Commonly mispronounced words 3 - जंग

The alphabets of Hindi and Urdu constantly give rise to quaint situations. I still remember the story told fondly by a duty officer at All India Radio. It so happens that there was an AIR artist by the name of Jaleel (I forget the full name). He happened to be sitting in the duty room listening to the transmission one afternoon. His recording was to be played that afternoon. When the programme is announced - to his shock and dismay the announcer pronounces it as 'zaleel'.

Now, in normal situations most people won't bother. But it so happens that Jaleel means great while zaleel means lowly or debased. So I am sure the gentleman called Jaleel did not take very kindly to the pronunciation. There are many such words which arise out of the 'za' and 'ja' confusion. The one I am featuring today is

जंग - Battle; confused with

ज़ंग - Rust

Commonly mispronounced words 2 - mass bass

Mass : This word is pronounced throughout India as mahs. And it rhymes with the other commonly mispronounced word bass (mispronounced as 'bahs'). But the only acceptable pronunciation for these words is

m-ass (ass as in donkey or the beginning of the word ass'et)

bays (rhymes with case)

You can hear the correct pronunciations of these words at the links given below

Pronounce the word 'mass'

Pronounce the word 'bass'

Commonly mispronounced words 1 - gross मिज़ाज

I am starting a new series today. Have picked this up over the years as a voice-worker.

Gross - Now this word has had me fighting pitched battles. I insist (and I am right) that it be pronounced as 'grow-s' to rhyme with 'borrow-s' (The 's' is mentioned separately as it should not be pronounced as 'z'). While most people in India pronounce it as 'gross' to rhyme with 'dross' or 'Ross' of Friends fame.

मिज़ाज - This is to be pronounced as 'miss-aaj' to rhyme with आज and बजाज. This is commonly mispronounced as 'mij-aaz' to rhyme with 'जहाज़'

By the way, 'miss' is to be pronounced as 'miz'.

The Beijing identity crisis

I had mentioned this in passing in the earlier post, but I am flummoxed. The world media cannot be so stupid. I mean how many variations can you have for the pronunciation of an Olympic centre. Here goes

pay-ching

bay-jing

bay-zing

bay-zhing (oh the la-di-da 'i went to alliance francaise' varieties)

bee-zing

bee-jing

pay-jing

bee-zhing

bee-zing

No I am not exaggerating, I have heard all these on the various channels across the world। I am adding a video from someone called 'the two chinese characters'। This should help those who are unable to make out from the transliteration above. The native pronunciation is pay-ching or पेइचिंग (the 'p' is not aspirated, and this pronunciation should be preferred) and the anglicised pronunciation given below is bay-jing. All other variants, however exotic, are incorrect.

AP News Pronunciation guide

The AP pronunciation guide is available online. Though it is broken into four sets alphabetically and hence a search takes slightly longer than on the VOA site. But still helpful.

For names starting from A-C
http://www.aol.com.au/news/story/AP-News-Pronunciation-Guide-A-C/578061/index.html
For names starting from D-K
http://www.aol.com.au/news/story/AP-News-Pronunciation-Guide-D-K/578071/index.html
For names starting from L-R
http://www.aol.com.au/news/story/AP-News-Pronunciation-Guide-L-R/578081/index.html
For names starting from S-Z
http://www.aol.com.au/news/story/AP-News-Pronunciation-Guide-S-Z/578091/index.html

How to pronounce Olympic medallists' names

The Beijing games have started (and it is pronounced as bay-jing or pay - ching) and you have results coming in thick and fast. But how do I pronounce Chen Xiexia's name. And by the time you have got a hang of the Pinyin (the standard Mandarin romanization system), you get a few choice Croatian corkers. There is no single website which gives you the pronunciations. I have added a very useful link which gives you a quick and dirty guide to pinyin. Since China IS going to end up at no 2 on the medals tally (they were just four golds behind the US in Athens 2004), so this guide will help you get at least 70 medallists names approximately right. Use it. Will try and put other guides on as and when I find them. If you have any links - do send them to me.