fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2082 ]

[ SECRET POST #2082 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2082 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Fate/Zero]

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

05. [SPOILERS for Journey Into Mystery/Everything Burns]

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06. [SPOILERS for Avengers]

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07. [SPOILERS for Sweeney Todd]

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08. [SPOILERS]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

09. [WARNING for depression/suicide]

[Wilby Wonderful (2004)]

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10. [WARNING for abuse]

[True Blood]

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11. [WARNING for rape]

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12. [WARNING for suicide/self-harm]

[Alex Gaskarth/All Time Low]

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13. [WARNING for abuse]

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14. [WARNING for abuse/bullying]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #297.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ],.
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, that's not what I mean... Hm, I really don't how to explain it any other way, actually.

Do you think that saying Paris with an s-sound is mispronouncing too?

I find it more obnoxious when people coat their accent over all foreign words. Like "I don't care if it's different, we do it this way *here* when we bastardize your words and you'll like it!"

When you have to be incorrect to fit in and the culture pressures you to lower your intelligence to fit in with everyone else because you'd be labeled pretentious if you said the word the way it's supposed to be said... yes, you have a problem.

Well then. I guess I should hope that you can perfectly pronounce smörgåsbord, otherwise I ought to be offended that you "bastardize my words".

...Except I won't be. So no, I don't think I have a problem. In fact, it's more of a problem to change your accent and pronounciation mid-sentence! That is, of course, just my opinion -- but please don't tell me that I only do it to fit in, or because I have no respect for other people's languages. Because that's just not true.

I was speaking in the general sense.

I didn't say offended, I said it's more pretentious for anyone to insist that *their* personal accent is correct when applied to every word in every language out there. People should at least admit they're using a bastardized version. Which all of us are.

English is my first language but I don't understand this notion of "it's okay because we say it this way here." If you happened to be Japanese-American and everyone pronounced your name wrong, should you not be annoyed? Since it's the American accent? It's perfectly okay, and to change their accent midsentence would be a problem?

Japanese-American here.

People mispronounced my name so much and I got so many 'hurr but that's what it SOUNDS LIKE in ENGLISH!' comments that I actually go by a Westernized version of my name now. Easier than correcting people who don't want to be corrected all the time. :|

That's exactly what I mean. galerian_ash keeps purposely(?) missing the whole point which is that people insist they're in the right when you correct them, because ~it's just their accent, okay? Deal with it!~

Ooooh! Question, okay, so I have a lot of Japanese friends, and I'm one of those that will sometimes screw up with names. How annoyed would you be if I were to try pronouncing your name correctly, but kept screwing up? I keep pronouncing my friend's name as "My-you" but I try to say it "Me-oo" like it's supposed to sound, and half of the times I screw up. I'm just curious, if a person is honestly trying to make an effort to pronounce your name, but they occasionally mess up sometimes, how annoyed would you be?

I tried to think about how annoyed I would be, but I have a fairly easy name to pronounce so I don't have an experience to reflect upon. Any insight would be appreciated =3

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-15 04:32 (UTC) - Expand

I never said that I thought it was correct -- I just find it easier (both to speak and listen to) when people stick to the tone and accent of one language.

I don't think you should be annoyed, no. I've had people pronounce my name wrong on many occassions... At first I tried to correct them, but it was obvious that they had a hard time doing so as some of the sounds just didn't mesh with their native language. So why should it matter? It's not like they're trying to be rude to me by saying it in a different way than I'm used to, so why should I be a dick in return by insisting that they stumble over my name every time they call for me?

Anyway, I gotta go offline now. Just letting you know in case you think I'm trying to ignore you or something. (That said, I don't particularly want to continue this argument. It's not gonna lead anywhere, anyway.)

I think you're largely mistaking deliberate mispronunciation borne out of laziness and mispronunciation as a result of a sound not existing in a given language.

For example, my name has a rhotic r. Many Spanish, German, and French speakers are unable to pronounce this sound because it is extremely uncommon or doesn't exist in their languages. It's not that they're trying to be dicks: it's that they either don't recognize the r in my name as a sound or are unable to reproduce it.

