arnaud25
Diglot
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France
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 Message 33 of 39
06 July 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged 
As said before French people pronounce the foreigner words "à la" french: the names of the cities are sometimes adapted (I still wonder how Москва has become Moscou, Beijing Pékin, etc), the names of brand are pronounced the french way.
Here's a little video illustrating the difference of pronounciation in Germany and in France of English words and names.
Un bounetie or a bounty, that's the question :)
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Avid Learner
Diglot
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Canada
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 Message 34 of 39
07 July 2014 at 1:19am | IP Logged 
I think it used to be common to find a French version for cities a long time ago, but nowadays, I don't think it is done anymore for cities who do not have one already.

In Quebec, we use the English pronounciation for brands and loan words.
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Lugubert
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Sweden
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 Message 35 of 39
07 July 2014 at 10:20am | IP Logged 
Avid Learner wrote:
I think it used to be common to find a French version for cities a long time ago, but nowadays, I don't think it is done anymore for cities who do not have one already.


I have experienced the opposite: very many years ago, the first few times I heard a reference to the French town [ni:s], I was confused. Never heard of it, so I asked Mother. She told me that Nice was what I knew as Nizza [nit:sa].
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dampingwire
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United Kingdom
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 Message 36 of 39
07 July 2014 at 12:07pm | IP Logged 
Lugubert wrote:
I have experienced the opposite: very many years ago, the first few
times I heard a reference to the French town [ni:s], I was confused. Never heard of it,
so I asked Mother. She told me that Nice was what I knew as Nizza [nit:sa].


Nice is Nizza in Italian too. I'm always surprised that the UK pronunciation is [ni:s]
rather than pronouncing it as "nice" ... I guess it must have been a sufficiently
popular destination (for some, at least) that the appropriate form came back with the
holidaymakers?

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vonPeterhof
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 Message 37 of 39
07 July 2014 at 8:08pm | IP Logged 
Arnaud25 wrote:
I still wonder how Москва has become Moscou, Beijing Pékin, etc
Both of these have to do partly with interference from other languages, and partly with changes in the original language. Moscou, like the English Moscow, appears to be derived from the German Moskau, since out of all the Western Europeans the Germans had the most extensive contacts with pre-Imperial Russia. A widely held theory is that Moskau itself wasn't derived directly from Москва, but from the older Russian formation Градъ Московъ (Grad Moskov, or Gradŭ Moskovŭ). Москва was originally the name of the river the city was built on, and Градъ Московъ simply means "the town of/by the Moskva (river)".

As for Beijing, the consonant represented by the letter b in pinyin isn't really voiced (the b contrasts it from its aspirated counterpart, represented by p), while the while the consonant k ended up palatalized to something resembling the English ch (or j in pinyin) during the transition from Middle Chinese to Modern Mandarin. Either the Europeans first heard the name of the city before the transition was complete, or they first heard in Southern Chinese languages where it never happened.

Edited by vonPeterhof on 08 July 2014 at 6:12am

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Serpent
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serpent-849.livejour
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 Message 38 of 39
16 July 2014 at 6:42pm | IP Logged 
In Finnish it's still Moskova ♥ It has preserved a lot of loan words unchanged, like for example the Germanic kuningas for king too (sorry offtopic).

Edited by Serpent on 16 July 2014 at 6:52pm

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Avid Learner
Diglot
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Canada
Joined 4661 days ago

100 posts - 156 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 39 of 39
20 July 2014 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
Lugubert wrote:
Avid Learner wrote:
I think it used to be common to find a French version for cities a long time ago, but nowadays, I don't think it is done anymore for cities who do not have one already.


I have experienced the opposite: very many years ago, the first few times I heard a reference to the French town [ni:s], I was confused. Never heard of it, so I asked Mother. She told me that Nice was what I knew as Nizza [nit:sa].

Nice is one of those names that have been around for a long time. What I meant is that if, for some reason, some random Italian city became famous nowadays, I am pretty sure that no French name would replace the original Italian name, unlike most historical well-known countries and cities (including Nice).


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