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Pronunciation of L1 words when speak L2 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 9 of 20 24 April 2015 at 6:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Going backwards, Anglophones in general (although I have never met an Anglophone who
pronounced it correctly) pronounce the very common city name "Amsterdam" with stress on the first syllable instead of the correct last syllable, Amsterdam. The aeroport Schiphol is even worse pronounced by Anglophones, but then these two are cases that I usually just use the Dutch pronunciation anyway. Same for Breda, Rotterdam, Scheveningen. "Tromsø" is a tricky one because unfortunately most people are not sure where it lies, but I have had to say "Tromsø" much more than most people do regularly because it is an important city and hub for one of my hobbies. For those who know both Russian and French probably know that Putin's name is spelled and pronounced as "Poutine" in French, which to me always sounded and looked weird, especially for those who are from Québec. But then they do not transliterate all other people's names like this. It seems to be a complete random system. In Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, German, even though they have their own city names and spelling systems, on a map "New York" usually still shows as "New York" instead of "Nieuwe Jork" or "Ny Jork". But in Spanish and Portuguese this is "Nueva York" and "Nova Iorque" respectively. But then also in Spanish, their system still uses the Norwegian letter "ø", like in this broadcast, Olimpíadas de ajedrez Tromsø 2014. Then this is a very strange case where they have the Norwegian original spelling but most pronounce it Spanish way. In the rare case that a native Hispanophone uses a semi- Norwegian pronunciation then I think that it gets a bit more complicated. Mandarin (and by extension, Cantonese, perhaps Fukien too), is probably easier, because they use usually complete transliterations with their own words (which are usually rare, obscure words in addition to common ones) as Crush once said, that many transliteration words seem to be words somehow almost completetly just tailor-made for foreign name transliterations. I once had to say "James Anderson" in Spanish and paused for about 1,5 seconds trying to do a quick think on how to pronounce this without sounding weird or pretentious, so I just did a mix "e-dzhéms e-án-der-son". But then anyone who knows football knows about the Colombian midfielder-turned-striker James Rodríguez, whose forename is pronounced completely in Spanish way despite it being an Anglophone name, i.e. "ja- mes" instead of Anglophone "dzhéms". Edited by 1e4e6 on 24 April 2015 at 6:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4774 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 10 of 20 24 April 2015 at 8:17am | IP Logged | |||||
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5061 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 11 of 20 24 April 2015 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm curious, which Mandarin contexts have you observed Mandarin speakers using Anglicized place names like "Tokyo," "Greece" or "Sierra Leone?" My experience is somewhat limited but I've never heard this except from Chinese living in the US where some code-switching into English is expected. When the place name is obscure, like a small town, often people won't know (or there may not even exist) the accepted transliteration, but in my experience Chinese people aren't any more likely to use English country names than Americans are to call Germany "Deutschland." I imagine Chinese who don't speak English would have trouble understanding you or at least see it as an obvious sign of lack of Mandarin proficiency if you kept saying "Paris，France" instead of fă guó bā lí. Edited by robarb on 24 April 2015 at 6:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3888 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 20 24 April 2015 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Robarb, in answer to your question, of the 3 place names you listed, "Sierra Leone", is the only Anglicized one I have ever heard on a Mandarin language newscast, when they were talking about the Ebola outbreak last year.
It stood out in my mind because that was probably the only time I ever heard a native speaker use an Anglicized place name on a newscast or in a conversation. As for conversing with native speakers, most of whom know very little English, I have always said "Ri-ben" instead of "Japan" or "Yue-nan" for "Vietnam", etc. because the Mandarin place names harmonize better with other Mandarin words and are the only ones used on Mainland and Taiwan TV shows. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 13 of 20 25 April 2015 at 5:33am | IP Logged | |||||
Up until 1992, watching the Olympic Games, the broadcast on TV would show the USSR athletes' names in the French transliteration. By 1996, they switched to the English one, and it has remained that way since. Of course for English speakers, it must be easier, however despite knowing English, it seems to me that I lost some details. For example, 1992 star gymnast Vitaly Scherbo's French translitaration was "Vitali Chtcherbo" and Grigory Misutin's was "Grigori Misioutine". I assume a Russian speaker will know better than I do, but the French version seems more precise to me. As for the original question, for me it depends: if the native pronounciation is close enough to the L2 one, I will pronounce it the way it is natural to me. If it is too different and I fear not being understood, I'll pronounce it just like L2 native speakers. Edited by Avid Learner on 25 April 2015 at 5:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 14 of 20 25 April 2015 at 5:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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The French would probably stress half the names wrongly because of the Russian moving
stress... that would cause a lot of problems. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 15 of 20 25 April 2015 at 9:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've always pronounced Schiphol as "Amsterdam airport."
Seriously. I have no idea how to say that word. I trip on the syncopation more than the actual pronunciation when I have to say an English word in an L2, especially with proper nouns. I've always pronounced my home state of "Michigan" in a bit of a lazy drawl on the first syllable, and light stress on the first and last syllable. That won't work in a language with regular syncopation, or that has a regular system of stress and accent. Sometimes I shift to L2-style syncopation, sometimes I say it my way. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5058 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 16 of 20 25 April 2015 at 10:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Intresting information, thanks. We can't say whether the English transliteration is close or not because English has very vague pronunciation rules and foreign words don't follow them anyway. The best French variant for Мисютин would probably be Missutine. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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