How would you pronounce these foreign names?

Question

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.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

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?

Demicjusz · Answer

Thanks for having a go, Mr M.
Well, I'm afraid I have no idea how well you did [:^)]
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...

but I don't mind [

]

P.S. Looking forward to other interpretations of the eight examples.

Nona the brit · Answer

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

Mister Micawber · Answer

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 · Answer

How to pronounce 'Chantal'?  tks!

Anonymous · Answer

I need to know how to say this!!

Liubow Novitskaja

Anonymous · Answer

How would you pronounce the last name of Nzoiwu?

Anonymous · Answer

Hi
I know Kiên Giang. It's a province in my country, Vi?t 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):
Nguy?n Th? Hoàng Linh
T? Th? Phuong Nam
Vung Tàu
Thành ph? H? 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)

Anonymous · Answer

01.nick-ol02br
02br
002.ta-sh02br
02br
003.fort-leze02br
02br
004.nin-niang02br
02br
005.giti02br
02br
006.dont knw02br
02br
007.christer-yander02br
02br
008.bollstra buk02br
02br
00thank you 02br
02br
00tj0-

Colombo · Answer

0I suppose demicjusz is interested in how those words are pronounced by people who speak English, so I don't think my opinion here would be useful, since my spoken English doesn't contain many sounds apart from those that belong also to Spanish (so you can imagine my accent). With my nil knowledge of phonetic transcription, if I wanted to tell you how I'd pronounce the words in demicjusz's list (with my Spanish accent, remember), all I'd have to do is copy the list again, perhaps with a couple of changes here and there. Besides, an English-speaking person would not pronounce my transcription as I'd do, so I'm afraid it's no use my writing it. However, I'd like to make a comment about "Fortaleza", which is a Spanish word.01blockquote

01cite10Demicjusz12cite10I'm not surprised about 'lei' in 3 (I see a parallel with 'Venezuela'), 12blockquote

11blockquote

01cite10Mister Micawber12cite103. Fortaleza / four t? 'lei z? /12blockquote

10When I've read Mister Micawber's transcription I've immediately thought of an American speaking Spanish with a very heavy accent (by the way, I cannot see the parallel with "Venezuela" 05000... Perhaps it's because I don't know how that word's pronounced in English). Anyway, I'm going to try to explain how I say "Fortaleza". The fact that01del~~00as I've already said02del~~00 I speak English with Spanish sounds won't help, but I'll do my best.02br
02br
00To begin with, I think the idea of "four" for the first syllable is good. In case you're thinking of the British pronunciation of "four", the "r" does sound in "fortaleza", with what I think is a stronger sound than that of your "four" (since the tongue rolls when saying it). As for the next syllable, the transcription "t?" seems to have an "a" with an undefined unclear sound. However, that "a" should be clearly uttered (it seems to me that Nona has managed something closer to it). Forced to give an equivalence, I'd say it's the sound in "park" (but with all kind of reservations). The syllable Demicjusz finds logical, 'lei, wouldn't be pronounced like that, since Spanish is read as it's written, and so, if you see a vowel "e" you pronounce a vowel "e" (probably like in "met", not a long "ee" like Nona's), and not a diphthong. As to the last syllable, the wovel should be the same as in the second, while the "z" should be as the "th" sound in "think". Well, at least that's how I'd say it. That sound isn't used by all Spanish-speaking people. In fact, I think that most of them would use one of those /s/, /z/ or whatever you call it (I cannot really tell the difference, it's what I would simply describe as an "s", although I think theirs is softer, since all Latin Americans keep on telling us how strong our "s" is). In most of Spain we use that "th" sound, but in the south of Spain and in the rest of Spanish-speaking countries they use what I call the "s" sound (even though they're taught to pronounce the "z" with the "th" sound at school, I've been told).02br
02br
00I'm a little ashamed of this clumsy explanation, but I'm afraid I can do no better. I cannot give clear examples in English because I tend to say everything with the only five vowels I know, so I use the same sound in "can", "but" and "park", or in "sheet" and "****", or in "look" y "pool"... Have I made your hair curl? Sorry! I 01i00know02i00 they're not the same sounds, although that doesn't mean I can use them!01blockquote

01cite10Demicjusz12cite10so I added '-cjusz', which, at least in Polish, immediately shows masculinity; 12blockquote

10To me, it only shows a very high degree of Polishness 051010id311id4

How would you pronounce these foreign names?

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