How would you pronounce Ješca?

[ChesterBelloc]

As above!

Am interested to see if anyone comes up with the pronunciation that I'm aiming for...

I'd say JHEHSKAH but would be happy to pronounce the J as Y.

I'd say Yesh-ka but I'd think it was the name of some Eastern European brand soft drink to be found in the local Polish shop. Like Sprite but perhaps orange flavour.

From the Hebrew (NB my Hebrew is very rusty and was never fluent) I would say Yishka.

I would have said Yeska but yeshka makes more sense now I’ve seen it! I think it is lovely. Yeh people might get it wrong sometimes but I have a fairly straightforward name that people get wrong all the time so 🤷‍♀️😂

"It’s a colleagues daughters name and she pronounces it more like yezhka than yeshka."

@EvilDog - that's also a very pretty pronunciation.

Thank you all for your input, it has been very helpful!

I'm VERY rusty but I think יִסְכָּה is pronounced either as yis-e-kah or is-e-kah. I'm not sure if the first letter (the one on the far right which is called Yod and has a Y sound) is silent in this case.

Sorry to not be more helpful.

I would probably go for

"Yeshka" or "Yeska"

I think it might get rather tedious trying to work out the keyboard shortcut for that accent over the s all the time and people will just type Jesca. Also I think many people (me included) don't know what that symbol is called so it'll get difficult spelling it out to describe what you mean.
I have no idea what the accent over the s does to the pronunciation either so I'd go for Jess-ka.

Imagine having to spell the name over the phone to a call centre. They're not going to understand š or s-with-an-accent or s-with-whatever-it's-called. The call centre is simply going to type Jesca or even perhaps Jessica if they don't think of asking for spelling.

I think it might get rather tedious trying to work out the keyboard shortcut for that accent over the s all the time and people will just type Jesca.

There are a million Chloës and Zoës who just do without 90% of the time. I know a François as well. Use the š for family and friends and ignore it when you call the AA.

Jess-cah

I’d have gone with Yes-ka.

The absolute English-centric ignorance on these types of names never fails to stagger me. Millions of people across the world have names which include diacritics, even in the UK. My daughter is called Hâf (Summer in welsh, pronounced Hahv) for instance. If you use an iPhone you literally hold the key down and scroll across. Only English speakers behave as if this is a weird insurmountable thing that will spoil your child’s life in some way.

Jess-ca

I would say Jess-kah.

I would recognise that it's a foreign spelling because of the accent mark over the S. Would also recognise that it's Eastern European? But would have no clue about pronunciation.

Yess-kah. I like it!

I know you can use accents on birth certificates, but you won't be able to on a passport, and you'll probably get stuck at schools and (in the future) jobs with them either not using them, or using them incorrectly. They will also be FOREVER correcting people. Why would you do that to your child?!

I never knew you couldn’t use diacritical marks on a U.K. passport. Every day’s a school day.

If you use an iPhone you literally hold the key down and scroll across

And if you don't? Anyone on a PC, like in call centres, for example. I agree that it's a piece of cake on an iPhone/iPad but I have no idea where to find them on my MacBook. It's no reason not to use them but it's ridiculous to suggest it's so easy you don't need to think about it.

I would pronounce Ješca as Yeshka

I would pronounce יִסְכָּה as Yiskah with the stress on the last syllable but it could be Yisikah.

As a PP said, the first letter can be Y or I but it is usually Y at the beginning of a word. The second letter is S not SH and the diacritic below it is usually silent but it can be I (pronounced the same way as in the name JessIca). The ah is like the a in father.

I work in a multilingual environment and speak some Hebrew (not enough to be entirely confident on the pronunciation of either of those names but confident enough to be sure that they aren't pronounced the same way! ).

If pronounce it as you've aimed, but I wouldn't expect the majority of people to (soft 'J' is so uncommon 'Jessica' so common) so would be wary of giving a child a lifetime of explanation.