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by luibelgo 3571 days ago
Depends on the language, it's very easy to pronounce in Spanish
1 comments

In French too.
But not the same way! I've never known whether the Spanish or French version is the canonical pronunciation for LibreOffice.
I always use the Spanish pronunciation. Though this may be influenced by the fact that I'm a USAmerican and Spanish is my second language.
In English I just say Lieber-Office, as in Beiber-Office. I have had zero people confused at this pronunciation in the last six years.

(edited to clarify)

That would be easy to pronounce in German, but from the spelling it would never occur to a German that this is the correct pronunciation.

Fun sidenote: Since "Lieber" is German for "Dear" (as in "Dear Office, I am writing this letter to you ...") it would be quite confusing. (Also it would sound grammatically wrong, since "Lieber" is masculine, but Office is not.)

Alternatively "lieber" also means "preferably", so with that interpretation you would sound like saying "preferably Office". Oops.

Asia is the problem. FWIW - its the largest market for open source software and the market that needs it more than any other market. I posted another comment on this thread - but in India, I have had ZERO success with getting people to know what I said ("libby office")
so, neither?

Edit to reflect parent: I do think that's probably easier to pronounce for English-speaking people than both French and Spanish

? Libre is a french word in the first place. How is that hard to pronounce ?
IMO it's unintuitive how to pronounce it to most non-French-speaking people.
But libre mean "free" in French whereas there is no such word in English. Why would it not be more easier for us French speaking peoples?
FWIW, I think the closest English analog would be 'liberated', a synonym of 'free', though not that this a substantial improvement.
That's not what I meant. What I meant is that it is harder to guess how to pronounce it to people that do not know French!
I tend to use the Spanish, because I find the French more awkward to combine with "Office".