For Russian Language Learners: "Find 10 Mistakes"

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

POSITIVELY NOT INTENDED FOR RUSSIAN NATIVE SPEAKERS!

Упражнение для изучающих русский язык^*

Перед вами - имена лучших российских теннисисток с официального сайта Ассоциации женского тенниса, с указанием их произношения (оттуда же).
Найдите ошибки в произношении и исправьте их.

1. MARIA SHARAPOVA : shah-rah-POH-vuh
2. NADIA PETROVA : pe-TROH-vuh
3. ELENA DEMENTIEVA : YELL-e-nuh de-MENT-ye-vuh
4. SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA : svet-LAH-nah kooz-NET-so-vuh
5. ANASTASIA MYSKINA : miss-KEE-nuh
6. DINARA SAFINA : di-NAH-ruh sa-FEE-nah
7. ELENA LIKHOVTSEVA : e-LAY-nah lee-HOFF-seh-vuh
8. MARIA KIRILENKO : ki-ri-LEN-koh
9. VERA ZVONAREVA : zvon-a-RAY-vuh
10. VERA DUSHEVINA : doo-sheh-VEE-nuh

Дополнительный вопрос^**: Почему англоязычные редакторы постоянно допускают такие ошибки?

* Here is the translation to English to make moderators happy:
Problem for Russian language learners.
Below you can see the names of the best female Russian tennis players, from the official WTA website, along with the pronunciation guide.
Find all pronunciation errors and fix them.

** To make moderators nearly ecstatic:
Additional question: Why English-speaking editors use to make such mistakes?


UPDATE.
To view the correct answers select the rest of this entry below (the blank space).
Note a couple of explanatory links there.


1. MARIA SHARAPOVA : shah-RAH-puh-vuh
2. NADIA PETROVA : pee-TROH-vuh
3. ELENA DEMENTIEVA : yi-LEN-ah di-MENT-yi-vuh
4. SVETLANA KUZNETSOVA : svit-LAH-nah kooz-nit-SO-vuh
5. ANASTASIA MYSKINA : MYSS-ki-nuh
6. DINARA SAFINA : dee-NAH-ruh SA-fee-nah
7. ELENA LIKHOVTSEVA : yi-LEN-ah LEE-half-tsih-vuh
8. MARIA KIRILENKO : ki-ri-LEN-kuh
9. VERA ZVONAREVA : zvon-a-RYOH-vuh
10. VERA DUSHEVINA : doo-SHEH-vee-nuh

Comments

[algyschit.livejournal.com]

ДушевИна — это сильно. Душевая кабина?

Ошибки? Видимо, большое желание ставить ударение в фамилиях на «-ин» на французский манер.

[ekeme-ndiba.livejournal.com]

POSITIVELY NOT INTENDED FOR RUSSIAN NATIVE SPEAKERS!

Why? Душевиина made my day! :-) (it reminds me of h..vina, where some people shift stress to the penultimate syllable for comic effect).

[sveta-ko.livejournal.com]

stress!
I think the reason why is simple. It's just easier for foreign nationals to pronounce our names this way.

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

I don't know where the stress goes, but aren't some of the vowel qualities off?

shu-ruh-POH-vuh
pi-TRO-vuh
YELL-i-nuh di-MENT-yi-vuh
etc.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you are free to laugh, but not to take it, man.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

shu
pi
di yi

You're right here (but not with YELL-i-nuh).

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

And why it's difficult for them to pronounce the other (right) way?

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

How Шарапова fits there?

[sveta-ko.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, it's just hard for them to do that. I know, for instance, that it's much easier for them to pronounce Svetlana, then the short variant of this name - Sveta and there is almost no chance that they'll say my last name correctly=))))
By the way, pretty often Russians can't say Russian names correctly too, so we have no right to blame foreigners for doing the same mistakes.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> By the way, pretty often Russians can't say Russian names correctly too, so we have no right to blame foreigners for doing the same mistakes.

Never heard about that.
Dare to give examples?

[zufall.livejournal.com]

I don't personally see any problem with how these names are pronounced in English.

Russian does really horrible things to lots of English names, too. *shrug*

That, and honestly I don't think most Americans (and others) care whether they're saying it right to please Russian ears :>

[sveta-ko.livejournal.com]

yep, for instance, me when I was a kid, I could never put stress in the name correctly=))) this example is a joke=)))
I have problems with my last name all the time, people never can put the stress correctly especially when they see it or hear first time. At school/university new teachers would call my name instead my last name because of that. I always thought it was funny=)))
another example, Sokolov, we say it SokolOv, but I swear, I heard a lot of time when people would say SOkolov, it wasn't in Russia, though, it was Kazakhstan, but people there are mostly Russians and thier main language is Russian too.
I can't remember other cases, I just know it happens.
I wasn't correct saying "pretty often", but it more often than we would like it to be

[sveta-ko.livejournal.com]

sorry, it IS more often=))

[algyschit.livejournal.com]

Maybe the editor considers that one is identical to Петрова?

[algyschit.livejournal.com]

I really don't understand why "kooz-NET-so-vuh" then. "Кузнец" for checking-word?

