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How to pronounce loan words | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 4979 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 9 of 39 21 June 2014 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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I thought that Alphathon was responding to Cabaire about the Harry Potter audio book?
At any rate, I'd say that normally I try to pronounce peoples' names the way they pronounce them, but historical names are a bit different. Going with your Shakespeare example, it makes sense that he would have an accepted pronunciation in Spanish that's different from English. I'd say the same about the names of fictional characters too, though. Sometimes it'll be about the same, but I definitely read the names of Characters differently when I read Harry Potter in French. Mostly just enough to not break the flow of the language. As for other loanwords, I generally tend to go with whatever language I'm speaking. If I'm speaking English I pronounce things the way most English speakers do. I'm more worried about not being understood than sounding pretentious. Of course, sometimes I don't actually know how a word is pronounced in English if I learned the word in a different language first. But I often don't know how things are pronounced in English anyways, if I learned a word from reading it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 3973 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 10 of 39 21 June 2014 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Whoever happens to be saying it. I wasn't talking about you specifically but about the pronunciation of names in general.
What I'm saying is that with names one should probably try to retain the original pronunciation as much as possible.(There is a caveat though; see below). In this case you're a native English speaker saying an English name so it isn't a problem. For this Spanish speaker substituting /s/ for /ʃ/ or /ks/ may have been the best they could do due to the lack of those sounds in Spanish, or maybe they're only familiar with the "Spanishised" version. (I don't know so can't really comment further.) I don't think the same is true of loanwords pretty much for the reasons Chung gave.
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. If it is the norm in French for names to be Francified then perhaps when speaking French one should do the same. Perhaps the same is true in Spanish with regard to Shakespeare. If so, you should probably do likewise simply to avoid confusion. By the way, in French, do they tend to change people's names as a matter of course (similar to my Alejandro → Alexander example) or is it just specific historical figures like da Vinci?
Oh yes there is, or at least there is in rhotic accents (e.g. Scottish, most American accents etc). In some accents it my actually be a different sound (e.g. /r/ or some r-coloured vowel) but the point remains.
This is more or less what I'm trying to say.
Edited by Alphathon on 21 June 2014 at 8:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 4979 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 11 of 39 21 June 2014 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Thanks for clarifying! Yeah many of the names are different in the first place in Harry
Potter, at least in French. (I think French does this a lot. In Harry Potter they even change/translate other aspects like the House names and place names. Personally I like it and find it interesting, except when I inevitably forget the English version. I've noticed and heard of similar things in other works as well.) Anyways, I guess my point in my first post was that historical names seem a lot like fictional names in that sense. People speaking different languages or even different accents of the same language, will have already adapted them to their phonology and I try to go with the way it's pronounced in whatever language I'm speaking. Although I must admit I find it easier to do with languages that are further removed from English. If I'm speaking French it's so easy to slip into my native pronunciation for that one word. In Japanese, on the other hand, not only is it easier for me to get an approximation of a Japanese pronunciation, even if it's not quite right, but for the most part I wouldn't be understood if I didn't. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4101 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 12 of 39 21 June 2014 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Wrong yet again. The symbol for rhoticized vowels is the hooked diacritic, not the reversed r that you typed, which stands for the consonant in "red." If you say "Shakespeare is dead" you'll find an intrusive /ɹ/ inbetween the first two words, but none in the name alone. The broad transcription of "Shakespeare" is [ʃeɪkspiə] for almost all varieties of English English, whether RP or Mancunian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Alphathon Groupie Scotland Joined 3973 days ago 60 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Scottish Gaelic | Message 13 of 39 21 June 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
You might want to re-read my post - I said "In some accents it my* actually be a different sound (e.g. /r/ or some r-coloured vowel)" (which I am well aware of the symbol for but which doesn't really exist in isolation, but rather as part of the vowel symbol). What I meant there was that the sound will differ between rhotic accents, not that /ɹ/ is an r-coloured vowel. I am well aware that /ɹ/ is the sound at the beginning of red. In my accent (which is rhotic), which is native Scottish English (with some northern English English influence) the r at the end of Shakespeare is pronounced /ɹ/. Also who said anything about English English - I specifically used the examples of Scottish and American English. Even if I hadn't, if memory serves the English accent in Shakespeare's time is thought to have been not dissimilar to modern West Country accents (there was a thread about it on here a few months ago - I'm sure I can dig it up if need be) and was rhotic, unlike modern RP. *my = a typo of may Besides, my point wasn't really to do with the specific phoneme but rather the fact that it is pronounced in some native accents and not in others, notably RP, but both ways are considered "correct" as they are native English accents. I was making an analogy between that phenomenon and the use of /s/ in place of /ʃ/ and /ks/. Edited by Alphathon on 21 June 2014 at 9:56pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6390 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 14 of 39 21 June 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Will I sound pretentious if I refuse to pronounce sauna with an o? I generally adjust but specifically pronouncing all vowels like in English is a pet peeve of mine, given that English speakers are perfectly capable of pronouncing ow/aw, the "a like in father" etc.
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| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4431 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 15 of 39 21 June 2014 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Shakespeare spoke in a rhotic accent. Most Americans still speak in a rhotic accent. This does not mean they rhoticize their vowels, it means they pronounce all their r's, even at the end of a word or before a consonant. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| hjordis Senior Member United States snapshotsoftheworld. Joined 4979 days ago 209 posts - 264 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 16 of 39 21 June 2014 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
other places do. At any rate, as a non-native speaker most people will either assume you picked up the American English pronunciation somewhere or that it's carrying over from your native language, if they think of it at all. (But just because someone CAN pronounce a specific sound, doesn't mean that it's natural for them to pronounce it in that specific place. Sounds are affected by the other sounds around them, after all. But like I said, for you specifically it probably doesn't matter. And speaking of pronunciation in foreign languages I can't say anything because I'm certainly not good at it myself.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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