For example, an English person called Bob might introduce themselves as "Bob", whereas an American person called Bob might introduce themselves as "Bahb". (Sorry, don't know the phonetic alphabet but hopefully you get my gist)

Should you pronounce those two people's names the same, with your own natural accent, or should you copy how the person says their own name?

Edit: I specifically picked a generic English name with different pronunciation across different accents. I know my wording wasn't great, sorry! Hopefully the edit is a bit clearer.

Context and other languagesWhen pronouncing a name from a different language, I firmly believe you should copy the pronunciation of the owner of that name, and not Anglicise the name unless asked to. I say this as a speaker of a language that English people regularly mispronounce and even insist to me that they know the correct pronunciation of my language.

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[–] 6 points 1 year ago

Some languages you just can't copy the sounds.

Like Chinese names with the tones. I'm Chinese-American and I just gave up on even trying to get teachers to get my name right, and use the Americanized pronnonciation of the pinyin instead, without the tones. Like I don't feel offended or anything, its a tough language, besides I speak Cantonese at home, so idk what pronounciation I would even give. I think a English speaker attempting to pronounce my name in Mandarin or Cantonese and then proceeds to butcher it, its gonna make me feel even more embarassed/cringe at my name so I don't bother. (I mean I'm not embarassed at my name, to be clear. I just feel cringe for the teacher when I hear the wrong pronounciation used, and cringe is contageous)

I'd say just pronounce the English version of it. I mean I could probably pronounce the Chinese name of a fellow Chinese-American classmate, but the teacher would have no idea who I'm referring to since they wouldn't be able to pick up on the tones. So I'd just go with a English pronounciation.

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