Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Okawari 1295 days ago
I'm a non native English speaker with a name that is written exactly like a very common English name. In my native tongue the pronunciation is different from English by quite a bit. There is no way anyone could pronounce it without having background information like my nationality. It would be unfair to expect anyone to get it right without they knowledge, and it would be annoying to reveal that info whenever meeting someone in order to allow them to "get it right".

On a more general note. I find it jarring when people mess up to the intonation and flow just to "correctly" pronounce a foreign name which is outside the norm for the language the conversation is in. It sounds like those memes where people replace key words to rewrite the dialogue.

If i speak my native tongue, then I will pronounce my name like it is supposed to, if not then the pronunciation with the least amount of friction will do just fine.