Already fed up with the cod french accent.....

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

'Orlonddde'??? It's 'Hollande' surely? You know. Like the country. With an 'h'. Why have all the newsreaders suddenly opted for this fake french accent? Next we know the 'presidon' will be giving a speech in 'paree'.

Most broadcasters have a style guide that means they have to pronounce non-English names as they would be in the native language. They don't always do it well, though.

It's like listening to Inspector Clouseau this morning... What I wouldn't give for someone like old Johnny Prescott to pop up on TV and wish 'Mr 'Olland' well in a good flat British accent.

How does he pronounce his own name? That's how everyone else should be doing it.

Normally pronounced Ol-ond

I noticed last week the BBC newscasters were saying FrancoiS (pronouncing the 's') because they thought they knew that you pronounce the s before a vowel. Except the H of Hollande is aspirated, just like haricot.

So now they have switched to Fran-swoh Oh-larnd.

Because it's the name of a person and as such should be pronounced as the person himself would say it. Obviously that's not entirely possible but it should be the aim.

@Hecate.... they're not consistent if that's the rule. 'Barack' Obama seems to refer to himself with very elongated vowel sounds... 'braaaaaack'..... where we turn him into army accommodation with the emphasis on the first 'a'. Vladimir Putin (also just installed) is probably 'Put-eeeen' in Russia nut never pronounced that way here.

I'm not of that view. Just finding it's grating slightly, in news reports that typically contain quite a lot of foreign names (places and people), the new french president seems to be being singled out for rather affected pronunciation.

I think it's polite rather than affected... I live in France and understand that people aren't going to be able to pronounce my name perfectly, but I do expect them to make a small effort and not just rebaptise me with the local equivalent, that gets me very cross.

But it is not pronounced like Holland the country
Mind you, I'm not in the UK, so I don't know how good is their pronounciation of it.

Sarkozy was always spoken of as Nicol-a, not Nicol-ass. Angela Merkel is Anghela not Anjela. So yes, YABU. Newsreaders generally at least attempt to pronounce foreign names in the way the person would pronounce their own name. They don't always get the pronunciation spot on, but it's just polite to at least try!

Ooo, the pronounciation of Barack Obama annoys me. It's not hard to say it properly.

I don't know why the BBC (and others) can't listen to how the person says their own name and then say it the same.

I didn't say it was the rule as in a rule established by the media that they follow.

I said that's how it should be done.

That's how it should ALWAYS be done. How someone pronounces their own name is how it should be pronounced. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to correct people. And correct them more than once. You (general you) don't get to decide how MY name is pronounced. You listen to how I pronounce it and copy that!

why wouldnt they pronounce it. I dont go to france and start anglicising all their names

Greythorne: " Except the H of Hollande is aspirated, just like haricot."

Is that right? It's a long time since I did French A-level, but I wasn't aware that the French aspirated haricot or indeed anything else. They always seem to have difficulty with "H". But am happy to be corrected.

UABVU - Sarkozy was usually pronounced SarKOzy, with no recognition that there is no accent at all - it should be pronounced nice and flat throughout.

Works the same for this chap - it's polite to pronounce how he wishes his name to be pronounced and this includes h or no h and no accent throughout.

Nah, in the Correze his haitch haint haspirated

@hackmum. Yes, it's right, but the "h aspiré" in French is not an English "h". The "h aspiré" isn't pronounced but is a barrier to the formation of a "liasion", which is when the presence of an initial vowel changes the prononciation of the preceding word in some way.

Example :

Haricot is pronounced "aricot".
Abricot is pronounced "abricot". Both words start with an "a" sound.

If I want to say "the apricot" I will not say "le abricot" but "labricot" - liasion. The initial "a" of abricot causes the preceding word to change.

However, if I want to say "the bean" I say "le haricot", not "laricot", because despite not being pronounced the initial silent h prevents the liasion.

It's kind of similar to the silent "e" in English words which despite being silent modifies the prononciation of other vowels in the word.

I think it is right to put emphasis on syllables, in the way that the native speaker would, but not so good to do the exaggerated French accent. So SarKOzy is fine, but SarKOZeeeeee, is irritating. I feel like I am in an episode of Allo Allo, every time I watch the news!

Just in case anybody is wondering, French words of Germanic origin have an "aspirated" h, while those of Latin origin don't. (I'm a bit of a language geek so I find this kind of trivia truly fascinating)

it is a very grosse fauteto say "les haricots" with an s at the end of les (lezaricots). sounds horrid, horrid, horrid. so the h of haricot is aspirated but you don't hear it until there's an s word before it and the s is notsounded

very confusing, i know