Ant wrote:
When I met Gerard in Rotterdam, he said "hi, I am Gerard". I answered I
did not know him... Could not recognise a name though it is a name used
in France...he had to spell it :-)
For a lot of non-Dutch speakers neither my first name nor my surname is pronouncable. Neither would they understand them when I do pronounce them myself. Surprisingly my first name is much harder than my surname. To englishman I would most times introduces myself with an anglicized version of my middle name - Henry - to evade the complexity of my first name. For an englishman to pronounce my surname, here is the guide. Look puzzled when reading, murmur two letters, embarrassingly look around for help, give up - if I see that I know an englishman sincerely tried to pronounce my surname. I do not answer questions about my first name.
As a rule of thumb, the dialect changes every 3 miles from the North-Sead to the Alps through the Netherlands and Germany. Only listening to local people in villages on such a trip you would not be able to tell the border between the Netherlands and Germany. More generally, in the USA the dialect varies enormously from state to state, and even within states. For sure a Texan could tell Jimbo is not Texan by only listening
Ad Huikeshoven
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Are you kidding? "Ad"? That has to be the easiest Dutch name in the world. "Huikeshoven" I admit I don't know how you would pronounce it, but I would go for /heIksofn/
Mark
On Apr 5, 2005 12:12 AM, Huikeshoven, A.H. AHuikeshoven@minszw.nl wrote:
Ant wrote:
When I met Gerard in Rotterdam, he said "hi, I am Gerard". I answered I
did not know him... Could not recognise a name though it is a name used
in France...he had to spell it :-)
For a lot of non-Dutch speakers neither my first name nor my surname is pronouncable. Neither would they understand them when I do pronounce them myself. Surprisingly my first name is much harder than my surname. To englishman I would most times introduces myself with an anglicized version of my middle name - Henry - to evade the complexity of my first name. For an englishman to pronounce my surname, here is the guide. Look puzzled when reading, murmur two letters, embarrassingly look around for help, give up - if I see that I know an englishman sincerely tried to pronounce my surname. I do not answer questions about my first name.
As a rule of thumb, the dialect changes every 3 miles from the North-Sead to the Alps through the Netherlands and Germany. Only listening to local people in villages on such a trip you would not be able to tell the border between the Netherlands and Germany. More generally, in the USA the dialect varies enormously from state to state, and even within states. For sure a Texan could tell Jimbo is not Texan by only listening
Ad Huikeshoven
Het ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid sluit elke aansprakelijkheid uit in verband met het niet juist, onvolledig of niet tijdig overkomen van de informatie in deze e-mail. Aan dit bericht kunnen geen rechten worden ontleend.
Dit bericht is alleen bestemd voor de geadresseerde. Indien dit bericht niet voor u bestemd is, verzoeken wij u dit onmiddellijk aan ons te melden en de inhoud van dit bericht te vernietigen. _________________________________________________________
The ministry of Social Affairs and Employment is not liable for any incorrect or incomplete transmission of the information in this e-mail or for any delay in its receipt. This message shall not constitute any obligations.
This message is intended solely for the addressee. If you have received this message in error, please inform us immediately and delete its content. _________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
Are you kidding? "Ad"? That has to be the easiest Dutch name in the world. "Huikeshoven" I admit I don't know how you would pronounce it, but I would go for /heIksofn/
He said try to pronounce it "correctly". If you pronounce it any anglophile would try to pronounce it .... it would be wrong.
Walter
Of course. But even with no training in Dutch, it's easy to guess that the proper pronunciation is somewhat like an Englishman's pronunciation of "ard".
Few languages written in the Roman alphabet use "a" for an /e/ sound or an /A/ sound.
Mark
On Apr 6, 2005 2:12 AM, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Are you kidding? "Ad"? That has to be the easiest Dutch name in the world. "Huikeshoven" I admit I don't know how you would pronounce it, but I would go for /heIksofn/
He said try to pronounce it "correctly". If you pronounce it any anglophile would try to pronounce it .... it would be wrong.
Walter
Hoi, I am really pleased for you that you know a bit about writing down phonetic script. Most people do not. I have not the foggiest if what you write is right or wrong. What I do know is that it is acknowledged that some phonetic script is not universal as it is often biased to the English language (making it unusable for other languages). I have a sore throat otherwise I would create a soundrecording and upload it to commons for you.
The big advantage of soundfiles is that you only need ears to hear and, it can be repeated as often as you like. This is the reason why I really want soundfiles so that people can find out how a name is pronounced when you read an wikipedia article like in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaap_de_Hoop_Scheffer or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush (to give you a Dutch, Italian and American example).
Even though the .ogg format is the standard filetype for use in Wikimedia, there are those people that do not apreciate the value of pronunciations and revert articles that contain a soundfile. The argument is that they do not like it or that they do not know the .ogg format. It is because of this that we need to stress the value of pronounciation. We need MORE soundfiles. We need to make soundfiles a standard part of what we do in our articles.
Soundfiles with pronunciations really adds value to our content.
Thanks, GerardM
Mark Williamson wrote:
Of course. But even with no training in Dutch, it's easy to guess that the proper pronunciation is somewhat like an Englishman's pronunciation of "ard".
Few languages written in the Roman alphabet use "a" for an /e/ sound or an /A/ sound.
Mark
On Apr 6, 2005 2:12 AM, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Are you kidding? "Ad"? That has to be the easiest Dutch name in the world. "Huikeshoven" I admit I don't know how you would pronounce it, but I would go for /heIksofn/
He said try to pronounce it "correctly". If you pronounce it any anglophile would try to pronounce it .... it would be wrong.
Walter
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