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Willing to volunteer time as a moderator? We'd love to hear from you!
Thanks for the link and the idea - as an accent and pronunciation junkie, it's both informative and a lot of fun.
Someone needs to add Gorazd Stangelj. And, the Basques need to step up and pronounce the names of a few of their riders for us.
I can definitely see a drinking game evolving out of this!
Someone needs to add Gorazd Stangelj. And, the Basques need to step up and pronounce the names of a few of their riders for us.
I can definitely see a drinking game evolving out of this!
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Dekker_Tifosi said:What's the hard part? It's one of the easiest Dutch names
Try Steven Kruijswijck
Nah Steven is easy... but Jhonny... the problem is his lastname... in Spanish is something like "juherrland"... so the double sound of the spanish "J" and making emphazis in the "R" makes it difficult... in spanish the sound of the "R" as has been pronounced there you find it almost always in the beginning of the word... but after practice it I mastered =D now I dont make a pause to pronounce it
Sorry I'm not a phonetic master so I know that my explanation sux
- Mar 13, 2009
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Well don't worry. I'll never grasp how to pronounce polish names for instances (or any eastern european name)
and don't get me started on the french
and don't get me started on the french
- Mar 18, 2009
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Hmmm, that's a fair bit different to the way that I pronounce it, but I'm probably still butchering it though.Libertine Seguros said:
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- Feb 20, 2010
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P = [p]
RZ in Polish = [ʒ] (think the s in pleasure, or the g in Liège)
Ł = [w]
N before I = [ɲ] (think Spanish ñ, or the n in onion)
M before I = [mʲ] (think m but with a short 'yuh' after it)
C in Polish = [ts]
In much Polish (not all), the voicing or devoicing of sounds is affected by those around it; so because [p] is devoiced (no vibration of the vocal cords, as opposed to , which is created the same way but with voice) the [ʒ] often devoices to [ʃ] (sh). Hence "pshe". Similarly, in word-final position voiced consonants are often devoiced, here the [v] (w is pronounced as v in Polish, like in German) becoming [f] - this is most common in those areas on the German border - it's a trait common to German and Polish.
RZ in Polish = [ʒ] (think the s in pleasure, or the g in Liège)
Ł = [w]
N before I = [ɲ] (think Spanish ñ, or the n in onion)
M before I = [mʲ] (think m but with a short 'yuh' after it)
C in Polish = [ts]
In much Polish (not all), the voicing or devoicing of sounds is affected by those around it; so because [p] is devoiced (no vibration of the vocal cords, as opposed to , which is created the same way but with voice) the [ʒ] often devoices to [ʃ] (sh). Hence "pshe". Similarly, in word-final position voiced consonants are often devoiced, here the [v] (w is pronounced as v in Polish, like in German) becoming [f] - this is most common in those areas on the German border - it's a trait common to German and Polish.
- Jun 14, 2010
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Libertine Seguros said:
I would rather people just call him NImek or something, than try to pronounce it the way you have laid out.
You are mostly right of course but Polish requires a lot of tongue work that takes years to perfect and that non slavs are unlikely to ever grasp. Hell i have heard lots of people who began learning Polish in their 20's or 30's whose grammar is good, but it takes a lot of work to actually be able to understand what they are saying.
Some people even require operations on their tongues to be able to speak proper Polish.
The "s" or "sh" like sound after the p involves curling the tongue up into a "c" shape and having the bottom touch the roof of the mouth. The sound produced kind of resembles the sound of a waterfall.
The cz sound like in Rutkiewicz requires a similar commitment from the tongue but the c sound this time.
And the rz sound involves yet again the "c" shape only a z sound.
I hope the commentators just call him Nimek.
Call Sil-ves-ter- "Shmid" call Marek "Rut kiawik" Call " Yaroswaw -"Marik" and so on.
It would sound a lot better than attempts by even the most skilled linguist to produce sounds that their tongues just arent used to.
Its nice to hear different variations of the names once in a while.
- Nov 2, 2009
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hrotha said:
Excellent response, much better than the one I was working on.
ETA: Polish must be a very special language. You're not allowed to practise it until you're already proficient.
