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I would have expected an English speaker to get both wrong — Chepalóva, Medvedéva. It feels a bit more natural that way in English, although I can't really explain why.

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russiandude.livejournal.com

My last name is Medvedev. I think it is the iteration of sounds that causes people to hold off with the emphasis until they think they are done with the name.

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> It feels a bit more natural that way in English, although I can't really explain why.

Right, that is exactly my question to the Engish native speakers here - why you tend to prefer Sharapóva over Sharápova?

You have a lot of four-syllable words in English with the stress on the second syllable. What makes you shift it to the third (or is it next to last, a la Polish?)

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insaint.livejournal.com

Culturally, names in English tend to have emphasis on the last syllable (or second to last). It's just one of those things, far as I know.

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Any proof, statistics, and such?

And how Christopher, Washington, Robinson, etc. fit in your scheme?

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insaint.livejournal.com

I don't have hard stats and proof. Just saying what I've experienced. I don't think I've ever seen an English last name that had emphases in the middle. First syllable seems to be fine, so is last. Then in the middle, things get muddy.

*shrugs* I'm not a linguist.

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Well, the "o" in "Sharapova" looks like a long vowel to the English eye, since an "o" followed by only one consonant would usually be long in English. It doesn't sound natural to pronounce it like that if it's next to the stress. So either Shárapova or Sharapóva sounds normal, but not Sharápova.

On the other hand, English tend to make the opposite mistake when pronouncing "Nabokov," which everyone here thinks is "Nábokov." So maybe I don't really know what I am talking about.

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zombie-laika.livejournal.com

One of the hardest parts of learning Russian is getting the stress correct on words (for me, at least). For some reason, I can't seem to work up a good intuition about stresses.

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frostflake.livejournal.com

Because most words in English have a first-syllable emphasis, I think native speakers are loath to stress the second syllable. My best guess as to why the third syllable gets stressed is similar to

russiandude's: when we aren't sure where the emphasis goes in a word, we get confused while saying the word and hold the emphasis until the last syllable.

Unless it was the same commentator who pronounced both names, I have to guess that the one who said the name correctly either knew some Russian or had heard the name pronounced correctly (either by Russian commentators or by other people in Turin).

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> Unless it was the same commentator who pronounced both names

That was exactly the case. Both skiers were a part of the relay team, and the same people at CBC and NBC were pronouncing one name correctly, and then the other name not.

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None of your comment jibes with the way I (native English speaker) pronounce written words. An "o" doesn't become long if followed by a single consonant, and Shárapova" is actually much harder for me to pronounce than "Sharápova".

I did a quick Google search, and came across this this page (http://www.ingilish.com/englishsyllablestress.htm), which says that in English, words of three or more syllables are stressed on the penultimate syllable if that vowel is long or a dipthong, and on the antepenultimate syllable if it's not. That would explain why English speakers seem to like "Sharapóva".

To the OP:

I wouldn't use announcers' pronunciations of foreign names as a good way to judge how English speakers in general would pronounce them. If you've heard a name before, you can overcorrect or only partly correct the pronunciation that comes naturally to you. You could easily get chaotic pronunciation that doesn't resemble the rules of English pronunciation very much.

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It is the general rule in English that a vowel becomes long when followed by a single consonant that is between two vowels. (That's what I left out; if the single consonant is final, the vowel is short.)

Take these examples (from Mark Rosenfelder's article (http://zompist.com/spell.html) on English spelling:

25. Vowels are pronounced long before an intervocalic consonant (rate, mete, fine, rote, cute = rät mët fïn röt küt).

26. They're short before two consonants (baffle, held, children, rotten, butler), or before a final consonant (pat, pet, pit, pot, but = pât pêt pît pôt bût).

I (also a native English speaker) can't think of all that many exceptions to this. Anyway, it does make sense that the stress would be on the penult if the penult is long. The vowel-length rule explains why it would be (incorrectly, in this case) assumed to be long.

It seems like "Sharápova" is only pronounceable if the "o" is reduced to schwa. You may be right about "Shárapova," though - — although "STRESS-unstress-stress-unstress" feels natural to me, I can actually think of any words that have it. (For some reason the example that keeps coming to mind is "bottleholder," which isn't even a word.)

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Should be "can't actually think. . ."

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khathi.livejournal.com

Basically it comes from Latin, I believe, as Latin has almost the same stressing rule. But Russian, not being Latin-derived at all, doesn't have such a rule. I don't know exact stressing rules in Russian, but if it ever exist, it should be VERY complex and inconsistent, as correct stres may appear just everythere. ^_^ For example loanwords are usually stressed as in original language, but after some time stress tends to migrate... The only sure way, I believe, it's just to memorize it.

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That's what I left out; if the single consonant is final, the vowel is short.

I feel like smacking myself in the forehead because I was so confused by you leaving that out. You can just write me off as another internet idiot.

I (also a native English speaker) can't think of all that many exceptions to this.

I can think of quite a few, but eh. It's English spelling; it's supposed to be full of exceptions. I'm having trouble of thinking of any that aren't from Latin or French or prefixed.

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Well, the rule genuinely doesn't make sense without the second half.

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No, but I was aware of the rule, so I should have known that was what you were talking about. =)

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> I wouldn't use announcers' pronunciations of foreign names as a
> good way to judge how English speakers in general would pronounce them

All right. And what is a better way to judge then?

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I'm inclined to think that in Russian (specifically in Russian names) the stress position is determined mostly not by phonetic rules (syllable/vowels relative positions and such), but by morphological ones (what is the original word root, the gender of that root, etc.)

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I'd ask people who hadn't heard the name spoken before and aren't familiar with Russian.

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Thank you!
It would be very interesting to know.

May I suggest some additional names for you liitle survey?

Kozlov
Kozlova
Korkin
Korkina
Kuz'min
Kuz'mina
Kulikov
Kulikova
Potapov
Potapova
Kadochnikov
Kadochnikova
Shostakovich

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Oh, I thought you gonna ask the people... You're not, aren't you?
If so, I could probably do that myself.

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Oops. I wasn't volunteering to do a survey, I was just suggesting how you could find out. If you'd like to do the survey yourself,

linguaphiles would be a good place to post it.

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I'm too lazy to go to some other communities.
I'd better do it myself "on the street".

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khathi.livejournal.com

Yeah, I also have such an idea, but never was able to express exact form of this system -- memorizing was actually easier. ^_^

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stephan-nn.livejournal.com

МедвЕдева only...
So is лЕбедева - not лебедЕва.

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gnomygnomy.livejournal.com

Old McDonald

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gnomygnomy.livejournal.com

"Gladiator?"

And all the examples I can think of against #26 rhyme with "mold" and "bind." I wonder if this exception is a rule in itself? It probably is and I probably missed it.

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