Is the first name of Michael Schumacher incorrectly pronounced in Britain? - Page 2

YTG · #11 12-Nov-2005, 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdol

Some argue this, with examples of things like pig/pork, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxons did the work and the Normans ate the result. However, French borrowing make up a consderable percentage of our vocabulary, so it's hard to generalise about whether they're al good, or mostly good. With more modern loan words, French has added a lot to ood, art and diplomacy and German a lot to areas like philosophy, so it depends whether you're a foodie or a thinker.

Can you give me some examples of loan words with bad meaning? I never heard any actually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdol

Before adding 'san', they do a lot to my name:
Richard- the initial R is changed to L and a vowel is added to the end, so I am Lichardo.
Flynn- this becomes Furin, which, interestingly, means 'denial of ethics' and is their way of saying 'extra-marital sex'. Then they can shove 'san' on the end if they like. Japanese add vowel sounds to many of the words they borrow.

I think that is because the Japanese (majority of them, in Japan) don't want to (or can't easily) pronounce western names as correctly as pronounced by westerners. They have short voice per syllable and don't have junction voice (voice that bridge the ending sound of a syllable with the begining sound of the next syllable). How would you sort groups of people in that region from worst to good in pronouncing English? I would say: Korean, Japanese, Chinese, ..., Indonesian, Malaysian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casiopea

Cool! What language do you speak, YTG?

You should have known from the other thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casiopea

By the way, a CV language is one that has a maximum of one consonant and one vowel per syllable. For example, Japanese "good-bye", sa'yo'na'ra. English isn't a CV language. English can have more than one consonant per syllable. For example,

"plan" CCVC
"plant" CCVCC
"plants" CCVCCC
"spleen" CCCVC

Japanese speakers place an extra vowel, usually "u", between the Cs to ease pronunciation, like this,

"plan" => pu'ra'nu

Thanks for explaining. Mine isn't then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casiopea

In addition,
I understand what you mean, but the fact of the matter remains, we (that's you, me, and everybody else who doesn't work for BBC) don't know why the BBC pronounces "Michael" as [mai'kl]. For all we know, he told the BBC, "Whatever pronunciation you like."

I don't think he told them how to pronounce. I think they pronounce as the majority of people in Britain pronounce. And that I still don't know why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Casiopea

I whole-heartedly agree with you there, YTG, and yet, what if Michael likes to be called [mai'kl] by his friends in the UK? You see, we don't know Michael's preference, and, yes, it's about personal preference. You and I may feel that native pronunciation is paramount, but others, including Michael, might feel otherwise.

Bottom-line is, we don't know what he prefers. One way to find out is to ask him. Better yet, why not ask the BBC? You see, assuming this or that leads us nowhere. Get the facts.

All the best.

Again, I don't think it matters to the BBC what Schumacher whats. They are a news agency and they report news. They shouldn't care what Schumacher's preferences are. It shouldn't matter to them what his fans in the UK want to hear. They are a world news agency. What if people in USA want to hear different pronounciation from people in the Middle East? So they should report the fact. That is to pronounce like what people in his home country pronounce. After all German and English are still European languages with similar rules of pronounciation. Unlike Germam vs Japanese or English vs Japanese. So if the NHK wants to pronounce his name as mi-ki-lay or mi-ka-ei-lay or whatever the Japanese like then I wouldn't complain. Because the NHK isn't a world news agency.

And I am not just talking about people's names here. As I mentioned earlier, I am talking about names of people, places, cities, etc. They should try to pronounce as close to the original as possible. But from what I have seen, they always try to pronounce French as good as possible while not trying to do the same with others.

**Tdol** · #12 13-Nov-2005, 15:19

Well, within limits- should the BBC say 'Lisbon' or 'Lisboa', etc?

YTG · #13 13-Nov-2005, 19:26

I don't count that group of words where pronounciation is slightly different due to the limitation of the sound in different languages. Like Pa-ris vs Pa-ree, etc.

But if they pronounce Michael as Mai-kl then Henry should be pronounced as Hen-ree instead of Aong-ree. Because by the look at the spelling Henry should be pronounced as Hen-ree based on English pronounciation. Why can't they pronounce Michael as Mi-ka-il if they can pronounce Henry as Aong-ree? The sound Mi-ka-il isn't hard to say in English as they can say Gorbachev's name correctly.