Do you change your accent mid-sentence to pronounce foreign names?

[ShapelyBingoWing]

Not a current situation, but something that's played on my mind many times since knowing this person.

I used to have a colleague called Joao, a Portuguese fellow. We didn't work particularly closely together but he was known for getting very annoyed when those further down the pecking order than him didn't say his name the Portuguese way. He did seem happy for his superiors to call him "Jow".

I can't think of anyone else I've ever come across insisting that their name is pronounced their native way. In fact, nearly everyone I know whose name doesn't gel well with the English accent has always introduced themselves and then said "call me X" (X being a version of their name that an English accent can easily manage).

I don't really know what the reasonable expectation is in this situation. It must be frustrating when people always say your name wrong but equally I've seen how difficult people seem to find a mid sentence accent change...most people simply tried to avoid ever actually addressing him by name!

I know a Jorge who wont accept it being pronounced the way George is pronounced: he is Spanish and it is Hor-hay.

Its his name. His name sounds nothing like George so fair enough.

StarfishSeahorse - so you guys pronounced it "Juh-wow"? (English accent) Doesn't sound like people at my old job were far off then.

Sort of but the juh and wow blended together so there's no harsh juh.
Did the way your colleagues say it sound very different to his own pronunciation?

he is Spanish and it is Hor-hay.

What I mean though Niki is would you say "Horhay" in your own accent or would you put on a Spanish accent to say his name? I completely agree it would be rude to call him George.

Or to disregard their name entirely and rename them Dave How rude, Cao!

Our pronunciation is more like 'jshwow' it's hard to spell what I'm trying sound out

It's good manners to make your best attempt to pronounce someone's name correctly but that shouldn't be expected to be native perfect if it's a sound you're not used to making.

Speaking as someone living abroad it does really irritate me when people automatically pronounce my name in the way they'd pronounce it in their language rather than the way it should be pronounced (and not difficult to pronounce, simple one syllable British name which they turn into two syllables quite different!)

It was more like "Jow" StarfishSeahorse. I think there's a footballer with that name and commentators always pronounced it like that too, hence people really weren't sure how they should be saying it in their own accent.

I get it. When I lived in the US everyone pronounced my name with an American accent which was totally fine. But quite often when I introduced myself, people would think it was a different name altogether, which was not fine. I would not have expected anyone to attempt an English accent while saying my name, just as I did not attempt to say their names with an American accent.

some people seem almost offended that others have non English names

As though we do it to annoy

Having said that I anglicised my first name and the pronunciation of my surname. Not to make it easier on you, like, but because I don't want to hear what you will do with the actual pronunciation

I expect people to make a fair attempt at pronouncing my name correctly, and if people think they can just use the foreign equivalent I get annoyed, but I don't get annoyed if someone tries to pronounce my name right and couldn't manage.

It's the difference between reading a name as you see it written down as an English speaker does, or listening to the way a name is pronounced and copying it. DC3 has a friend who speaks French at home. They've known each other since they were two and DC3 has no problem pronouncing the family's names correctly as he never saw them written down.

I think most people aren't getting what it is I mean

I think Joao is being a knob. I have a forrin name. My grandparents would have said my name completely differently to how it's said in the UK (and how I say it ).
I know a few people from Spain/South America who have been here years and say things the English way. What makes me smile is my Spanish friend who pronounces French derived words ( like cassoulet) as if they were English words (cass-oo-lett) which makes total sense really, as she is speaking in English! She also says pie-ella (paella) when speaking in English, because that's what we say here.

It kind of depends what you mean by "in your accent". Do you mean pronouncing a foreign name as if it were the English name with the same spelling ? or trying to imitate the correct pronunciation and not quite getting there ? The second is fine, the first not so much in my view.

I would always say someone's name the way they asked me to eg the way they said it when we were introduced to each other. I can't imagine doing otherwise.

No I get what you mean. Approximating the correct pronunciation is one thing (and a good idea) but trying to exactly mimic the tomes and intonation of an unfamiliar sound is much harder to do correctly, in the middle of a sentence.
Like, some Chinese names are really tricky to say absolutely correctly without actually doing the tonal changes.

Tones

Ok, to be clearer (for people who think I'm being ignorant)...

The English equivalent of Joao is John. Nobody was calling him John.

People were calling him Jow, thinking that was how it was supposed to be said. StarfishSeahorse has now been kind enough to give the proper English pronunciation of "Jwow". This is not what this colleague expected.

He expected people to full on change to a Portuguese accent and say Joao how it would be said back home by his family.

So what I mean is the equivalent of calling someone called Jesus either "hay-sus" in our own accent or saying it with a full on Spanish tongue roll at the beginning despite the speaker being English.

I work with Spanish people and they pronounce my name the Spanish way and they have even changed the spelling to the Spanish version I don't care.
I've been called a pretentious twat for pronouncing Spanish words in the Spanish accent/correct pronunciation when speaking English.

I always try and say people's names in their own language

But I am foreign myself, and I cringe at how my name is pronounced by some people...but I accept it. Some people have an ear for language and they get foreign names right, others can't get the hang of it.

I never correct people though, I appreciate they are trying and that some people feel self conscious about saying a foreign name with a foreign "accent"

I think he is wildly optimistic that everyone is going to be able to put on a Portuguese accent to say his name right. Has he not lived abroad for long? I think this is something that most people stop stressing about after a short while. I have lived in a different country for 20 years. I answer to anything that sounds vaguely like my name. My nearest can say it "right" but even they do sound like foreigners say it... because that´s what they are. If they were to say it in my native voice, they´d have to put on a Belfast accent, which would be very weird, although comic.

And I do the full on tongue roll (actually it is a throat-sound) for Jesus....Ggggesus!

well, I am trying to get what you say, but can't get past the thought that if you are trying to say the name as correctly as possible you would also be trying to approximate the original accent as much as possible, but then I do see that at some point this might even sound ridiculous and that some leeway must be there for non-speakers of the name's language, still, I think a really good effort must be made

my exIL's couldn't pronounce my name so they used to call me just by my initial, imagine "Laura" turning into "L", it was really that bad, I found it really hurtful

I think that it's up to the person how they would like their name pronounced and people should try to use this. If you struggle with it, be an adult and explain it to them separately. Chances are if he's pulling you up about pronounciation, you're pronouncing it wrong! It's difficult to pull up your superiors about calling you a nickname.

But I would absolutely correct someone if they were pronouncing my name incorrectly.

Sorry, difficult to judge, but I think British people underplay the importance of accents. (I'm guilty of this having sort of learned two languages as an adult). At first, I couldn't get why French people couldn't understand what I was saying, thinking it was "just the accent". I struggle in french to hear the difference between Vous and vu. Japanese don't hear the difference between r and l (for example). If you were called Lucy, and your japanese colleagues were calling you Rucy, you'd might not think it was accent.

So what you hear as Jow might sound very different to your colleague.