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Something that always kind of bugs me is when I am traveling at an airport in the US, and there is an announcement like “Passengers X and Y, please come to gate
by gamegoblin 5y ago
Something that always kind of bugs me is when I am traveling at an airport in the US, and there is an announcement like “Passengers X and Y, please come to gate 7” and the announcer obviously has no idea how to pronounce non-English names. This is even in airports like LAX which see a massive number of travelers from Latin America and East Asia.
I would think that after making those sorts of announcements frequently for one’s job, one would learn just a few minor adjustments to improve accuracy.
The basic ones I can think of that would increase accuracy measurably are:
1. How to pronounce “Nguyen”
2. Spanish ‘j’ is close to English ‘h’
3. Spanish ‘h’ is silent
4. Spanish 'll' is close to English 'y'
5. Chinese ‘q’ is close to English ‘ch’
6. Chinese ‘c’ is like English ‘ts’
7. Chinese ‘x’ is close to English ‘sh’
8. Most languages do not use ‘a’ as in the American English “and”. If you have to guess, better is ‘a’ as in “father”. In general if you have to guess, the vowels of Spanish are usually going to be closer than the vowels of English for most languages.
If the airport announcers were taught these basics on day 1 it would make a tangible difference in people’s lives for so little invested effort.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> The basic ones I can think of that would increase accuracy measurably are: > 1. How to pronounce “Nguyen” You say that like there's only one way to do it.
- gamegoblin 5y agoIf you were to pick any major Vietnamese dialect and learn that pronunciation, you will be much, much closer than the oft-repeated-in-America “nuh-gooyen”. Most Americans who learn how to pronounce it “correctly” learn something like “wen”, which while not quite right, is still a huge improvement.
- Sophistifunk 5y agoI've always aimed at "ngwen" although as a native English speaker I'm still not great at starting words with "ng" despite years of trying. It's more common in Australia than most western countries as a lot of Aboriginal words use it so we have it in place names, such as "Ngunawal" an area near Canberra. On TV (since we have a few celebrities named Nguyen) they just wuss out and tend to go with "Win"
- dirkt 5y ago> I'm still not great at starting words with "ng" despite years of trying The trick that worked for me is that I know how to end on "ng", and that I can hold that sound. So I froze my mouth in that position, and used that position at the start of the word. After doing that a few times, it became easy.
- sieutsoi 5y agoI'm Vietnamese, but I never figured out a good way to teach people pronouncing "ng" until a recent vocal lesson, so I'll give it a try here. When you say "Go", you'll find the back of your tongue make a quick contact with the roof of your mouth to make the "k" consonant. If you try to gradually slow that down, keeping your tongue touching the roof for longer, and tone down the edge in "k", and you'll get "ng". And hopefully you'll be saying "Ngo" after a few tries.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoYes, "g" and "ng" both involve the back of your tongue contacting the roof of your mouth. (Technically, that area of the roof of your mouth is the "velum", and they are called "velar" consonants.) The difference is that, with "g", the flow of air is out from your mouth (and the "g" interrupts that flow, which is why a "g" sound cannot be held), whereas with "ng", the flow of air is out from your nose (which is why a "ng" sound can be held indefinitely).
- xeromal 5y agoI just say "Win" and hope for the best. lol
- refurb 5y agoIndeed. When I worked with a partner in Asia I asked how to pronounced “Ng” because I heard it said a few different ways (different from the US version of “ing”). Turns out they are all correct, just different dialects.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoIt's not even one name. Nguyễn is the very popular family name & Nguyên is a distinct given name with a distinct pronunciation.
- mc32 5y agoAnd English 'r' is not 'R' despite having the same latin alphabet letter, with rare exceptions in certain dialects. And plurals are easy, just add an 's' to most.