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!

John is actually closer to João than Jow. To say João without making the ão sound it would be best to go for Shwong with an almost silent g, almost like the end of of wrong. Same for São Paulo, say Song Paulo to get closer than the lovely Sow you here in the UK, or just really piss them off and call it San Pablo

Sorry if I annoyed you with my comment about the "foreign equivalent", I should have been a bit clearer. My name exists with exactly the same spelling as in English in my country of residence, but although the spelling is the same, the pronunciation is very different. I expect people to make a stab at pronouncing it the British way, rather than use a foreign name that happens to have the same spelling. I guess you could say that that's just a question of accent, given that the two names are spelt the same. It's quite a different situation than Joao/John.

I understand OP. And Yanbu. I can't do lots of accents properly but would say 'Hay-sus', 'Horhay' etc. but in an Irish accent.

I think I understand, and YANBU. When I lived in Russia people had huge problems with my name because it starts with an H (which doesn't exist in Russian). There is a Russian equivalent to my name, but it sounds quite different.

Some people had a go at pronouncing my name, some people went with the Russian equivalent. I wouldn't have dreamt of making anyone say "H" over and over till they got it right. Obviously I did say my own name correctly and in an English accent, because I'd have sounded a bit silly otherwise. But as long as people were trying, I didn't much care what they said. I was never going to teach the whole country to say "H" properly.

I live in Italy and my name has a "th" sound in it. A lot of Italians can't pronounce it but as long as they try I don't mind. I hate it when people just call me the Italian version of the name without even asking.

I know exactly what you mean OP. There is a difference between saying the name with the right equivalent letter sounds but in an English accent, and saying it with an actual attempt at e.g. a Portuguese accent.

For example, you could pronounce a foreign place name Paris as "Paree" with an English accent (if you wanted to), or attempt to make it sound like it does when a French person does it.

We use foreign words all the time, particularly in the case of food. Most English people would say 'ciabatta' or 'chorizo' without a hint of an attempt at a foreign accent, even if they were careful to pronounce the 'ci' as 'ch' etc. You tend to sound a bit up yourself if you do attempt the full accent.

But with someone's name, it's different. It's not just a loan word we have borrowed along with the food it describes. It's someone's name and identity. And as such, I'd get it as authentic as possible. But then I am a languages teacher (and may over-think these things ).

I also think there's a tendency among Brits to find it embarrassing or pretentious to actually say things in a foreign accent and to consider the sounds of foreign languages as unreasonably weird and impossible to mimic. And yet we expect foreigners to be able to speak English (which has crazy pronunciation 'rules').

Quite mixed opinions then.

I'm actually quite surprised at how many people would have a go at changing their accent. It's certainly not something I expect of others if their mother tongue isn't English. And I have a name that would be pronounced quite differently in many other accents.

But then I am a languages teacher (and may over-think these things )

Funnily enough, I was actually thinking of my language teacher in my last comment. He was a French bloke and he taught me both French and Spanish. He always pronounced the J in my name in his French accent, never the very different J sounds in English or Spanish.

My appreciation of the importance of accent has grown as I've learned foreign languages, and knowing how a foreign name is pronounced, would find it hard not to try and change the accent when pronouncing a name.

@shapely. I've got a friend who lives in France and whose name is Cathy. Cathy is also a French name, except it's pronounced "catty". Can you see why she's not keen on being called "catty'" ? and would rather people had a go at the British pronunciation ?

I'm British with non-British ILs.

My name has a sound that is difficult for people that speak their language to pronounce IYSWIM (a bit like the example allegretto gave a few posts back).

I wouldn't dream of correcting them when they say it with their accent and demand that they say it in a clear-cut "English"way

I read the thread, but I can't hear the difference OP is saying in my head, so I'm still confused. Some of us are are very slow to hear the differences OP means, I think. I can't understand the Scone-Scon controversy, either.

I can see why she'd rather kirsty. I suppose I'm trying to hash out whether it's reasonable to expect people who don't speak the language to put on an accent and to get annoyed with them when they don't. I've never expected anyone to change to an English accent to say my name, regardless of what country I'm in or how odd my name sounds to me when said in their own accent.

