GeneD
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2017
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Russian
- Home Country
- Belarus
- Current Location
- Belarus
There is one thing concerning English pronunciation I totally ignored till this very moment: pronunciation of foreign (for English speakers) names. It's always a mystery to me as to how you do it. For instance, there is a Spanish name Juan the first letter of which (according to the Spanish rules of reading) is pronounced as h. And I've heard it pronounced by an Englishman as Huan and written as Juan. After that I thought for some time that native English speakers just emulate a foreign pronunciation. At the same time it would mean that all native speakers should be polyglots which sounds impossible; moreover, there is a stereotype of the English as ultimately unwilling to learn foreign languages (I don't know to what extent it's true, though). Hence my confusion. Either you are polyglots and know how the foreign names you use are pronounced, or you have a rule of thumb on how to do this, or something else...
I realise that the field the topic might cover is extremely wide, so maybe it's not a bad idea to confine it a bit. Since the examples I gave are about the letter j, my questions will be:
How do you pronounce the German Johann? Do you use the sound ʤ as in John or is it j as in use?
Do you pronounce the Spanish Juan as Huan?
Are you all polyglots? :-D
I realise that the field the topic might cover is extremely wide, so maybe it's not a bad idea to confine it a bit. Since the examples I gave are about the letter j, my questions will be:
How do you pronounce the German Johann? Do you use the sound ʤ as in John or is it j as in use?
Do you pronounce the Spanish Juan as Huan?
Are you all polyglots? :-D