Hi, given the fact that I have been murdering the names of innumerable novelists over the years, I was wondering if any native speakers could tell me how to properly pronounce the names of the following novelists:
French: Andre Gide, Jean Genet, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Queneau, Robbe-Grillet.
Russian: Gogol, Tolstoy(i)
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.-Vladimir Nabokov
human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars-Flaubert
not a native but this is how i'd pronounce some of them.Originally Posted by Inderjit Sanghe
Rimbaud= Rim-Bow
Verlaine- ver-lane
Andre Gide- on-dray Gee-d
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
Jean Genet: Zhun Je nay
Robbe-Grillet: Rob Grillay
gide= hgeed
genet= gen-ay
rimbaud= ram-bo (yes, it is. not rim-bord)
verlaine= ver-lay-ne
queneau= cuh-no (the 'que' is pronounced like the french word)
robbe grillet= rob-grillay
gogol= go-gurl
tolstoy= toll-stoy
I've asked a friend of mine who studies Russian, and she told me "Tolstoy" is pronounced "tal-STOY"; she also said that Nabokov is pronounced "na-BO-kov", which came as a surprise to me.
Rimbaud's not Rim - bodd?
how 'bout Sartre? is it Sart? or Sarture? (I've heard both)
and Goethe is Ger-tuh?
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
- John Berryman
Sartre should have a surpressed 'r' sound after 'Sart'. You may only hear the 'Sart'. Some people would sound that surpressed 'r' more strongly.
There's some room for disagreement about Rimbaud. The vowel in the first syllable can be anything fr a short 'o' to a short 'a', but the second syllable should be pronounced 'bow', as in bow and arrow.
I agree with what PeterL said about Sartre; that's the way I say it at any rate.
As for Goethe, I'm currently in Germany, so I'm acquainted with the way they pronounce it, but it's not easy to explain... you're quite close though, it's something like "GEU-tuh"... well, if you really want to know, in this link I have uploaded a reading of his most famous ballad, "Der Erlkönig": http://www.sendspace.com/file/632ec0 At the beginning, the reader pronounces Goethe's name as it is supposed to be pronounced.
My friend from Belgium told me it can be pronounce Rem- Bow or Rim- Bow. I've always pronounced it Rim Bow. Its also how it was pronounced in the film made about his life with Verlaine.
Last edited by Niamh; 04-23-2008 at 09:39 AM.
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
I can't listen to this file at the moment, but I'll check it out later and tell you guys whether it's the correct pronounciation.
basically, the oe in Goethe is is similar to the vowel in 'bird' in British English (i.e. without an r) only your round your lips a bit more and it's pronounced further to the front of the mouth.
if you say a long English 'oo' (like in soup) you should have liprounding. then try to pronounce the vowel in 'bird' and round your lips at the same time. ... I'll look it up in my phonetics text book, though (not sure I got it right).
i've never heard rimbaud pronounced rim-bo, and i went to charleville where he was born.
how about Faulkner. How pronounced is that l supposed to be.
Well I'm French and Rimbaud is pronounced 'Rim' (pronounce 'in' like in 'cinq', which is itself close to the American pronunciation of 'sank' with this nasal sound) and the 'baud' is pronounced 'bo' (once again, the 'o' here is pronounced in an American way, that is without a dipthongue).
pronounced falk-ner
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
How do you Canadians pronounce it?
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