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Presenters who mispronounce foreign names

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    #26
    Seems appropriate to remind ourselves of BBC newsreader overcompensating in the other direction and pronouncing Tannadice ‘Tannadeechay’.

    Must’ve been early in our Euro glory years because by the end surely everyone knew.

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      #27
      My granda would have an exasperated explosion at the telly on the rare occasion Kirkcaldy made the U.K. "national" news. "Do they no dae any bloody research, were in the same bloody country" as some bools in the mooth type rhymed the middle syllable with pal rather than paw.

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        #28
        Tannadeechay is brilliant, sounds like a resort.

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          #29
          Just thinking out loud about something that occurred to me reading another thread, is there a tendency at all to filter pronunciations through more than one language in the case of, say Mesut Ozil? In Germany is his name pronounced in the Turkish way, or in a slightly altered way? I know that a number of English commentators tend to start his surname with a long "o" rather than the correct way. Though, having said that, I have thankfully never heard anyone pronounce Ilkay Gundogan's name with a second hard "g".

          And of course there are questions of identity - I presume some Turkish Germans for example have taken on a more German pronunciation of their name, just as many US Americans have changed their names (or their ancestors did) to be easier for the wider culture. My ex-grandmother-in-common-law in California was from a german Jewish background, but she corrected me when i pronounced her surname (Ulrich) in the most "authentic" way that I could - she used a short u and a final "tch" sound

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            #30
            I did not know the correct pronunciation of Milngavie until I was in my early teens. To be fair, I’d never been there and had only seen it on the destination boards of corporation buses.

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              #31
              It's like Worcestershire for Jocks. Class marker

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                #32
                Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                Just thinking out loud about something that occurred to me reading another thread, is there a tendency at all to filter pronunciations through more than one language in the case of, say Mesut Ozil? In Germany is his name pronounced in the Turkish way, or in a slightly altered way?
                I've only ever heard Oezil pronounced in a phonetically German way (Ur-sill) in Germany. How would you say it in Turkish?

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                  #33
                  I think it would be more like Ur-zil

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                    #34
                    Brief reprise for the Ultonia Quiz

                    1 COMBER rhymes with

                    A Bomber
                    B Lumber
                    C Roamer
                    D Sombre

                    2 MILLISLE rhymes with

                    A Bill is ill
                    B Filly
                    C Beguile
                    D Catweazle

                    3 STRABANE rhymes with

                    A Cezanne
                    B Inane
                    C Groin
                    D Danny

                    4 The stress is DONAGHADEE falls on

                    A DON
                    B AGH
                    C A
                    D DEE

                    5 How best to pronounce Steven Davis's home village?

                    A a-hog-HILL
                    B EE-hack-all
                    C Uh-HOCK-ill
                    D there's-fuck-all-THERE

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                      #35
                      https://forvo.com/word/mesut_%C3%B6zil/#tr (Turkish)

                      https://forvo.com/word/mesut_%C3%B6zil/#de (German)

                      The l is different as well.
                      Last edited by Sporting; 22-10-2020, 10:00.

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                        #36
                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                        ON LANGUAGE; STINE OR STEEN? https://nyti.ms/29QsDxS
                        I hear the author's name, Safire, as rhyming with Shakiri, but could also imagine the some pronunciation as Sapphire.

                        Does the BBC Pronunciation department still exist? If so, how do BBC announcers still fuck up?

                        Aside: how reliable are online pronunciation tools?

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                          #37
                          Thought it was long gone, Satchmo

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                            #38
                            Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                            Aside: how reliable are online pronunciation tools?
                            Google Translate's for Welsh are a joke, I know that much.

                            As for my major bugbear, I can't believe I'm siding with Jose Mourinho with this. Portuguese does not sound like Spanish.

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                              #39
                              Originally posted by ad hoc View Post

                              See also Magdalene College, Cambridge
                              How is that pronounced?

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                                #40
                                Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                                How is that pronounced?
                                Maudlin

                                (edit, resisted the tap in that was "Came Bridge")

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                                  #41
                                  The same pronunciation as Magdalen College, Oxford.

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Felicity, I guess so View Post
                                    Seems appropriate to remind ourselves of BBC newsreader overcompensating in the other direction and pronouncing Tannadice ‘Tannadeechay’.

                                    Must’ve been early in our Euro glory years because by the end surely everyone knew.
                                    I’m sure that the reporter would have got a good clout in the lug from Jim McLean for saying that.

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                                      #43
                                      Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                                      My granda would have an exasperated explosion at the telly on the rare occasion Kirkcaldy made the U.K. "national" news. "Do they no dae any bloody research, were in the same bloody country" as some bools in the mooth type rhymed the middle syllable with pal rather than paw.
                                      Aye, they were dancing in the streets of Raith when they won the League Cup in 1994.

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                                        #44
                                        The BBC has a department you can phone up and simply ask how any word, any name in any language is pronounced. There's really no excuse.

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                                          #45
                                          Originally posted by diggedy derek View Post
                                          The BBC has a department you can phone up and simply ask how any word, any name in any language is pronounced. There's really no excuse.
                                          Unless the BBC pronunciation department pronounces the name wrongly. Which they do with The Lady I Walked To The Registry Office With, her late father and her stepmother. The first two are/were Germans living, back then, in Sweden, so, yes, all right, get it wrong. The third is Swedish, and they get it wrong (it's not "Kar-ren", it's "Korr-aen"). And even I can pronounce it correctly, although, otherwise, I can't pronounce shit.

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                                            #46
                                            My Bavarian postman once pronounced my surname so strangely that I had no idea who he was looking for.

                                            Although, to be fair to the postal service, the previous one used to crack jokes in English and would occasionally sing 'Please Mr Postman' as he passed by.
                                            Last edited by Stumpy Pepys; 23-10-2020, 19:08.

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                                              #47
                                              I'm reasonably sure this is on its way to becoming a culture war thing, where people who take the trouble to pronounce non-English words correctly are denounced as 'effete woke metropolitan liberals' or whatever. The cycling commentator Rob Hatch recently shared a communication he received chiding him for his "over enthusiastic" (i.e. usually correct) pronunciation of riders' names.

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                                                #48
                                                Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post
                                                I'm reasonably sure this is on its way to becoming a culture war thing, where people who take the trouble to pronounce non-English words correctly are denounced as 'effete woke metropolitan liberals' or whatever. The cycling commentator Rob Hatch recently shared a communication he received chiding him for his "over enthusiastic" (i.e. usually correct) pronunciation of riders' names.
                                                It’s a kind of loyalty test. If the politics reporters can’t be bothered why should the football journos.

                                                This is Britain -we don’t pronounce foreigners’ names properly.

                                                Incidentally one of the most interesting names in England is Rothschild pronounced Roth’s-child

                                                in Germany where the family originated it’s written the same Roth-Schild -literally “red shield”

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                                                  #49
                                                  Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                                  Our son's name, which is not rare, is pronounced differently in German, English and Spanish; the vowel sounds change in all three; syllable emphasis changes in Spanish. I say this merely to remind people that pronunciation isn't easy. I would also add that those of us who have learned foreign languages as adults know that for various reasons certain sounds and combinations (for example, consonant clusters for Spanish speakers or the trilled Spanish r for most native English speakers) are very difficult to master.
                                                  On the one hand, this is true.

                                                  On the other, the surname Martinez (I'm leaving it unaccented here because the board won't display the 'i' otherwise) is incredibly easy to pronounce, but football commentators – and seemingly only football commentators – in Britain always put the stress on the wrong syllable.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Every so often, someone on the BBC will have a go at 'Cymru' and almost inevitably say "Coomry". No idea why.

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