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None of the drug names sounded like Tolkien characters to me. I guess native English speakers are at a disadvantage, because they are more likely to consider th
by jltsiren 3y ago
None of the drug names sounded like Tolkien characters to me. I guess native English speakers are at a disadvantage, because they are more likely to consider the names as they would be pronounced in English. The intended pronunciation is usually close to Classical Latin, which means that pronouncing the names in any other European language is likely closer to the truth. And when you pronounce the names in that language, Tolkien characters and drugs tend to sound different.
- sspiff 3y agoI'm European and I studied Latin for 6 years in high school and yet I found the test very challenging.
- dawatchusay 3y agoSo you were 100% correct on the test?
- jltsiren 3y agoI got 23/24 this time, as I guessed one Tolkien character wrong. The last time I saw this test, maybe a couple of years ago, I got 24/24.
- fikama 3y agoYou got me interested, could you say more about how are doing this? What exactly sounds different to you, and maybe what is your first language too. I am European but my first language is polish so in this context it is useless :P
- jltsiren 3y agoMy first language is Finnish, which has a very straightforward correspondence between spelling and pronunciation. I would divide the drug names into four categories based on how they sound: Obviously a substance: Amantidine, Sildenafil Generic fantasy names / pronounceable strings with no meaning: Azafen, Clédial, Cymbalta, Desyrel, Edronax, Luvox Could be Tolkienian, but it's spelled wrong: Sintamil Could be Tolkienian, but the final syllable is wrong: Elronon, Eskalith, Nardil Additionally, the two Tolkien characters I had to guess were both kings of Gondor: Minalcar and Narmacil. Their names are in Quenya, while the commonly used names for elves etc. are in Sindarin, which sounds different.
- User3456335 3y agoIt sounds like you got by more on thorough knowledge of Tolkien than your knowledge of Finnish. I'm going to guess there's more speakers of non-English languages here than of Quenya and Sindarin (which may have been pharmaceutical names for all I know).