Not nearly as famous, but there is a person who’s name I have no idea how to pronounce. Remember the former Aussie band Jet? They had that song Are You Gonna Be My Girl the first big song featured in the neon Apple iPod ads.
The singer’s name is Nic Cester (his brother is the drummer, too). So: Chester? Kester? Sester? No clue. They were around for a bit, and a large number of songs off their first album got play and also use in commercials. But I couldn’t find anyone saying their name! :mad:
As a child I thought the hemlock-drinking Greek philosopher was SO-crates. I mean, that’s what it looked like, and I never heard anyone saying the name.
I haven’t made that mistake since about the age of 12. However, I’m still probably pronouncing Steve Buscemi’s name wrong.
I’m glad that Downton Abbey doesn’t come up much in my spoken conversations as I was calling it Downtown.
When Scarlett Johansson first became known, I recall and interview or something where she was a bit coy about whether it should be a “j” or a “y” sound (/dʒ/ vs. /j/ in IPA). The former is how it is pronounced 99% of the time now.
I’ve been playing too much Fallout, as all I can think of is a very unfortunate aimed shot.
It means “freedom.”
s as in s.
ao is a bit irregular, but has the “ee” sound. Her preferred pronunciation is slightly different.
The i is a continuation of the before (technically I think it is there to provide “symmetry” and affects the consonant near it, but in this case it’s not too confusing).
s is sh before i and e. I get English speakers commenting on this all the time, it’s not that hard - do you say San Fransisso or San Frankisko? In Italian, is it Fransesso instead of Franchesco? No, it’s hard before a, o, u and soft before i, e, just like in Irish.
Ray and Dave Davies. For years I pronounced it Dave-eez. Then I heard someone on NPR ask Ray how his last name was pronounced to which he answered that its Davis or more properly Daviz.
arnold schwarzenegger, often the end of his last name is pronounced like the N word. Made sense just looking at the spelling and schwarz means black in German. Many people pronounced it wrong.
I didn’t realize my mistake until after the Internet started.
Huh. This is the first time I’m realizing that these are not two people – one, Ryan Philippe whom I have read about, and Ryan Philip-pay whom I have heard about.
For a long time, I pronounced the singer Aaliyah’s name like Ah-LIE-ah. Like the same sound in the male name Elijah. By the time I learned it was Ah-LEE-ah, it was too much of a habit to overcome.
The vowel in Bella is [ɛ]
In Bayla it is the diphthong [eɪ]
Béla has the pure [e] vowel, which is a pretty common vowel in languages around the world, but it does not appear in most forms of standard English. Both Bella and Bayla are about equally wrong, so you should feel free to pick either one.