How to Pronounce Your Favorite Director's Name

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Tommaso
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 10:09 am

Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#351 Post by Tommaso » Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:14 pm

Well, thanks to this thread, I learned that it's not Kuro-SAA-wa or Mizo-GU-chi, but that these names should rather get the stress on the third-to-last syllable, or no stress at all (which is really difficult for anyone who has a Germanic language as his native language). But it's quite cool, because you can really impress your film-loving friends with this 'much more Japanese-sounding' intonation :wink:

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Mr Sausage
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#352 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:16 pm

I hear Goh-ay-tay all the time, and it just kills me. I also get Gowth a lot. It really depends on the context whether or not I correct the person. I heard it once at a German club meeting, and obviously I felt no qualms there. I find the most tactful way to do it is pretend like you haven't understood them for a second, then reply "ohh, Goethe" and then launch right into some comment about the person so it looks like the mispronunciation isn't important. I'm usually too lazy to do this, tho'.

The one that really got me was a group presentation on Roethke in which everyone pronounced his name "Row-EET-Kee". It was really painful because I had to keep hearing it over the course of 45 minutes, but I couldn't bring myself to interrupt a presentation to correct them since it was, you know, totally unimportant.

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matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#353 Post by matrixschmatrix » Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:20 pm

Germanic pronuciations always nail me for names that have actually been Americanized- like Schoen pronounced 'Shane', which comes up a lot. I always want to pronounce Kristin Wiig's name as though it starts with a V, too.

Mathew2468
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#354 Post by Mathew2468 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:33 pm

Bothers me when the Russian 'ë' (yo) is transliterated as 'e'. Fedor instead of Fyodor. We all say Rublev instead of Rublyov. Hate how people can't say "Dostoevsky" (however you spell it). "Doshtoyovsky", they say. I see Russian posters that don't include the accent on Rublev or Potemkin.

Goethe is hard to pronounce even when you know it. And so many Brits keep writing the phonetic pronounciation as 'GER-tuh' because they think "geuh" is how GER is pronounced. Brits don't pronounce 'er's phonetically and the ones that don't know it officially contribute to the butchery.

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Highway 61
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:40 pm

Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#355 Post by Highway 61 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:16 pm

On the subject of important German figures, I had an absolutely brilliant German philosophy professor who always pronounced Kant as "Kunt" to the discomfort of everyone in the room. No one ever asked him about it, however, as I guess we were just too embarrassed. Any takers for an explanation on this one? For my part, I went ahead and made the assumption that Königsberg must have had a different dialect which would lead to this unfortunate pronunciation.

Mathew2468
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#356 Post by Mathew2468 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 8:28 pm

Kahnt? kAHnt, like Mann? Kloser to Kunt than Kant. But I'd say Kahnt, with a big open-wide-and-say-"AHHH" sound. But faster of kourse.

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denti alligator
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#357 Post by denti alligator » Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:43 pm

Mathew's right, it is closer to "kunt" than you'd think. The "a" is not a long vowel, though it's not pronounced like an English "a." The short "ah" is pretty damn close to "uh."

Mathew2468
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#358 Post by Mathew2468 » Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:57 pm

Kaaaahhhhnt. It's got a sort of woody quality about it.

Image

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MichaelB
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#359 Post by MichaelB » Fri Sep 07, 2012 2:34 pm

I have a slightly unexpected problem in that I'm going to have to pronounce the name 'Bernard Herrmann' to a live audience in a couple of weeks.

Don't get me wrong - I know precisely how it should be pronounced. But the trouble is, 'BerNARD' just sounds wrong to my British ears, because on my side of the Atlantic we pronounce it more like 'BERnuhd' (i.e. stress firmly on the first syllable, and not a hint of a penultimate 'r').

I wouldn't be that bothered if the audience wasn't going to be largely made up of American students, but it is.

(The same talk will also invoke the names Ennio Morricone, Sergei Prokofiev and Zdeněk Liška, but I couldn't be more relaxed about those.)

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Mr Sausage
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#360 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Sep 07, 2012 4:08 pm

There shouldn't be any problem if you pronounce it as you normally do. A lot of North Americans are familiar with the British pronunciation, and those that aren't will understand immediately when they hear his last name.

