this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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I know its sounds like im an asshole but i lived 4 months there and picked itnup lol. So now i alsways say it like that even tho my spanish is pretty bad. But i like to pick up the correct, native pronounciacion of place names anyways to show a bit of respect to the people living there and i dont judge you if you dont do it.
I'm bilingual and that's dumb.
People living in a place don't care how you say the name of the place where they live when you're talking to someone else in your own language. They don't feel a sudden burst of respect from someone elsewhere in the world.
More importantly, the native names of most places use phonemes that simply don't exist in English. Turkey wants you to say "Türkiye" but not only does English not have the "ü" character, that phoneme simply doesn't exist in English. If you're trying to communicate with someone in English, you shouldn't use phonemes that don't exist in English.
Fundamentally, the purpose of saying a place's name is to communicate with someone, it's not to show respect to the people who live in the place being named. If someone is going to find it even slightly difficult to understand you because you're choosing to pronounce the name of a place in a way that's unnatural to English speakers, then you're doing a bad job of communicating.
But they are speaking the local language, so they're learning to say it the correct way. Why would they insist on saying it wrong when they are learning to say everything else correctly?
Who's speaking which local language?
What's the name of someone speaking a foreign language?
What is the colour of wind?
Im bilingual and speak 4 languages and i like it when people pronounce names correctly. Especially in hungarian which a lot of people pronounce incorrectly, it feels nice. Then again i could be alone but other peoples comment suggest otherwise. I just dont know why you reacted so offensively to my comment. Btw a language not having the correct sounds doesnt mean you dont hear/know them. Im really bad with the scratchy sounds in french, danish, arabic, etc but i still hear them so i recognise what is being said.
How do you define "correctly"? Is "Munich" a correct way to pronounce that city in Germany, or is only Munchen acceptable? Or should it be "Minga" because that's how it's said in Bavarian?
You could say the same thing in english in english because of the many dialects. I usually say place names in the local dialect except if its a language i speak and then you see how language is flexible becuase people who speak the same language as me say stuff differently.
That seems like the best way to communicate.
So, if you speak a language, you don't care what the people you're speaking to understand?
Oh, this is German, I speak German, I'll tell Dave it happened in Agram
"So, I the guy went to Agram"
"Wait, what's Agram"
"Agram, that's the German name for Zagreb, Croatia. I speak German!"
No i mean i say swedish place names with my dialect not the one where the place is. If you speak a language well enough its hard to adjust you dialect. Same with english. I have a very strange mix of american and irish english so if i say the name of a south african place it wont come out the same way a south african would. But you should know this because you also speak english and this happens when a lot of people speak the same language. Hungarians in hungary say almost everything the same but when you go to romania or slovakia for example, the pronounciation changes but my accent stays the same. Of course there is code switching but thats usually only 2 dialects.
Damn, the other commenter seems hellbent on making you sound like a snob, despite every one of your comments being chill and relatable.
Trilingual here, if it's clear that someone is trying to say it correctly (as would be said by anyone of the native language) even if they mispronounce it they get a pass.
If you come to my city and call it Saint Sebastien you are going to get very weird looks. If you call it San Sebastian or even better, Donostia, even mispronounced most local will smile because you are fucking trying.
Yes there are some phonemes that don't exist in other languages but it's clear when outsiders say them wrong while trying vs wrong and they don't bother to make a similar sound. It's about respect.
I would say Munchen since its how my German friends told me that should be said.
It's not about "getting a pass", it's about what's the best way to say it for a given audience. In most cases, that's how the language you're currently speaking says the thing. If you're a Brit, in London, talking to another Brit about Zaragoza, you shouldn't pronounce it the way Castilian Spanish speakers would say it because the person you're talking to is not likely to recognize the name when spoken like that.
Here in Switzerland we have four languages and we simply say words like they sound in the language they are from, even if most of us only speak one of the languages natively and one as a second language from school. There is no reason to make up separate pronunciations. Buillon is buillon and tiramisu is tiramisu even if I'm speaking Swiss German.
Switzerland is a tiny country, so it's no surprise that certain words are standardized.
Look ma, a cunt
My experience has been the exact opposite. When I mispronounce words I've been giggled at and/or corrected. When I pronounce it right, people either don't notice or act pleasantly surprised, I've even gotten some head nods that I assumed was acknowledgement of my trying
By whom?
What do you mean by "right"? "Barcelona" with an "s" sound is right.
Mostly Spanish speakers, not from Spain though. I wasn't specifically talking about Barcelona, that's just what the meme is about.
Language is indeed for communication, which is why both ways of saying it work...
Except one way is better, and that's the way that the person you're speaking to understands best.
If I say Barcelona with a lisp, or without, 99.9999% of people that know what Barcelona is will understand me, you're being unnecessarily pedantic. Anyone who seeks to control language should talk to a linguist. Language isn't prescriptivist as much as non linguists like to think so. It is fluid and ever changing. People will choose how they want to speak and it will either work or it won't. If people understand what someone is saying, nothing else matters as much as many like to think.
Yes, Barcelona is a place that people have heard enough of the two versions to know the "strange" version that isn't natural to their language. But, what about Zaragoza? I doubt most English speakers would understand what you meant if you dropped the Castillian version of that into a sentence when speaking English.
Of course not, that's why the names of places in English don't sound like the names used locally. If it were prescriptivist there would be no Munich, only Munchen. No Prague only Praha, no Geneva, only Genève. Only someone who doesn't understand how languages work would think that it's appropriate to say "Barcelona" with a "th" sound when speaking English.
You said "of course not" and then ended with a prescriptivist point of view, you're lost mate.
Edit: I think you need to read a bit more about the difference between prescriptivism and descriptivism and maybe read something by a linguist, or watch one of their YouTube channels. Just because you're rejecting one prescriptivist point of view, if you take up another prescriptivist point of view in counter, it's still prescriptivist. The point is, enforcing language in any direction is a pointless task, language will never do what you want it to do, all you're doing by trying, is making sure everyone is annoyed with you.
I think you need to do some more research. Nothing I said was prescriptivist.
Saying people should say things a specific way is prescriptivist. Descriptivist is, language gets defined by its users rather than rules. As soon as you set a rule, you're a prescriptivist.
Yes, and saying people should say things so that other people understand them isn't. I'm saying people should say thing so that other people understand them.
There is a lot of people that speak english as a second or third language often they just don't know correct english toponims or idioms, sometimes it's just happens. English for a lot of people isn't objective by itself just a means to an end.
Sure, but as a general rule, if you're trying to decide how to say the name of a place, you should say it as it is said in your language/dialect if you're speaking your language/dialect, and especially if you're speaking your language/dialect with another person who speaks the same language/dialect.
Good luck dealing with all the idiots disagreeing with you. I'm not sure whether they think they look smart by using the "correct" pronunciation; but one learns quickly to anglicise words when talking to anglos.