This thread deeply reminds me of this skit from SNL back in the late 80s.

http://www.zimbio.com/watch/f_q1DAi7iEE/Enchilada/Saturday+Night+Live

Sorry; it doesn't seem to be on YouTube and I can't find a version that will play outside of the States. :( But I share it under the assumption that at least some of the people here can probably see it.

(If you can't, basically Jimmy Smits shows up as the new guy at a law firm; everyone else in the room is Caucasian. They all discuss where to go for lunch but Jimmy is side-eyeing his new coworkers' insistence on pronouncing any non-English word with the correct accent, for example "enchilada" (hence the name of the skit).)

I kind of agree with you here. For example if I'm talking about concepts in Chinese philosophy to someone I'm not going to talk about "the yin and the yaing" just to dumb it down for them.

No, that's just the English pronunciation of 'Paris.' 'Kai-yo-to' and 'Main-ga' aren't - those are just point-blank mispronunciations.

Sorry, I don't see the difference. Saying Paris is just as much a mispronounciation as "kaiyoto" is an English pronounciation.

Again, that's only my opinion -- just as you have yours. Let's agree to disagree, yeah?

So how do you differentiate "Foreign pronunciation" from "Foreign person pronouncing a word wrong," or are you saying that a foreign-speaker can't mispronounce a word, just pronounce it their own way?

I'm guessing you've never been in a situation where you needed to talk about two or more cultures in a third language. Basically, there are two issues at play: 1) it sounds pretentious as all hell not to used an -ized pronunciation; and 2) truly switching sounds between two or more languages is difficult. If other people are not familiar with the sounds of the other languages, it can lead to not just confusion but flat out incomprehension of certain words.

Let's say you're talking about Anders Breivik and his attacks on Oslo and Utøya. Anders and Oslo are both typically pronounced in Norway with what we would write as the digraph "sh". Utøya contains sounds that don't exist in the English language. Combine that with double stress and the chances of someone who has only ever read the words of understanding the context go way down. So most people use pronunciations that aren't radically off but reflect English orthography.

Anime and manga are also at the point of becoming loanwords, which often destroys the original pronunciation of the words (how many French loanwords do you pronounce "correctly" on a regular basis?). "The English pronunciation of Paris" is an egregious mispronunciation of the French name. Berlin, Oslo, and many other capitals are similarly mispronounced. All "the English pronunciation" is is the acceptance of systematic mispronunciation.

1. There's no reason why 'Kyo-to' is unpronounceable in English. All Japanese sounds expect for the 'R' /'L' thing are perfectly pronounceable in English, and most other languages as well, actually, it has a very simple pronunciation scheme. So no, it's not that they can't pull off the actual Japanese name and had to do an English equivalent, it's that they just don't know how to say it properly. You're just as much of a dumbass saying "Kai-yo-to" as you are calling something a 'ca-me-leon' or saying that you were 'missle-d.'

2. I actually speak several languages, and no, using non-ized pronunciations doesn't make you sound pretentious, it's the best way of ensuring that people understand what you're saying. If people aren't "familiar with the sounds of other languages" then the chance that they'll understand your personally bastardized version of a word is like expecting an American with a high school Spanish education to understand Spanish spoken by someone with a heavy German accent.

Except it's almost never a "personal bastardized version" as opposed to the "really, really common bastardized version" that is so common that a lot of people don't even know it's bastardized.

Those aren't the same situations at all.

A few anime fans getting their words wrong counts as "really, really common bastardized version" now? I think not.

1. I have never heard anyone mispronounce Kyoto in AmE. Japanese is actually not a very good example of this phenomenon because almost all of its sounds exist in English, unlike those of most Germanic, Semitic, or Romance languages.

The way you pronounce Kyoto is most likely an approximate of the name that you are fooling yourself into thinking is the native pronunciation. I have nothing against approximates; indeed, I find them ideal for this situation.

