How to Pronounce Your Favorite Director's Name

[Shrew]

On Wong Kar-wai:

I believe that Kar-wai is the correct pronunciation--if you're speaking Cantonese. I don't know much about Shanghaiese, so your friend may be correct, but it's been a long time since Wong has lived there, and internationally he's known by the Cantonese version.

To add more confusion, the Mandarin version of his name would be Jia-wei. Might come in handy if you're ever on the mainland.

[mikeohhh]

I still want to know how to say Kiarostami

[LQ]

I still want to know how to say Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami-kee-Awh-ro-sta-mee

[mfunk9786]

I still want to know how to say Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami- a-Boh-sey kee-Awh-ro-sta-mee

A.K. to his friends.

[JacquesQ]

Luis Buñuel

lou-ease Boo-nyou-L

It's a bit different, but i cant find an English sound for the 'el', so just like the letter "L", very small and almost insignificant difference.

I'm from México, so I'm telling you the Spanish way of saying it, still the ñ is a difficult sound to figure.

If you have the Viridiana or Discreet Charm DVD's you can hear how Spanish or Mexican actors say his name in the documentaries and interviews, the easiest one to hear is Silvia Pinal in the Viridiana interview.

Depends on the period, actually, I guess.
If pre-1928 (which hardly interests us because he was no filmmaker yet), then Boo-nyoo-el all right.
But when he came to France, Bunuel changed the spelling of his name from Buñuel with a "tilde" on the n (sorry, I don't know the name for "tilde" in English, anyway that little wavy thing going up and down and up again) to Bunuel without anything on the n. Possibly because the word "bougnoul" in French (pronounced boo-nyool) is a bad word to designate Arabs and he didn't want to sound ridiculous (to anglicize the pun, it could be something like having a perfectly innocuous name written, say, Nigha in Italian, but that would definitely make you harder to accept socially once you're in an English-speaking country).
So from 1928 on it should be pronounced juste like in French (tough luck for native English speakers), Bü-nüel in just two syllables.
I don't know exactly how he handled the thing once he was back in Spain for Las Hurdes and then in Mexico, and whether he put the tilde on the n back in place to Buñuel or not (it was not necessary, leaving it out just led to something like Boo-noo-el without the -nyoo-), someone ought to check the credits of his post-L'âge d'or and pre-60s pictures.

Do you know if the accent grave on the second 'e' in Melies produces the proper pronunciation of his name?

No actual rule for spelling or pronouncing proper names, of course, as has already been stated, but if it was written "Mélies" it would leave the possibility to pronounce just "melly" ; with the added "accent grave" you have to pronounce meh-lyess - and of course you mustn't confound the first -e- with the "accent aigu", sounding "closed" like in "say" (but shorter; I can't find any closed and short e in English at the moment...) and the second with the "accent grave", sounding more "open" like in "wet".

[LQ]

Do you know if the accent grave on the second 'e' in Melies produces the proper pronunciation of his name?

No actual rule for spelling or pronouncing proper names, of course, as has already been stated, but if it was written "Mélies" it would leave the possibility to pronounce just "melly" ; with the added "accent grave" you have to pronounce meh-lyess - and of course you mustn't confound the first -e- with the "accent aigu", sounding "closed" like in "say" (but shorter; I can't find any closed and short e in English at the moment...) and the second with the "accent grave", sounding more "open" like in "wet".

guess I don't have to go to the wordreference forums for my french fix du jour nice job!

[Shrew]

This isn't really pronunciation, but it does have to do with names.

Seeing the recent guidelines in New Films asking for people to use proper name order depending on their home country (Wong Kar-wai), I'm wondering why we only do that with Chinese names. Japanese also traditionally puts the surname before the individual name, but no one ever says Kurosawa Akira or Ozu Yasujiro. I'm not saying it should be correctly, as it seems to be a trend not just in film but in most situations involving Japanese.

Anyone know why? Is it just because we've had more interaction with them?

[fiddlesticks]

Japanese also traditionally puts the surname before the individual name, but no one ever says Kurosawa Akira or Ozu Yasujiro.

Well, I do, so it's not no one. Actually, I've seen these names family-name-first fairly often, so it's not an unknown practice in the West. At least there seems to be internal consistency with Japanese names (that is, those who say Akira Kurosawa tend to go family-name-second with all Japanese names, although MoC booklets tend towards schizophrenia in this regard). No such luck with Korean directors, where one may see Ki-duk Kim and Im Kwon-taek in the same sentence. And aren't some parts of Eastern Europe also family-name-first?

I figure, if I know the way the person and/or their family prefers the name order, that's the way I'll say it.

[exte]

In Britannica, they apply the Last Name, First Name with all names save for Japanese Far East Asian names... and instead have Mifune Toshiro or Kurosawa Akira without the commas... Would anyone care to enlighten?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Scholarly sources usually preserve the original order for Romanized Japanese names. In common, everyday usage, the names are transposed unless it's a "historical" figure ("historical" typically meaning pre-Meiji) -- this seems to be true even in Japan itself, where Romanized names frequently appear on books, album covers, etc.