I understand what you mean, its the equivilant of people saying Rhiannon as ree-an-un, when in wales /Rh/ is not the same as /R/ and its so its almost as if the h comes first Hre-AN-non. Or if you are called Llewelyn, most people outside of wales would say 'luh-wel-yn', not llew-el-in'.

Joao is a knob. he has a cool name though. lol

I personally don't know how Joao is pronounced properly, but the closest analogy I know of would be between John (in English) and Jean (in French). I can a French person being annoyed by "John" rather than "Jean". Is it that close?

That said, it's never good to correct people and get too annoyed by it to someone.

The thing is for me saying for example "catty" rather than "cathy" is more than just accent. You've substituted one consonant for another, even if the two names happen to be written the same in their respective languages, and whilst the "th" sound is hard for French people to say, they can (and generally do) get a lot closer to it than the "t" in catty.

I don't really have arguments about it though because everyone I know does make an effort with my name. And like I say, all I'm asking for is a minimal acknowledgement that my name is actually British, not perfect pronunciation.

An ex manager of mine was British-born Asian. She was very middle class, and had what my Mum would have called a ''BBC accent.''

When reading referrals to our team (I work in mental health) if she came across anyone with an Asian name, she would revert to an Asian accent to say the name. In fact any names that weren't British!

Written down, it sounds like she was taking the proverbial, and possibly racist. She wasn't at all. She was very very nice really. It was just an endearing habit of hers.

It is an accent thing though. She's asking people whose language doesn't have our 'th' sound to produce it when saying her name. Their language doesn't have the sound, therefore their accent doesn't.

GreatFuckability that's a great example. I wonder if it's reasonable for someone with a common British name to insist that it's said in a Welsh accent because they themselves are from Wales.

(And yes, he was a right knob )

I'm banging on a bit here, but I'm a bit of a new convert to the importance of accents. For a long time, I kind of implicitly assumed that the only people that didn't have accents were people who spoke standard RP English, as if RP english is a kind of neutral benchmark. Of course French and German and American and Scots have accents. Obviously that's nonsense, but it struck home the point that I do have an accent, an it's why it's important when pronouncing names (or speaking in a foreign language).

OP, Joao sounds like a dick, but I think you're underplaying massively the importance of accent in spoken language.

Bang on all you like Wyclef It's helping. (Though not necessarily in the way you might have intended.)

Would you say a Welsh person's name in a Welsh accent even though it was a perfectly common British name?

Or, taking it to the extreme, would you say a Scouse person's name in a Scouse accent even if you're English anyway and it's an English name? ok, perhaps that's a bit silly

I have a colleague called Catherine, who's originally from France. I and almost everyone else at work call her Catherine, pronouncing it exactly as you'd expect in English.

However, one of our bosses insists on putting on a totally (in my opinion) OTT French accent every time he says it. Sort of like Ca-TREEEEN with a slight roll of the R every time.

I know I am probably BU because yes, that's how she herself would say it when talking to a fellow French person. But for some reason it just really grates every time I hear it! It almost sounds like he's taking the piss.

I'm actually quite surprised at how many people would have a go at changing their accent.

But you say this as though it's a major undertaking which needs serious preparation or something! It's not 'changing your accent', it's saying one word in another accent.

I have a Polish friend called Patrycja. She's lived in the UK for over a decade. She was a bit surprised at how her name was pronounced here when she first arrived, but didn't want to make a fuss, and got used to it. When I first got to know her, I asked how her name should be pronounced in Polish. When I then pronounced it that way, she looked really happy said it was so lovely to hear her name pronounced right, and that I was the only non-Polish person she knew who'd asked and who had said it properly.

So there's an example of someone who absolutely was not an arse about the pronunciation of her name, but who genuinely felt quite emotional and grateful for someone making the effort to call her by her actual name, not a foreign version of it. Doesn't seem an unreasonable thing to expect really.