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How would you pronounce these foreign names?

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demicjusz  #52694  Fri, 29 Oct 04 04:29 PM
When you come across foreign names, do you know immediately how to pronounce them?
For example:
1. Nicolae
2. Tache
3. Fortaleza
4. Kien Giang
5. Gerti
6. Niedersachsenaged
7. Krister Nylander
8. Bollstabruk

And what about the stress?

Regards,
D.
  
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This is not an anonymous account. Demicjusz /da-'meets-yoosh/
Mister Micawber  #52920  Sun, 31 Oct 04 12:10 PM

Nope, I just take a stab at it, Demi ( / 'de mi / ):

1. Nicolae / 'nik ? lei /
2. Tache / 'ta chei /
3. Fortaleza / four t? 'lei z? /
4. Kien Giang / ki 'en gi 'æng /
5. Gerti / 'geir ti /
6. Niedersachsenaged / 'ni: d?r zaks ? 'na: ged /
7. Krister Nylander / 'kris t?r 'nai læn d?r /
8. Bollstabruk / 'bol st? brük /

How did I do?

  
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demicjusz  #52966  Sun, 31 Oct 04 09:08 PM
Thanks for having a go, Mr M.
Well, I'm afraid I have no idea how well you did Huh? [:^)]
I'm not surprised about 'lei' in 3 (I see a parallel with 'Venezuela'), but as for 5, I expected 'ge:'.
In 4, why 'g' rather than sound heard in 'gem'? Any analogies?
And in 8, the last vowel is not from the English vowel system. Does it imply that when you see a foreign name you try to guess the original pronunciation rather than read it in accordance with the English pronunciation system?
Does this phenomenon occur with the word 'genre'?

Best regards,
Demicjusz /de 'mi:ts yoush/
(At first, my nick was demi1, I used it on Polish forums, then on English ones, but I soon realised people understood it as a female name, so I added '-cjusz', which, at least in Polish, immediately shows masculinity; then I found I was addressed as 'Demi' again... Embarrassed [:$]
but I don't mind Party!!! [<:o)]

P.S. Looking forward to other interpretations of the eight examples.
  
nona the brit  #52968  Sun, 31 Oct 04 09:20 PM
Well, here are my guesses for what it's worth!

1)Nicolae - nick-o- lie
2. Tache - Tasher
3. Fortaleza - Fort-a-leeza
4. Kien Giang - Kyen- Gyang
5. Gerti - sounds like Dirty but with a hard G at the front.
6. Niedersachsenaged - Needer-sacks- en - ged
7. Krister Nylander - Kri - ster-Nigh- lander
8. Bollstabruk - Bol -ster - brook
  
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Mister Micawber  #52977  Sun, 31 Oct 04 10:36 PM

Hi Demicjusz (whom I call 'Demi' not because I thought you were female, but because the combination of vowels in your suffix are difficult to remember and copy down),

No excuses, no analogies-- I just incorporate what sounds I seem to remember about some foreign languages of which these might be examples, and plunge in. 'Genre' is English, retaining (to a varying degree) its French pronunciation, so that is general knowledge. I have no precedents to rely on for my Chinese pronunciation; I have a little for my Germanic, hence the 'ü' in '-bruk'. I use that knowledge if I have it.

Also, I don't have a full set of IPA symbols, which I would dearly love to find somewhere. Any sources?

  
ehzhou  #54047  Sun, 07 Nov 04 03:57 PM
How to pronounce 'Chantal'? tks!
  
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Anonymous  #336393  Tue, 06 Mar 07 07:31 PM
I need to know how to say this!!

Liubow  Novitskaja
  
Anonymous  #336434  Tue, 06 Mar 07 10:19 PM

How would you pronounce the last name of Nzoiwu?

  
Anonymous  #338368  Mon, 12 Mar 07 01:14 PM
Hi
I know Kiên Giang. It's a province in my country, Việt Nam.
For other names, I can pronounce some.
But I think it's necessary to realize what languages these words belong to and to learn some pronounciation features of these languages. As a result, you can take it easy to pronounce these words. However, hardly anyone knows how to say them out loud correctly at the first glance.
My native language is Vietnamese, so Kiên Giang is extremely easy for me to pronounce. One thing I would like to let you know: Vietnamese has no word stress because it's monosyllabic and of course, it's different from other multisyllabic languages.
I'll give you some other Vietnamese proper words (personal names, place names):
Nguyễn Thế Hoàng Linh
Tạ Thị Phương Nam
Vũng Tàu
Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh
Hope you'll find it interesting to learn and discover my language and others as well.
Bye
Minh Nguyet (my name, in English it means bright moon)

  
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