I have always tried to pronounce names correctly, and I have a decent ear. However, with some languages, I apparently can’t hear some distinctions; there have been times when I was certain I was mimicking the sounds correctly, but the person repeatedly corrected me. It’s not (necessarily) that I can’t make the sounds, it’s that I can’t hear the difference between what’s right and what I’m saying. Chinese is one of those; I can’t get the romanized X and Z right.
Like a Japanese person trying to differentiate between l and r.
The X in romanized Chinese is particularly bad, because depending on what part of China, HK, or Taiwain (or other Chinese-speaking country) the person is from, they would pronounce it quite differently. Enough that if you learned from one, the others would try to correct your pronunciation, assuming that you learned it wrong.
Not hearing the difference is absolutely a thing. I took a university class on the nature of language and I still have clear memories of some of the example videos we watched when we studied the phenomenon. It’s a very “how is this possible” kind of feeling.
Iirc it just depends on the language(s) you spoke while developing. You could probably hear the difference when you were very little.
"I sing, i sang i sung. You win, you’ve won.
Sung won.
SANGJWINN?" -proZD
quote context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1RKkRCiU90
“… Do you have an English name?”
Also, Bridge 4
Bridge 4!
Also, I know you’re quoting the video, but I do not and it has resulted in many similar situations.
I always appreciate when people try, even if they suck. All you can ask of someone is that they try, it’s a good philosophy for life as well. Otherwise you’ll just be angry all the time.
Yeah but that would make for an even shittier comic.
I’d’ve pronounced it “Yu-shu-wann” first-try, probably.
*"Hi. Sorry if I get your name wrong, but… is it ‘Yuxuan’?"
after a lifetime of “fatty patty boom bah laddy” taken in good humor i’m not feeling the rage here
Ok, but x sounding like sh is not ok. We need to normalize spelling stuff like it’s pronounced. Otherwise every language is going to become like the English.
I disagree. X is a useless letter in English; it’s always copying other letters or combinations of letters. Meanwhile, there’s a special rule where putting an ‘s’ and an ‘h’ together makes a different sound. Why not have a single letter for that?
Because a diphthong is fine. Taking a already used character and assigning a new sound to it is going to make things hard.
Also I need you to argue not just from the English point of view, but all Latin alphabet using languages, in particular those with strict rules of pronunciation like German.
I think you really miss the point. It’s as if your suggestion that romanization methods have imperfections dismisses the actual reasons why people will refuse to make the effort to learn how to pronounce a name from a language other than their own, which go far beyond whether or not the spelling “makes sense”.
The comic gives a very concrete example of that. It wouldn’t matter if the letters exactly mapped to a perfect pronunciation, the mere fact it does not roll of the tongue, i.e. “sounds foreign”, coupled with the underlying xenophobia+racism combo is what’s at work there.
strict pronounciation rules german
Nah, this aint it. Finnish has strict pronounciation rules but German is pretty loose.
“Eichhörnchenschwanz” is spelt exactly like it’s pronounced. Does this help you pronounce it?
Yes, but only because I’m familiar with German. And I’d still mess it up when trying to pronounce it.
familiar with German
Exactly. Different languages have different phonology that you have to be familiar with, there is no one way to “spell it like it’s pronounced” (except IPA and even that can be tricky).
Bad take. You don’t shame people for being unable to make sounds that aren’t in their native language. If someone spoke Mandarin all their life and learned English, but had to approximate the “L” sound with “R”, you wouldn’t have this reaction claiming that allowing that approximation is turning everything into Mandarin
Skill issue, get good
Well, in IPA, the “sh” sound is spelt “ʃ”. But “x” isn’t pronounced like in English either (and it’s not like it’s that consistent in English, it like “ks” in “experience” but like “gz” in “exam”). Instead, “x” in IPA is like “j” in Spanish.
And of course the biggest source of the IPA /x/ sound in English is Scottish and Irish words that will spell it “ch”
Why is there a correct way? What’s the correct way of pronouncing j? German, English, and Spanish have three different ways to pronounce it.
pinyin (system to write Chinese in Latin letters) is way more consistent than English spelling.
If you want everything in Chinese to spelled right, then learn Kanji.
