How do the English pronounce the first 'a' when saying anna?

[Fridafirefly]

Is it:

• anna as in 'at' without the 't'

Or

-Anna as in 'a'rbitrary?

Sorry not sure how else to explain my question.
Thank you.

No it would never end up sounding like anus in the uK. This wouldn't happen in the US either.

Ana never has the long A sound. It's more like Onna.

Short "A" everywhere in UK (it is my given name and I have lived all over the place).

Americans seem to pronounce it Ohnna ("oh" like the first syllable of "honour" - or maybe I should spell that "honor").

I thought the frozen princess was called honour/onnur I never considered she was called anna with a funny pronounciation! What country is that film set in?

Anna is pronounced the same in the US as in the UK (short a). It was my great-grandmother's name and now my granddaughter's.

Ana (fairly common where I live in Florida), however, is the spelling in Spanish, and is pronounced ah-na (with the broad/long a).

That's interesting, Scones... because I was thinking, for instance, of Frozen (and other films and TV series) and it seems from Jellymum's post that I'm not the only Brit to hear the US pronunciation as sounding more like "Honour" - maybe it's a north/south thing in the US.

What - you don't say 'annus' do you? - it's more like ay-nus. So not sure what you mean.

It's not a North-South thing. I have not seen the movie, but if they are pronouncing Anna as ah-na, then that is an aberration. It is not the usual US pronunciation. It's Ann with an a added (rhymes with the American pronunciation of banana.)

I think it's 'arna' in the Latin American world, spelt 'Ana'.

My name is Anna and one of the things I like about it is that no-one has ever had trouble pronouncing it (short A) anywhere I've been - and I've travelled a fair bit. It has been misheard as Hannah in this country (UK) but think that's just me mumbling

Yes, Ana is ah-na (with the ah indicating a broad/long a) I have a rhotic accent so pronounce my r's so the "arna' rendering does not work for me.

I have a work colleague Ana and another called Anna. They are pronounced differently.

Even if you were really posh it would come out Enna. I used to think there were two Princess Royals - Anne and N because my grandmother said it Princess Enne (N).

I'm not aware of any language that has the Ana and Anna. I don't consider Ana an English name even if an English person uses it.

I'm Ana, raised in Canada and now living in the UK, and English-speakers have always pronounced the first sound like at. I don't think I have ever had an English speaker read my name like the sound in honour. My family is Croatian and although the sound isn't exactly the same it's closer to the a in arbitrary. You could argue that this is the correct pronunciation of my name but it would be silly to correct everyone.

It should say both Ana and Anna, not the.

The many linguistic variations of Anna

I knew an Anna pronounced as in the film frozen. I think she was sweedish, it took us a long time before we realised her name was Anna. Although even then she said more arn ha, as opposed to dozens onna.

If you want it pronounced like it is in Frozen the correct spelling is Änna,

You will need the two dots above the A which is called an "umlaut".

The correct "spelling" for the character in Frozen is Anna, it's just pronounced different in English speaking countries. If you are pronouncing it with a Norwegian (where the film is fictionally based) accent, It would be pronounced as it is in the movie.

To spell it in a way which defines the accent used for correct pronunciation, you need to accent the A with an umlaut, that letter, if spoken phonetically makes more of an "oh" sound. Similar to how you would pronounce the A in the word father as opposed to how it is pronounced in words like And. In father, the A has a longer more ahhh sounding pronunciation. Whereas in And it's a short sharp Ah.

The issue you may have with this is that many places where you can officially register baby names do not allow accented letters as they don't actually exist in your english alphabet. Places make all manner of excuses for their reasons why not, but as some places do it, there;'s no legal reason preventing this. It's just that most places don't know how to make these Characters appear. If you really want to use an accented character in a name, you'd be best prepared for places telling you this by knowing how to do it yourself and educating people. Here's a link on how to do it.

symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/accents/codealt.html

Ana works for the pronunciation, but if you truly want Anna for the history of the name too it needs to be Änna. as Anna and Ana are different names with different histories.

Where in Germany are you from? In Dusseldorf, 'Anna' is basically pronounced the same as in the uk 'An-na'.

Switzerland use Ä too, Germany does not own the umlaut, lol.

a as in a for apple. Are you considering this name? it's beautiful.

Only if it's pronounced "aw-pple".

I think the German pronunciation is not the same as the UK one because German does not have that open/broad "a" sound - a Big Mac in Germany is a Big Mec. The name Anna is pronounced with an "a" sound which is imo closest to the sound at the beginning of the word "under" - so more like Unna than Arna. At least, that's been my experience (am in South Germany).