[spiderhood.livejournal.com]

Well, one guy may be SOkolov while another one is SokolOv, no problem with that. The stress is not fixed in the passport or any other document, so it is purely a family tradition question.

I can give one example of Russian surname misstressed: it is Peshkov, the real name of Maxim Gorky. In one of his horrible books that I had to read when I was a kid he states the right way clearly, yet even our teacher misstressed it.


And yes, one example does not give you the right to say that it happens "pretty often".

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> I don't personally see any problem with how these names are pronounced
> in English.

Coudn't disagree more.
The editors actually, as some evidence suggests, tried to give a clue on a correct Russian pronunciation. So yo can't say - "oh, that's how it sounds in English". You can say that about "Moscow" (city, the river is still "Moskva"), but not about "Dushevina" - there is NO accepted, traditional English pronunciation of "Dushevina"

> Russian does really horrible things to lots of English names, too. *shrug*

That's not true.
That may happen systematically only for well-known English names or historic figures, like William (Shakespeare), or as a personal mistake. Otherwise, Russian official transliteration/pronunciation is quite accurate - partly because it's necessarily phonetic-based due to Cyrillic alphabet.

> That, and honestly I don't think most Americans (and others) care
> whether they're saying it right to please Russian ears

Yes, we know that most Americans think that there are bears dancing on the Red Sqare :)

Seriously, do they care to not make mistakes?
I thought they do.
It's nothing about pleasing Russian ears.
We say КлИнтон, нот КлинтОн not for pleasing Americans and their ears - but simply because it's right.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

I just worked in Russia for four months, where I came across approximately three hundred new last names per week (we were conducting English testing in high schools). My partner is a native Russian speaker, and she did not always know the correct pronunciation of last names, even names that are ethnically Russian. There really are some where the stress moves, depending on how the person wants it to be pronounced. I wish I could remember some examples, but the truth is that there are so many of them that none particularly stuck in my head.

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

"sixty million americans can't be wrong..."

[mayzie.livejournal.com]

I don't want to join this argument as I think it's best to always say people's names the way they would like them to be said, but...

> Russian does really horrible things to lots of English names, too. *shrug*
> > That's not true.

Those of us with Qu-- or H----- names might disagree here. (The H- name is Czech, but it's still G- in Russian... they really don't sound the same.) It's not a question of stress, though, and it's the best that can be done without making up a new sound. Still, though, it's not "right."

[zufall.livejournal.com]

Right, but Russians are far more likely to hear the names of popular Americans than are Americans to hear the names of popular Russians, largely because the amount of exposure Russia gets in the American media is very low, except for Putin, Ivanov, whatever.

I don't mean to be blunt, but, again, most Americans really have no reason to care -- why should we memorize which syllable of some tennis player's name is stressed? If we were to follow that, we'd spend half of our time memorizing obscure names of obscure people, when it's not really needed for comprehension.

Besides, due to its ethnic diversity it's oftentimes difficult to say even how an American name should be pronounced - I prounce my middle name differently than does my mother. *shrug*

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> Those of us with Qu-- or H----- names might disagree here.
> (The H- name is Czech, but it's still G- in Russian...
> they really don't sound the same.) It's not a question of stress,
> though, and it's the best that can be done without making up a new sound.
> Still, though, it's not "right."

You approached a good point but then, unfortunately, retreated from it.

The foreighn language speakers could not be expected to say the names from your language exactly the way you do - simply because the phonetical systems of different languages may differ significantly. Say, no one expects an American (speaking in English) to pronounce "сельдь" оr "Дементьева" 100% right - there are, for instanse, problems with palatalized consonants here, as they are not a part of the standard English phonetics to the same extent as it is in Russian.

Exactly the same way, no one expects a Russian (speaking in Russian) to pronounce 100% correctly, say, "Timothy Harding" - we simply do not have proper phonemes to do that in Russian. It will sound, say, in the Russian TV news as "тИмоти хАрдинг".

There is nothing wrong in these cases.

The stresses is another matter.
It is easy to make a stress properly if you know where.

The pronunciation guide from WTA is intended to be a reference source for sports journalists, they supposedly tried to make it right - and failed miserably. Why? I don't know. The stress patterns of Russian names are not too difficult, they are in abundance in English everyday words.

So, the mystery remains.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> Those of us with Qu-- or H----- names might disagree here.
> (The H- name is Czech, but it's still G- in Russian...
> they really don't sound the same.)

What are the names you are hinting on here?
Can you give an example?

[mayzie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's all very strange, and it would be interesting to know what their sources were.

Personally, though, I would be happier if my Ha------ name were written and prounounced Ха----- and not Га-----, but there's nothing I can do about it. :)

[mayzie.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I would rather not.

[dontstepinside.livejournal.com]

shu-RAP-ova !!!

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Why not?.. Strange.

I was asking you about an example, not your real name.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Masha is the best!

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> Yes, it's all very strange, and it would be interesting to know
> what their sources were.

Exactly!

