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Why would you even care how they pronounce your name, unless it's an English name? If they mispronounce Jones then sure that would be a red flag for many reason
by Grustaf 8y ago
Why would you even care how they pronounce your name, unless it's an English name? If they mispronounce Jones then sure that would be a red flag for many reasons, but if it's Nguyen? Can anyone outside Vietnam actually pronounce Nguyen? It's virtually impossible to do without practice if your native language is English. Or take Chinese "Qi" or "Xi", or basically any Polish sound. If your language doesn't have nasal vowels or soft sibilants you simply won't be able to pronounce them.
- thosakwe 8y agoNames are important. It’s certainly understandable if someone makes a mistake the first time, though.
- koonsolo 8y agoBut some names are indeed impossible to pronounce for none-native speakers. In Flemish we have the name Geert, and I never heard any none-native speaker been able to properly say it. That 'G' sound that we make is not used anywhere else that I know of.
- droithomme 8y agoHere's a list of languages that supposedly also use the voiced velar fricative ɣ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricative
- Grustaf 8y agoOk so practically speaking, if your name is Przybyszewski and you move to a country like China with a very simple phonetic structure, how could they pronounce your name? Before you answer, keep in mind that even smart dedicated Chinese people that study English for years have a hard time pronouncing a lot of words, the sound systems are simply too different.