| Sidor om ämnet: < [1 2 3 4] | Question to English native speakers Trådens avsändare: Izabela Szczypka
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vladex wrote:
Heli Kajander wrote:
As Said Kaljanac wrote above:
But as for "written phonetically", one could argue that for English speakers, this pronunciation, 'd3', IS the phonetical pronunciation of 'j' (and similarly, for the French, '3' phonetical pronunciation of 'j')!
But every Pole, Czech, and (I suppose) German would read Said Kaljanac correctly, because in most of Central European languages correspondence between letters and sounds is similar to the original, ie. Latin (it is also due to presence of many diacritic characters in Slavic (and German) languages - thats why, when a Pole wants to write sound [3], they writes "z with a dot", not "j" nor "g").
It always sounds odd for me, when I hear eg. a name Julius Caesar - everyone in Central Europe reads it [juljus tsesar] or the like, like a person skilled in (medieval) Latin does. Only English would read it [d3uljas siza(r)] (French would read it olso in odd manner).
So that's why people from Central Europe are allowed to say, that English way of reading is odd 
Yes, yes! My name is written phonetically, too!!! Tell that to people here in the States...
In English I usually explain that my first name, Daina, is pronounced "Dinah" because at least that is a well-known name. My last name is Jauntirans - "Yown-tih-rahns" is the closest I can get to explaining it, although the accent is on the first syllable, the last "a" is long, and the "r" is rolled. This causes no end of confusion. Usually I end up being "Diana Juantirans." Should have taken my husband's name - Vogel...
My daughters are Zinta and Indra - sometimes called "Zinka" and "Indira"...
And I don't know if this is the case elsewhere, but in the United States, if you have an "ethnic" name, everyone always asks what it means. Has anyone else noticed that? Just because your name is long it has to mean "Roaring Thunder" or "Gentle Dove" or something?!?
Daina
| | | | vladex 
Local time: 16:33
Polska
+ ...
| meaning of names | Oct 17, 2003 |
Daina Jauntirans wrote:
Yes, yes! My name is written phonetically, too!!!
I can see only one site that could confuse me - a letter "i" in "Daina". If you hadn't written "Dinah", I wouldn't have known it is [da-i-na] or [daj-na].
Should have taken my husband's name - Vogel...
Then every English-speaking one would read it "vogel" and I suppose, that it should be "fogel" - as in German (BTW, in Polish there is not a letter "v" at all - sound [v] is written "w", sound [f] - "f", sound [w] - "³" ("l with a slash", as it once was "a dark l") or, in some positions, "u"...
And I don't know if this is the case elsewhere, but in the United States, if you have an "ethnic" name, everyone always asks what it means. Has anyone else noticed that? Just because your name is long it has to mean "Roaring Thunder" or "Gentle Dove" or something?!?
Ask them, what "a John" means Maybe they will realize, that Anglo-Saxon culture is not the only one, in which the meaning of proper names was forgotten hundreds years ago...
bye
Piotrek (a Polish equivalent of Pete, but I don't think it should be translated as "a rock" due to its Latin origin [and as "piotrek/pete" is a diminutive, it should be "a little rock" actually )
| | | | Troy Fowler
USA
Local time: 07:33
Japanska till Engelska
| Go with the native name | Oct 23, 2003 |
My name is Troy. In my second language, Japanese, "Troy" means to be mentally slow and stupid. To this day my name raises eyebrows in Japan. (I also lived in Italy for awhile, where it's very close to the word for "whore"..."troya")
I decided to use my middle name for a year or so in Japan, but it just confused everyone. Now there's a group of people who still use the middle name, and another group that uses the first. I'm still trying to get people in the middle-name group to ... See more My name is Troy. In my second language, Japanese, "Troy" means to be mentally slow and stupid. To this day my name raises eyebrows in Japan. (I also lived in Italy for awhile, where it's very close to the word for "whore"..."troya")
I decided to use my middle name for a year or so in Japan, but it just confused everyone. Now there's a group of people who still use the middle name, and another group that uses the first. I'm still trying to get people in the middle-name group to convert...
Troy ▲ Collapse
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Iza Szczypka wrote:
....
But I must admit that when my daughter came to the UK for the first time, the first question she heard (preceding even the standard 'How was the journey?') was "How can you have a surname that contains just a single vowel, and at the very end at that?" The answer is simple: y is a semi-vowel in Polish.
Which reminded me of that story I read on some Russian site. A russian guy was walking around the streets in some German town, when he saw a strange word on some kind of restaurant - 8 letters, only a single vowel at the end. It took him some time to realize that this was in fact a simple 2-letter Russian word, just written according to the German rules.
The word in German - "schtschi".
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| The Ellis island phenomenon | Oct 27, 2003 |
Hi all,
great thread.
My surname's "Armstrong" - easy, huh... What with Neil and Louis as role models? Explain that to the guy who once sent me a letter here in Catalunya addressed to Mr Ashtray! (And I'm a fanatical non-smoker! .-) In Doctor's waiting rooms I cringe as I hear "Amstrung" "Arrúmstrrung" etc... That is if I recognise the attempt at all...
Back in the 1940s, my Dad's sister married into a Polish American family called Pobat. Apparetly, b... See more Hi all,
great thread.
My surname's "Armstrong" - easy, huh... What with Neil and Louis as role models? Explain that to the guy who once sent me a letter here in Catalunya addressed to Mr Ashtray! (And I'm a fanatical non-smoker! .-) In Doctor's waiting rooms I cringe as I hear "Amstrung" "Arrúmstrrung" etc... That is if I recognise the attempt at all...
Back in the 1940s, my Dad's sister married into a Polish American family called Pobat. Apparetly, back in Poland, their surname had been a lot longer, but at Ellis Island the immigration officials routinely shortened or anglicized foreign surnames into ones the locals could pronounce.
At least the guy considering this move, who inspired this thread, has a choice these days!
Cheers,
Berni ▲ Collapse
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