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But I'd say the expectation that professionals who have to pronounce Chinese names pretty frequently, like those who do announcements at an airport, or newscast
by dirkt 5y ago
But I'd say the expectation that professionals who have to pronounce Chinese names pretty frequently, like those who do announcements at an airport, or newscasters, could spend the time to familiarize themselves with it IS reasonable.
- carlmr 5y agoI agree, it's crazy how often the news talk about China nowadays and almost nobody pronounces the names correctly.
- mc32 5y agoIt’s not a big deal. Watch some news in Chinese and you’ll hear similar butchering. It’s so exaggerated US cities are given totally different names in Chinese -there is little resemblance to the North American name of the city.
- carlmr 5y agoThat's true, although in Chinese these are official transliterations as Hanzi. I think if someone says Milan in English instead of Milano it's fine because the city has an English name as well.
- mc32 5y agoRight, often what they do is they try to find "close" syllables. Close is the wrong term as some are not close at all. Vancouver and Philadelphia for example. It's like taking Milano and cutting it up into Mil + Ano and saying, hmm, in English the closest syllables are approximately Mill + Anus, we'll call it Millanus, oh, but that's got a word we should avoid so let's call it MillLand. The point is, it's not wrong or bad for (any) people to get foreign words wrong when they pronounce them.