Do our names sound funny to none English speaking people.I an Asian the other day the name sounded like .?

Question

Suck deep...i'm not putting anyone down it just sounded funny to me

sorry i missed a word ,it should read i heard an Asian the other day

Answer 1

I am an Asian and no not really it's just that some people can't understand English that well and it will sound like a blur to them or something unfamiliar.

Answer 2

I don't know about English names sounding funny, I suspect that because so many famous people are English speaking, most names will have lost the novelty factor and start sounding normal. I have met many people with names that at first seem really peculiar, but as you get to know them, the name becomes less strange - my husband works with a Vietnamese man called U Fuk, and has worked with a Mr Dixit (the pronounciation is dickshit) in India. Mind you, I did know an old lady in Scotland with the unfortunate name of Fanny Aitken (the "t" being silent the way she said it!)

Answer 3

It's not just non-English names. I'm English through and through and have what I consider be be a very simple surname and yet people ALWAYS get it wrong. They add a letter and mispronounce it or they decide they heard it wrong and say a more familiar name.

When I was about 20, I went into a bank and was asked my name, then asked to spell it then told it didn't exist and assuming I was newly married, advised to go home and check with my husband how his name is spelt. I held my left hand up, exposing four ring free fingers and asked to see the manager.

My brother deliberately mispronounces our name (I've heard him) so it's easier for others to understand but I refuse to.

P.S. Vixenvee, I have friends who have a daughter called Veena, I wouldn't make that mistake but I was talking to an old lady I look after and mentioned my happy times with that family and you wouldn't believe how long it took her to be able to say her brother's name ... Chandon.

Answer 4

Yes, of course. Anything remotely foreign sounds funny to the average Brit. And it's not just England. I have Turkish friends in Switzerland who mispronounce their names so that the Swiss can understand them.

I seem to have become French, because my surname is very similar to a French name and the Swiss correct me when I pronounce my name correctly (English pronunciation)

There was once, during the Thatcher years a report of her visit to Hong Kong in a Chinese newspaper. They tried to write the names using Chinese characters, which resulted in the wonderful statement, 'Prime Minister Thatcher is accompanied by a large male organ.' This was reported in the South China Morning Post.

Answer 5

I wondered that too. In my work, I meet many Asians and we are supposed to call people by their names, but I don't know how to say their names or even which is the first or last name. Some of them have their names reversed on their driver's licenses. And they don't know how to say my name either. They always call me a name that is similar but not my name.

Answer 6

hi Fonzie, right it is an extremely humorous one from Japan. it fairly is a activities drink, kinda like Gatorade, however the producer desperate to offer it the curious call "Pocari Sweat" - appears like the perspiration of a extraordinary animal!

Answer 7

sometimes names do have funny translations in other languages. In Hebrew Kofi Annan means my monkey masterbated

Answer 8

im asian and i find it funny people usual white folk cant say or spell my name when it so simple V E E N A they usually say tina or mina or bina i usually go along with it..

Answer 9

it sounds weird to us but its normal for them. like bible names for example we consider Maria to be normal but its realy Mariamne in jewish. see that sounds weird.

Answer 10

i would burst out laughing,and then seriously die with embarrasment