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I see this a lot in with Americans having Polish surnames (or other Slavic). People typically pronounce theirs somewhere on a spectrum between the original and
by tdeck 5y ago
I see this a lot in with Americans having Polish surnames (or other Slavic). People typically pronounce theirs somewhere on a spectrum between the original and a monolingual english-speaker's attempt to make sense of the letters, so you just have to wait for them to say it. Example: Susan Wojcicki, whose name is apparently pronounced "woh-jisky" but I think in Polish (not a speaker) would be more like "voy-chitsky". This site shows a whole variety of other American pronunciations: https://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/wojcicki https://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/wojcicki
- pchm 5y agoC in Polish is pronounced as ts/tz and 'ck' is an interesting case in Polish-American surnames: American pronunciation turns 'ck' into 'kk' and Polish speakers will often have a hard time recognizing the original spelling. Listening to audio mentioning Susan Wojcicki, I could never figure out the spelling of her name... BTW, Polish pronunciation for Wójcicki (notice the 'ó') is Vooy-chits-ki
- ithinkso 5y agoSusan Wojcicki - polish people would immediately assume it's written online and would correct the surname to Wójcicki because it makes much more sense grammatically speaking and I think that's what it was originally before being anglicized. Note that 'ó' in not a form of 'o' but of 'u' so subsequent pronunciations with 'o' sounds a bit weird for us polish speakers