[GaryC]

aren't some parts of Eastern Europe also family-name-first?

Hungary certainly does, and I don't think I've ever seen that reflected in an English-language article or book.

[MichaelB]

Hungary certainly does, and I don't think I've ever seen that reflected in an English-language article or book.

I actually raised this with Sight & Sound when I recently submitted Jancso and Mizoguchi reviews for the same issue and saw that the subs subsequently inverted Mizoguchi's name but not Jancso's. They conceded that I had a point, but didn't do anything about it.

Hungary is the only European country that does this, though - as with many other things (notably the language!), it's very much a law unto itself.

That said, the rule only seems to apply to Hungarian names - I was fully expecting 'Atkins Eileen' to pop up at the start of Karoly Makk's (or Makk Karoly's) A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda, but it was the right way round, albeit alongside Darvas Ivan and Torocsik Mari.

[foggy eyes]

Å arūnas Bartas, anyone?

[MichaelB]

After years of referring to one of my favourite directors as Yer-zhee Menzel (Jerzy Menzel), I saw the great man live in interview and found out it's a soft "Yer-shee" with the hint of a "j" in there

To get the 'ř' sound in 'Jiří' you need to roll an r and combine it with a 'zh' at the same time - it's a very distinctive sound.

The handy thing about Czech is that the spelling is almost 100% phonetic, so provided you've got the right diacritics, you can get it right almost any time. Unfortunately, most Western publications don't care about diacritics, which is a shame because 'Jiri' sounds like 'Yiri' - i.e. quite different from 'Jiří'!

[miless]

Å arūnas Bartas, anyone?

I believe it is Shar-oonas Bar-tas

[foggy eyes]

I believe it is Shar-oonas Bar-tas

Thanks, miless - that's what I've opted for in the past (without knowing whether it's correct or not).

[Skritek]

Don't know it it's been mentioned before, but a Hungarian told me that a "-ly" is pronounced as a "-j" (I hope I'm not messing this up.), which surprised me quite a lot. At least I know how to pronounce Karoly now.
I however didn't hear a difference between a regular "-j" and "-ly".

[skuhn8]

Don't know it it's been mentioned before, but a Hungarian told me that a "-ly" is pronounced as a "-j" (I hope I'm not messing this up.), which surprised me quite a lot. At least I know how to pronounce Karoly now.
I however didn't hear a difference between a regular "-j" and "-ly".

Károly (the Hungarian equivalent of Charlie) is pronounced Ka-roy.
Hely (Hungarian for 'place') is almost pronounced like the English 'Hey' (to be precise English 'hey', if spelled phonetically in Hungarian, would be 'hély').
So perhaps it's easier to think of it as 'the l is silent'

[foggy eyes]

These may have been asked about before, but can somebody help me out with Wojciech Has and José Luis Guerín?

[tojoed]

Voy-check Hahs (sibilant "s"). I'm not sure about Guerin, Gwe -rahn, I think.

[swo17]

José Luis Guerín?

José Luis you can probably handle. Guerín should be pronounced geh-REEN, where the 'g' and 'r' are both terse and sharp--the 'g' sounds halfway like a 'k' and the 'r' sounds halfway like a 'd'.

[foggy eyes]

José Luis you can probably handle. Guerín should be pronounced geh-REEN, where the 'g' and 'r' are both terse and sharp--the 'g' sounds halfway like a 'k' and the 'r' sounds halfway like a 'd'.

Really? I've been rolling with what tojoed suggested until now, so that's good to know. Thanks!

[swo17]

José Luis you can probably handle. Guerín should be pronounced geh-REEN, where the 'g' and 'r' are both terse and sharp--the 'g' sounds halfway like a 'k' and the 'r' sounds halfway like a 'd'.

Really? I've been rolling with what tojoed suggested until now, so that's good to know. Thanks!

Well, Spanish is one of the easier languages in that the spelling of the word in a sense tells you how to pronounce it. The 'g' can be tricky because there are three different 'g' sounds (basically, ga, ha, and wa) but since it's followed by a 'ue', that signifies the hard 'g' sound. Otherwise, you always put the emphasis on the second to last syllable (with a few exceptions) unless there is an accent over one of the vowels, as there is in Guerín. If there is an accent over a vowel, you always put the emphasis on that syllable.

So anyway, that is probably more information than you were looking for, but that's what I am basing the pronunciation on. There are some dialects that pronounce certain sounds a little differently (like the 'z' or the double 'L') but I don't know of any reason to pronounce Guerín differently. It would be nice to get confirmation of this from an actual native of Spain though.

I hope this helps.

[foggy eyes]

I hope this helps.

Yes, absolutely. I don't know what I'd do without this thread.