How to pronounce Talia

[GemLooper]

Would you say Tah-lee-uh or tar-lee-uh?

Esmé is not pronounced Esmay. It's pronounced Es-mé. The mé is more a meh than May!

@TuftyMarmoset I (personally) think it sounds affected to say Esmay. It is Esmee. Or slightly shorter - I don’t really know how to write it.

@JaninaDuszejko again, I don’t think it’s fancy. I think it’s an affectation.

And it’s definitely not just the one from Frozen!

It's a longer vowel sound than meh (which to me has the short e as in bet). The IPA symbol is [e] but I don't think there are any English words that contain it to give as an example. It's definitely not an eeee sound (IPA [i]) though. IPA sounds: www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/

It's neither ee nor may.

It's Esmé.

What a helpful contribution

[quote TuftyMarmoset]@Bobsyer es-may is how it’s supposed to be pronounced, that’s not an affectation that’s why it’s sometimes written Esmé. Like how you wouldn’t pronounce Renée as renny![/quote]
Exactly.

It’s really not Es-mee. The only country where some people pronounce it like this is the UK.

Es-mee is a akin to Nestlé being pronounced Ness-lee.

I imagine the Es-mee people also pronounce café as caf-ee?? Anything else would be an ‘affectation’.

Es-mee is a akin to Nestlé being pronounced Ness-lee

Not everyone says Ness-lay ya know.

[quote TuftyMarmoset]It's a longer vowel sound than meh (which to me has the short e as in bet). The IPA symbol is [e] but I don't think there are any English words that contain it to give as an example. It's definitely not an eeee sound (IPA [i]) though. IPA sounds: www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/[/quote]
The problem with the IPA is that it's international. So both English /e/ and French "e" ( // = sounds, "" letter) are in there.

The English /e/ is the "e" in "bed" "egg" etc
The French "e" in Esmé is ever so slightly longer than the the English /e/ but not as long as:
/ei/ (diphthong) "train" "play" etc. This is how non French speaking Brits would probably pronounce that final "e" in Esmé. But it's shorter than that. Very slightly.
Acoustically, the first sound of the diphthong /e/ is identical to the /e/ on its own "bed" etc but obviously, then has to incorporate the /i/ (same one as "bit") into its delivery.

French vowels for non French speakers are difficult. French is one of the most different languages (phonetically and phonemically) to English.

TL:DR- we don't have the "e" in Esmé. We have one longer /ei/ and one shorter /e/

We also pronounce Paris as Paris and not Paree. And various other words in an Anglicised way.

But whatever. Never thought this would be my most contentious opinion!

Anna is pronounced differently in other places, eg in Poland, Russia Ukraine etc.
So it is hardly surprising that we now see their pronunciation of Anna in UK as well as the more traditional version

Anyone now singing 'Nestle's milky bar!' to themselves. Nestle rhyming with trestle obv .