etcetera

pronunciation

I like to watch Spelling Bee. It's really amazing competition, both in terms of its content and action. For the uninformed Spelling Bee is the spelling competition held in US, for students. Participants are supposed to spell words by listening to their pronunciation. And the words are really difficult. They may be originated from different languages, be it German, Hawaiian, Persian or even Hindi. That's what makes it tough.

Most of the time the clue is in the pronunciation and the language of origin. For example, the winning word this year was ursprache, which whose once origin is known to be German, is easy to spell (the sentence looks bit odd, but I think it's correct. Suggestions are welcome!). The pronunciation expert pronounces words exactly, which is very important in this competition.

Pronunciation reminds me of another incident. I am a Harsha Bhogle fan, but his pronunciation of Ribery( French midfielder) was odd. He used to prolong 'be' and 'r' was normal and the commentators used a short 'be' and glottal (?) 'r'. Something like 'ribrry'. But Harsha's pronunciation of 'v' in 'van Persie' was really good, lingering somewhere between 'v' and 'f' as it should be.

It's worth listening to football commentary for authentic pronunciation. Gerry Armstrong, having played in Spain for years, pronounces Valencia, with typical Spanish lisp and is really beautiful to listen to. Even the pronunciation of Joaquim. It's really pleasure to listen to the pronunciation of 'z' in 'zaragoza' from the mouth of Jason Dasey or Collette Wong.

Pronunciation is really an art and it's hard to master!

posted by ninad @ 1:10 am