What is the name of the NPR correspondent whose name sounds like ‘Duwahili Sykautau’?
Wow. No wonder I couldn’t find it!
Now… Off to look up Cloudy O’Sanchez. 
Hah! So that’s how she spells it! It’s shallow, I know, but I always listen to her reports hoping to get a feel for how she spells her name based on how she pronounces it. She says “Dwah-Lee”, and she aspirates the ‘h’, so I’m not clear how one gets Doualy from that. Oh well.
Doualy’s voice has an easy tone and delivery I could listen to all day, much better than another NPR correspondent of Asian descent, Luisa - I twy, but I can’t pwonounce my Ahs - Lim.
Correction - It’s actually Louisa - Bwitish Constabulawy - Lim, not Luisa.
That’s a cool name, but the name I love is Ofeibea Quist-Arcton - it just sounds so exotic and cool, especially when she ends her piece with her name and “Dakar” - but she says it all dramatic “da-Kaaaahhhh”
And I have a huge crush on Sylvia Poggioli, based on her voice alone. She means business - she has that Christiane Amanpour “I have forgotten more about journalism than you will ever remember” kind of authority in her reporting…
I just about busted a gut - thanks.
(Tuesday I was wondering how to address my neighbor Claudia - who is from Nicaragua. Do I just anglicize it, or go for it and try to pronounce it as she does, and risk sounding like a really white idiot?)
Ask her what she prefers; have her help you work through the pronunciation slowly.
But a good phonetic approximation for you to practice, since you are aware of Cloudy O’Sanchez, is cl-ow-the-ah. The “DEE” is very subtle, almost a hard “THE”.
Oh, I looooove her voice. I heard a bit recently where she was playing some board game with some little children - it was wonderful to hear her interact casually with them.
Do you all get Marketplace? There’s a correspondent on there, her name sounds like Anna, or Hannah Jaffe Walsh. I can’t ever hear it right, so I can’t figure out how it’s spelled.
Ah yes, she does most of their reports from Europe, doesn’t she?
I’m always giggling at “Snick Paprikash”
I’m not even sure I know what her name is…
You mean Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal? I swear they create these names in a laboratory. Anyway, you’re thinking of Ina Jaffe, although I could have sworn she was Ina Jaffe-Walt or something like that.
What I want to know is why Anthony Kuhn (the correspondent in China) pronounces his last name “Key-yoon.” It seems a bit of an affectation to me.
Snigdha Prakash. She doesn’t appear to work for NPR anymore. I think part of the problem is that many of them smush their names together so you can’t tell where the break is. Like Joannesilburner. I was also surprised that it’s actually Ira Flatow, not Ira Plato. I don’t know where I got that P from.
Different person. Chana Joffe-Walt mostly works with the Planet Money podcast now (though she used to be on Marketplace, and may still be occasionally–I don’t listen to it that much).
Yeah - that. I think there are two different people. The latter sounds younger and does more human interest stories, IMO.
I’ll obviously never work for marketplace - my name is way too boring.
EDIT: NEVERMIND! Thank you DoctorJ!
Yep - based in Rome. She says “This is SYL-vyah POH-jolie” and I get a nice little shiver…
Speaking of NPR staff, who’s the female health reporter that sounds like she has a wicked case of adenoids?
Disregard. It’s Joanne Silberner.
If you work for the BBC, you would address her as Clod-ee-a from Nick-ar-agg-yew-a. They don’t believe in Spanish, apparently.
I can’t believe this thread is here, because the same random thoughts crossed my mind recently. We probably heard the same report from Dolly Kai sow chow. (There are many NPR correspondents whose names are just streams of sounds in my brain, with no clue how they look written down.)
I think I swerve every time I hear Lakshmi Singh mispronounce her name on-air. I mean, Alfonso Guzman Lopez just straight up says his name the right way.
Then I think about how I casually mispronounce my legal name to make it easier on the Western ear and am flooded with a sense of hypocrisy. My real name is a lot harder than hers, though.