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The Hitch said:
I know (or rather, am aware of - cannot tell the difference in speech because my Polish never progressed beyond basic) the differences (sz, cz, rz, ż being retroflex while ś, ć, ź are palatal) but:
1) as you say, it's hard to actually learn unless you've grown up with a Slavic language or at least a language which differentiates retroflex consonants (eg Arabic) - I am absolutely useless at it; I can produce the sound more or less correctly in isolation, but ask me to put it in a word or sentence and I screw it up every time
2) Linguists tend to transliterate the retroflex consonants with ʃ and ʒ like they would their non-retroflex counterparts for ease of transliteration
I know a lot of people have trouble with non-native sounds, what I put in above is a simplified version of how to best approximate the original; I felt like I'd gone too far into linguistic jargon already before putting in statements like "retroflex interdental fricative"
. When I was learning Arabic, the biggest problem I had by far was learning to produce ayin; it's a complex procedure to teach yourself new sounds like that. The other thing, of course, is that 'Szmyd' is just a rendering into Polish of the German 'Schmidt', so it's not surprising that people would automatically just read it like the German. And with most of the Poles I knew we always communicated in German, so it's very likely that what I do know is contaminated by the use of German amongst us as a lingua franca, so I've probably underestimated the level of differentiation between the sounds in spoken Polish.
There's a fine balance. If you try to speak every name as it would be in its native language you're going to wind up marblemouthed as you switch from linguistic mode to another, and confuse the audiences (especially as you come across more and more sounds that you aren't familiar with unless you're a true polyglot). On the other hand, just reading out the names any way you like is disrespectful (and also we get a lot of inconsistencies, which also creates confusion, with the same names said 5 or 10 different ways).
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Some of the belgian names are added under the language flemish on the site but should they instead be added simply under dutch? Would there be a huge diffrence in pronounciation of those names? I know this has been discussed before, that flemish is just a dialect of dutch, but the site seems to make a distinction between them at least.
- Dec 7, 2010
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LOL! I felt like I was being seduced by the Fabian Cancellara one (candle light, a glass of wine, fireplace in the background).
Anyway...
I've long felt it would be a nice idea if Versus (and other networks if it's appropriate) had a segment during the TdF where all the riders could simply introduce themselves, including name, nationality and team. They could feature a few riders at a time, just as the broadcast returns from a commercial break. They'd only have to do ten a day to get everyone in. They could even have the teams do the work and submit the short clips themselves. What team wouldn't want that?
It would serve multiple purposes:
It would definitively set the record straight as to how the riders names are actually pronounced (including any personal preferences).
It would be a great way to introduce the entire peloton to the viewers.
It would be great for the sponsors as they would all get equal exposure.
It would be great for the lesser known riders, and for their family, friends and fans.
Win, win, win, win!
Why not, after all?
I've been thinking about starting on thread on this very topic. Perhaps now is the time...
Anyway...
I've long felt it would be a nice idea if Versus (and other networks if it's appropriate) had a segment during the TdF where all the riders could simply introduce themselves, including name, nationality and team. They could feature a few riders at a time, just as the broadcast returns from a commercial break. They'd only have to do ten a day to get everyone in. They could even have the teams do the work and submit the short clips themselves. What team wouldn't want that?
It would serve multiple purposes:
It would definitively set the record straight as to how the riders names are actually pronounced (including any personal preferences).
It would be a great way to introduce the entire peloton to the viewers.
It would be great for the sponsors as they would all get equal exposure.
It would be great for the lesser known riders, and for their family, friends and fans.
Win, win, win, win!
Why not, after all?
ingsve said:
I've been thinking about starting on thread on this very topic. Perhaps now is the time...
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skidmark said:
It's already on the site but it just hard to find since it's written in cyrillic. http://www.forvo.com/word/сергій_гончар/ Serhiy Honchar seems to be how it's actually pronounced in Ukrainian. The hard Gs would be if the same name was pronounced in russian.
- Apr 26, 2010
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Speaking of.
Due to official soft belorussian names in latin transcription are read extremely weird
Kanstantin "Siutsou" (sounds more like chinese name)
which actually has to sound like "Sivtsov'.
The same with "Samoilau", who is actually Samoilov.
Due to official soft belorussian names in latin transcription are read extremely weird
Kanstantin "Siutsou" (sounds more like chinese name
)which actually has to sound like "Sivtsov'.
The same with "Samoilau", who is actually Samoilov.
Granville57 said:
They used to do almost exactly this on the Tour highlights on British TV, although it was only one rider each end of the advertising break. They did tend to make it relevant to the day's racing too (e.g. they would often feature riders who were in the break of the day).
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