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jwd5275
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#361 Post by jwd5275 » Fri Sep 07, 2012 4:41 pm

Highway 61 wrote:On the subject of important German figures, I had an absolutely brilliant German philosophy professor who always pronounced Kant as "Kunt" to the discomfort of everyone in the room. No one ever asked him about it, however, as I guess we were just too embarrassed. Any takers for an explanation on this one? For my part, I went ahead and made the assumption that Königsberg must have had a different dialect which would lead to this unfortunate pronunciation.
Odd, I had a German philosophy professor who did the exact same thing. Not sure where he orginally came from, but he taught in Bochum in West Rhine-Westphalia. It was especially entertaining considering that nearly half the class were training to be celibate Dominican friars and would jump everytime he said it.

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triodelover
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:11 pm
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#362 Post by triodelover » Fri Sep 07, 2012 4:44 pm

Michael,

I agree with Sausage. You may be surprised (and possibly and sadly not) at how many students already know the pronunciation. My introduction to the British pronunciation was Shaw and through the efforts a few conscientious English teachers learned to get it right. Of course, growing up in the American South meant that those teachers that insisted on an American pronunciation managed to drawl it out to three syllables, so you never know. I'm for anything, no matter how small, that introduces American students to the concept that there's a world out there and it doesn't look or sound anything like the US-centric version they get force fed on our television news programs.

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Lighthouse
Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 11:12 am

Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#363 Post by Lighthouse » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:09 pm

Highway 61 wrote:On the subject of important German figures, I had an absolutely brilliant German philosophy professor who always pronounced Kant as "Kunt" to the discomfort of everyone in the room. No one ever asked him about it, however, as I guess we were just too embarrassed. Any takers for an explanation on this one? For my part, I went ahead and made the assumption that Königsberg must have had a different dialect which would lead to this unfortunate pronunciation.
Kant should be spoken exactly like "cunt".

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Lighthouse
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#364 Post by Lighthouse » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:15 pm

What about Leos Carax?

It is a fantasy name. Normally I have a clear idea how to pronounce French names, but for Carax I have no idea

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knives
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#365 Post by knives » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:17 pm

I usually pronounce it kah-wracks

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denti alligator
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#366 Post by denti alligator » Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:59 pm

Lighthouse wrote:
Highway 61 wrote:On the subject of important German figures, I had an absolutely brilliant German philosophy professor who always pronounced Kant as "Kunt" to the discomfort of everyone in the room. No one ever asked him about it, however, as I guess we were just too embarrassed. Any takers for an explanation on this one? For my part, I went ahead and made the assumption that Königsberg must have had a different dialect which would lead to this unfortunate pronunciation.
Kant should be spoken exactly like "cunt".
Not true. There's a slight different in the vowel articulation. Slight, but definitely discernible.

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triodelover
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#367 Post by triodelover » Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:09 pm

denti alligator wrote:Not true. There's a slight different in the vowel articulation. Slight, but definitely discernible.
It's more an "ah" than "uh". Think Kathleen Freeman as Jean Hagen's diction coach in Singin' in the Rain (admittedly an exaggeration).

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MichaelB
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#368 Post by MichaelB » Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:17 pm

If you're ever in the unfortunate position of being called a cunt by a Londoner, a Liverpudlian and a Glaswegian in quick succession, you'll notice considerably greater differences in the vowel articulation.

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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#369 Post by manicsounds » Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:05 am

Elia Kazan?

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#370 Post by knives » Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:41 am

l-e-a Ka-zan (as in van)

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manicsounds
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#371 Post by manicsounds » Wed Nov 28, 2012 9:51 am

I just watched the special features on "12 Angry Men" and heard "Kuh-Zawn" so I wasn't sure after that, and what I'd heard before.

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swo17
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#372 Post by swo17 » Sun Dec 02, 2012 12:58 pm

At the beginning of America, America, he pronounces his own name as eh-LEE-uh kuh-ZAN.

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zedz
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#373 Post by zedz » Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:53 pm

What would he know?

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triodelover
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#374 Post by triodelover » Sun Dec 02, 2012 4:33 pm

swo17 wrote:At the beginning of America, America, he pronounces his own name as eh-LEE-uh kuh-ZAN.
Was he under oath when he did it?

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manicsounds
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Re: How to pronounce your favorite director's name

#375 Post by manicsounds » Mon Dec 03, 2012 5:05 am

Those last two posts were gold.

I just checked the opening of "America America". Got it.

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