Do you use another name when introducing yourself to people outside your country?

[Doctor Amadeus]

No, I also don't seek friendships with people who don't speak English or aren't from English speaking countries in general.

[breadisfunny]

i call myself the one man draenei death squad. it puts fear in the hearts of draenei everywhere.

[Pannonian]

The written english version of my name is the same as my german name, but the pronunciation in english is different. When talking to people in english, i use the english version.

[Ayirasi]

No, because thankfully I wasn't given a Thai name with 15 letters, of which 90% are consonants.

[GreenJesus]

My grandfather moved to the US from Croatia when he was a teenager. He changed his name from "Ivo" to "John". Ivo is basically translated to John, but in order to fit in he decided to use the american version. I noticed my first name "Brett" is hard to pronounce for a lot of Europeans with an accent. They have to basically use all the muscles in their face to say it.

[Chinese Bootlickers]

I guess, seeing as my K-4 years at school I had to use "Tony" instead of "Anthony" if I wanted any credit on my schoolwork.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Nope.

I'm Josefin at all times. And I'll pronounce it as it is in northern Sweden in order to make it clear that it ain't Josephine.

[Theodarzna]

No, I'm pretty stubborn about my name and how its pronounced; well from English speakers. From say Spanish speakers I don't care if they say it off or give me another yet still close sounding name and they have.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

No, I cannot say that I do. If they are from this country or not.. I mean.. that makes very little impact in choices I make when it comes to doing something odd like lying about my name.

If they are having trouble saying it than maybe I will say "but you can call me..." and it is easy for them than it is. But I do not outright bullshit them on the introduction. I get it, sometimes names don't roll out to well for people that speak vastly different languages. That is cool. But I don't make that assumption immediately.

[Cinnamilk]

Not really. My name transcribes to Japanese pretty well, except that I pronounce the "-lor" in my last name rhotically as /lɚ/ and it becomes ラー, or -raa. Doesn't bug me enough to worry about though.

My name gets absolutely mangled when transcribed into Mandarin, but I haven't really begun much into the language besides feeling out the structure and sounds.

If we're speaking English though, my name is what it is. The only consonant cluster is /st/, and if you have /ɔ/,/ɪ/,/eɪ/,/ɚ/,/t/,/l/,/n/,/s/ down, you shouldn't struggle to pronounce my name.

[Puupi]

No, of course not.

As a side note, my name has double t, which is practically impossible for all foreigners to pronounce.

[Unlimited Power]

My name has a fairly easy English pronunciation, but since my parents went with the Dutch spelling and I live in Denmark, anyone reading it off a list will undoubtedly mispronounce until they're corrected.

I sometimes add a letter to it just to ease the pronunciation further if I order coffee and they ask for a name, but otherwise I give my real name.

I've heard that it's common for Asian exchange students to take on a western name of their own choosing during their stay though.

[Cinnamilk]

As a side note, my name has double t, which is practically impossible for all foreigners to pronounce.

Is a geminate stop in Finnish just held longer before its released? That wouldn't be too bad, I'd be more confused about geminate sonorants and fricatives.

[Puupi]

Is a geminate stop in Finnish just held longer before its released? That wouldn't be too bad, I'd be more confused about geminate sonorants and fricatives.

Geminate stop, geminate sonorants and fricatives are all terms I have never heard before.

[Cinnamilk]

Geminate stop, geminate sonorants and fricatives are all terms I have never heard before.

Geminates are just double sounds, but here we're talking about consonants like "tt."
Stops are sounds that block all airflow, so think (p,b,t,d,k,g).
Sonorants are all sounds that don't include stops, affricates, and fricatives. So they'd be vowels, semivowels/approximants (y,w,l), liquids (r,l), and nasals (n,m,ng).
Fricatives are sounds like (f,s,sh).

In other words, doing something like "tt" or "pp" isn't too hard for me, but I'd be lost if you asked me to do "ss" or "ll."

[Mistame]

I do that in my own country, if she's batshit. :P

@Katie N Thanks. Yes, I would have mispronounced it, even among Vietnamese in the US I'm used to hearing the old war era NOO-yen. I looked it up and find:

https://inogolo.com/pronunciation/Nguyen

I'd probably still mangle it a bit, but could probably manage close to that.

I've never understood the point of English name translators using unnecessary characters. If it's pronounced "Nwen", spell it that way. If "Shinsuke" is pronounced "Shinskay", there shouldn't be a fucking "u" in it.

[Aurgjelme]

Americans struggle with my norse name. Its hilarious to hear them try

[Katie N]

I've never understood the point of English name translators using unnecessary characters. If it's pronounced "Nwen", spell it that way. If "Shinsuke" is pronounced "Shinskay", there shouldn't be a fucking "u" in it.

Why would you change the spelling of a name? We use the latin script too.

[Cinnamilk]

I do that in my own country, if she's batshit. :P



I've never understood the point of English name translators using unnecessary characters. If it's pronounced "Nwen", spell it that way. If "Shinsuke" is pronounced "Shinskay", there shouldn't be a fucking "u" in it.

It just follows the spelling or transliteration rules already in place. Nguyen doesn't have an /n/ sound at the front, it's a /ŋ/ sound, like the ng in sing.

For Japanese, Shinsuke is しんすけ. e always has the same value in Japanese, unlike English which can have like 4 vowel sounds attached to e. In addition, the su in Shinsuke is technically there, it's just de-voiced in usual speech because it comes before a devoiced stop. But if someone said it slowly, you'd hear the vowel voiced. It'd be "shi-n-su-ke," because it's not syllable based, it's moraic and the timing of morae matters.

If you're going to complain about that, you might as well complain about Sean not being spelled Shawn, or Phoebe not being spelled Feebee. English is the last place to be complaining about spelling.

[Mistame]

It just follows the spelling or transliteration rules already in place. Nguyen doesn't have an /n/ sound at the front, it's a /ŋ/ sound, like the ng in sing.

For Japanese, Shinsuke is しんすけ. e always has the same value in Japanese, unlike English which can have like 4 vowel sounds attached to e. In addition, the su in Shinsuke is technically there, it's just de-voiced in usual speech because it comes before a devoiced stop. But if someone said it slowly, you'd hear the vowel voiced. It'd be "shi-n-su-ke," because it's not syllable based, it's moraic and the timing of morae matters.

Fair enough.

If you're going to complain about that, you might as well complain about Sean not being spelled Shawn, or Phoebe not being spelled Feebee. English is the last place to be complaining about spelling.

I wasn't complaining about how it's pronounced or written in its native language. I was merely pointing out that it's irrational to include unused characters when converting it to English. How absurd some of the English spellings for things can be is not relevant.