Hi: I write biographies about famous people for radio. I am constantly finding that I have to check on the pronunciation of proper names…mostly famous people who may be from anywhere in the world, sometimes places.
CAn anyone suggest a source for these pronunciations? Or some of them? Somewhere on the Web would be ideal. I am generally looking for the "American" pronunciation of foreign names…. but anything would help.
I’m not sure there is a good way of determining pronunciations, given that English has NO consistent spelling rules, and often we transcribe foreign names strangely. Also, our own names are difficult for people who don’t know English well. (They can even be difficult for native Anglophones!)
But if you give me some names, I’ll do my best to help you figure out how to say them.
Hi And thank you: They come up all the time. One at the moment is the Italian inventor Antonio Meucci. Can you help?
ANd could I be so bold to ask if there is an email I could reach you on in future if I really get stuck???
If you don’t want to post it here let me know….if you are willing at all that is…. and maybe I can just post my phone number or something…
I can help you too. Antonio Meucci would be roughly pronounced an-TO-nyo may-OO-chee (OO like in cool). You can reach me here or at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Taking a Diction course at your local university—if that is a viable option for you—would help you tremendously with this task. Most universities in the US offer this in their performing arts department at the undergraduate level. The diction class I took was two semesters long and focused on English, German, Italian, and French, and also introduced the International Phonetic Alphabet. (You can find IPA charts online with a Google search.)
I think you will find that Italian, German, Spanish and even French names will be easier to predict as regards pronunciation than most English names. The problem with English names is that people from all over the world move to English speaking territories, so determining which particular pronunciation guide you should use will be difficult.
I’m not familiar with the quirks of Dutch and Belgian pronunciations.
And I’m not even qualified to mention Chinese or Japanese…
-Tim
P.S. But feel free to e-mail me—e-mail link is under my avatar picture.
About a year ago or so my local public library got in a book called "Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names" edited by John K. Bollard. Library call # is R423.1PRO (at least for the reference section). It lists many foreign names with paralell pronunciation guides in both a dictionary-type spelling system and the International Phonetic Script. I don’t know if it is exactly what you are looking for but it is worth checking out.
[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=translate;num=1113504696;start=0#4 date=04/15/05 at 16:47:30]I’m not familiar with the quirks of Dutch and Belgian pronunciations.
I had for example problems, although quite some years ago now, with Dutch -ae-. Knowing German, I first thought is was the vowel between a and e, Swedish ä. Finally, I learned that it is just a long a(h).
And try to explain the differences between the pronunciations of Dutch w, v and f.
Or explain the differences between the northern and southern Dutch "g" to somebody who hasn’t heard a German Ach-laut.
Oh, I knew you were kidding, Spiff. (I caught the smiley… ) But nonetheless I am totally confused about the spelling and pronunciation discrepancies between German and Dutch.
I wonder if a similar thing happened in the Netherlands that happened in England, with the Great Vowel Shift...?
Maybe this might help, Tim?
Of course this is a Dutch site. Flemish speakers make a distinction between g and ch for instance (voiced vs. unvoiced). But those Dutch wussies have a general dislike for voiced consonants.
) But nonetheless I am totally confused about the spelling and pronunciation discrepancies between German and Dutch.