> Personally, though, I would be happier if my Ha------ name were
> written and prounounced Ха----- and not Га-----, but there's
> nothing I can do about it. :)

With Г/Х pronunciation, the situation is like that:

For well-known, "traditional" foreign names with H it is Г that mostly pronounced there - e.g. Гамильтон (Hamilton), Гамлет (Hamlet), Гюго (Hugo), Гашек (Hašek), Гораций (Horatio).

For all the other H-names it is Х that is usually used:
Харпер (Harper), Xaммер (Hammer), etc.

The consequence of this rule is that if your H-name is by accident (or by relation :) coinsides with some well-known name, the chances are that your name will also be pronounced with Г.
Say, if you are Sarah Hamilton, you probably will be Сара Гамильтон, but if you are Mary Hollow, you will be not Мэри Гoллов, but Мэри Холлоу.

Similarly, all the Washingtons after one very famous George are now in Russian Вашингтóны, а не Уóшингтоны.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> Right, but Russians are far more likely to hear the names of popular
> Americans than are Americans to hear the names of popular Russians
> largely because the amount of exposure Russia gets in the American
> media is very low, except for Putin, Ivanov, whatever.

Before you veer off the course of logic too far, let me remind you that all the exposure Anmerica gets in Russian media is in Russian, thus according to Russian phonetic system and rules.

And yet, the amount of errors is not at all as overwhelming as with Russian names in America.

I believe it has to do mostly not with exposure, but with different linguistic and cultural traditions.

> I don't mean to be blunt, but, again, most Americans really have
> no reason to care

I'd rather say you were pretty blunt to Americans in this statement of yours :) With which I agree, by the way.
America is one of the most self-contained, culturally and communicatively, nations in the modern world - not because they are "bad" people, but due to the sheer fact of their collective (as a country) influence, power and dominance in the world.

> why should we memorize which syllable of some tennis player's name
> is stressed? If we were to follow that, we'd spend half of our time
> memorizing obscure names of obscure people, when it's not really
> needed for comprehension.

No one asks anyone to memorize anything.
Only those who interested should do that (or at least write down the difficult names on a postnote and stick it on their desk). Among those, I believe, should be professionals, like sports journalists in our case.

After all, it was it was in recognition of that need that WTA created their pronunciation guide in the first place.

> Besides, due to its ethnic diversity it's oftentimes difficult to say
> even how an American name should be pronounced - I prounce my middle
> name differently than does my mother. *shrug*

That's OK. If you were a famous tennis player, your name would be in the pronunciation guide. I hope the correct one though.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> I just worked in Russia for four months, where I came across
> approximately three hundred new last names per week (we were
> conducting English testing in high schools). My partner is a native
> Russian speaker, and she did not always know the correct
> pronunciation of last names, even names that are ethnically Russian.

True. For these cases, pronunciation guides are useful (or explicit reference to the stress position).

In the case in hand (famous Russian tennis players) all the names either very common or not-so-common but following distinctive phonetic patterns and not allowing stress-shifting at all.

> There really are some where the stress moves, depending on how the
> person wants it to be pronounced.

Extremely rare situation, I must say.
For example, Sharapova could NEVER be pronounced as "sharapOva", no matter how badly you wish that :)

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I do not see many answers to the problem, except the correct answer for Sharapova, and some right corrections concerning vowels.

Dare to correct stresses, anyone?
Or it's too Greek for you? :)

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Concerning this Г/Х thing:
Russia is probably the only place in the world where Adolf Hitler is called Гитлер. Which causes several problems for famous New York-based music critic Ira Gitler.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Poor guy.
As if it weren't enough for him being Ира...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Yup, Russian musicians of older generations still remember their first reaction when Ira published a music encyclopedia back in the 1970s: "poor woman, this last name must have caused her a lot of problems" :)

[mayzie.livejournal.com]

I don't know how I could give an example that has meaning but is not my real name.

[mayzie.livejournal.com]

It is very frustrating to talk to my friends about things like US or English history or politics. When they talk, if the name is one whose pronunciation I am not sure of in Russian yet, I struggle to understand who they mean and they think I don't know anything about literature or history. When I talk, many times they do not understand when I give a simple russified version of a name, and it is frustrating to try to guess at the the different pronunciation they would know. I can't think of an example of that, either, but I'll drop you a note the next time it happens.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

OK, here is example on exampling for you.

Say, your name is Hašek. You referred to it being transliterated to Russian as Гашек, not Xaшек, as you would prefer.

Then you might say:
The Czech names like Hrbaty, Husak are transliterated to Russian as Горбатый, Гусак - and then pronounced in Russian not in a proper way.

[im-such-a-slav.livejournal.com]

i can't correct the names, but would appreciate seeing them correctly. there is no way for a non native speaker to know the correct stress unless they learn it, and if we hear it pronounced wrong (like on american TV) we are going to end up using this faulty pronunciation.

rather than join the political discussions, i just want to know the correct way to pronounce the names.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Just use your mouse to select the rest of the entry appearing to be blank... and you will see the correct answers emerging from nowhere!.. :)

[im-such-a-slav.livejournal.com]

thanks. that's awesome.