As I showed in my example, the orthography of certain languages or the orthography of certain transliteration systems makes it such that you cannot use English orthography to properly pronounce words. Those who are not familiar with the sounds of the other language may become very confused or not even recognize the sounds as, well, sounds (ch in German is a good example) so it is in the best interest of all parties to use an approximate that better meshes with the language being spoken, in this case English. Your example really makes no sense as the idea is to draw language B closer to language A, not introduce a completely different language to add to the confusion.

2. You clearly have no idea what I'm talking about- which you would if you were at a fluent or near-fluent level in multiple languages- so I'll let you think what you think.

Japanese is actually not a very good example of this phenomenon because almost all of its sounds exist in English, unlike those of most Germanic, Semitic, or Romance languages.

Exactly, which is why your argument about how some words can't be pronouced correctly in English has absolutely nothing to do with anything being discussed here. So why are you bringing it up?

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-15 20:19 (UTC) - Expand

You're just as much of a dumbass saying "Kai-yo-to" as you are calling something a 'ca-me-leon' or saying that you were 'missle-d.'

English has many, many dialects. Don't fool yourself into thinking that your dialect pronounces words in the one, correct way.

(no subject)

visp - 2012-09-15 06:13 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-15 12:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

ariakas - 2012-09-15 12:37 (UTC) - Expand

no, using non-ized pronunciations doesn't make you sound pretentious, it's the best way of ensuring that people understand what you're saying

That isn't even remotely true. When speaking Japanese, I frequently Japanize my pronunciations of English words, despite being a native speaker of English, because if I don't Japanese people frequently won't understand me. They're accustomed to hearing the Japanized versions of "nuance", "mother", "Vancouver", "Washington", etc., you name it. When a native English speaker pronounces the word, particularly if they do so at a normal speed and don't enunciate, this can be very difficult to follow. E.g., "mazaa" is much more understandable to a native Japanese speaker as "mother" than the actual, proper English "muther"/"mahthah" (depending on dialect).

Similarly, pronouncing "Chernobyl" or "Prypiat" correctly - something that comes up pretty often in my fandom - around native English speakers is about the fastest way to draw a room full of blank stares. In theory there's nothing other than a rolled "r" preventing a native English speaker from saying either of those the way they're intended, yet for some reason nobody does.

Honestly, could you give me some examples of how using a "non-ized" pronunciation aided in understanding with speakers who are accustomed to an "-ized" pronunciation? Because I'm multilingual myself, and like several of the anons here, my experience has been the diametric opposite of yours. Hell, even in Japanese with English speakers who presume to know the language: try pronouncing "yaoi" correctly in a room full of fangirls, and watch the blank stares roll in (and the "no!!! it's "yowie"!!", no it's "yah-oy"!). I'm curious, and honestly kind of dubious, given how universally the opposite has been the case.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-15 19:58 (UTC) - Expand

I think "Paris" is a completely different situation, because many languages have their own words for foreign cities and countries (and rivers and mountains etc.)

True. And while I can understand, say, an English speaker looking at "Paris" being written down and pronouncing the s on the end because that's the way it would sound in English (but I suppose in any case the "correct" pronounciation for it would be the Greek, what with the city being named for the fabled hero and all lol)-- but what I have never understood, from when I was a little kid, is why we use words for countries and things that are so completely different from what the countries actually call themselves.

Like, okay, I can see getting "Japan" out of "Nippon" (barely), but how the heck did "Deuschland" end up as "Germany"?! And why doesn't everyone call it "Deuschland"? Why don't the French call it "England" too, instead of translating it into French and calling it "Angleterre"? Certainly in Canada, we don't call Nova Scotia "New Scotland" just because that's what it means in English; it's Nova Scotia, because that's the name of the place.

I'm probably the only person who thinks like this but that's always struck me as really, really weird, and a bit obnoxious (when I do stop to think about it, which I admit is rarely lol).

For historic reasons (Germany), transliterations from other languages (Japan), and that's what people called it in English when they named it in the first place (Nova Scotia).

Language is fluid. Pronunciations change and shift over time. Even if country A used language A to call country B by the name country B called itself in language B, there is no guarantee that 1000 years later, the pronunciation of the name of country B will be the same in the new versions of languages A and B.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only