How to Pronounce Your Favorite Director's Name

[swo17]

Except that I believe that, as with Japanese names, it is accepted practice for non-natives to put the family name second. See this post.

[puxzkkx]

The Japanese government tried to make a big deal about getting Westerners to use the family name first custom for Japanese names around the late 80s and early 90s, but it didn't really work so they shut up about it. It isn't as big a deal as doing it wrong with Chinese or Taiwanese names, but its still a bit culturally insensitive.

[swo17]

Yeah well, I just don't want white people to look at me weird like they would if I started saying Kurosawa Akira.

[Camera Obscura]

The Japanese government tried to make a big deal about getting Westerners to use the family name first custom for Japanese names around the late 80s and early 90s, but it didn't really work so they shut up about it. It isn't as big a deal as doing it wrong with Chinese or Taiwanese names, but its still a bit culturally insensitive.

If Chinese actors can come up with other English names than Johnny, Jackie or Eddy, I'll give it a try.

[MichaelB]

Also, a note for Hungarian directors - in Hungary family names are said first, as they are with Asian names. He would be referred to as Jancsó Miklós. As far as I know, Hungary is the only European country that does this.

You're right, but it's worth noting that this only applies to Hungarian names. There are plenty of non-Hungarian names in the credits of Béla Tarr's films (all those international co-producers!) and they appear the conventional Western way round - as does Eileen Atkins in A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda, even though she's alongside Darvas Ivan and Törőcsik Mari.

The Japanese government tried to make a big deal about getting Westerners to use the family name first custom for Japanese names around the late 80s and early 90s, but it didn't really work so they shut up about it. It isn't as big a deal as doing it wrong with Chinese or Taiwanese names, but its still a bit culturally insensitive.

Sight & Sound has long had a policy of printing Japanese names surname first - I detect Tony Rayns' influence here! - but it doesn't extend the same courtesy to Hungarians. But I think Hungarians generally accept that their names will automatically get inverted in a non-Hungarian context.

[Mr Sausage]

The Japanese government tried to make a big deal about getting Westerners to use the family name first custom for Japanese names around the late 80s and early 90s, but it didn't really work so they shut up about it. It isn't as big a deal as doing it wrong with Chinese or Taiwanese names, but its still a bit culturally insensitive.

If Chinese actors can come up with other English names than Johnny, Jackie or Eddy, I'll give it a try.

Is Fruit Chan enough to get you to try it out?

[GaryC]

Also, a note for Hungarian directors - in Hungary family names are said first, as they are with Asian names. He would be referred to as Jancsó Miklós. As far as I know, Hungary is the only European country that does this.

You're right, but it's worth noting that this only applies to Hungarian names. There are plenty of non-Hungarian names in the credits of Béla Tarr's films (all those international co-producers!) and they appear the conventional Western way round - as does Eileen Atkins in A Long Weekend in Pest and Buda, even though she's alongside Darvas Ivan and Törőcsik Mari.

Apropos of this, non-Greek names in the credits of Theo Angelopoulos films (or at least the ones I've seen) have their names printed in the Roman alphabet, while Greek names are in their own alphabet.

[Camera Obscura]

If Chinese actors can come up with other English names than Johnny, Jackie or Eddy, I'll give it a try.

Is Fruit Chan enough to get you to try it out?

So that would make him Chan Fruit? You gotta give it to them, no quarrels about choosing the most insane names. At least they got a sense of humour about it.

[puxzkkx]

If Chinese actors can come up with other English names than Johnny, Jackie or Eddy, I'll give it a try.

Is Fruit Chan enough to get you to try it out?

So that would make him Chan Fruit? You gotta give it to them, no quarrels about choosing the most insane names. At least they got a sense of humour about it.

I've known ESL students at an old school under the names of Bird, Mint, Cookie, Snowy, Cake, Sky, Bank, Benz, Mo, Wilson and Brian, among others...

[swo17]

Miklós Jancsó appears to be something like Mikloosh Jonkshoo, if the pronunciation I heard the other day was anything to go by. The source was his ex-wife, so I imagine she'd know.

And Béla Balázs seems to be Bayla Bollaazh.

If you go by standard Hungarian pronunciation, it would be "Yoncho Miklosh," but the vowels at the end of each name are held longer because they're accented.

In case this matter isn't settled yet, my brother (who speaks Hungarian and taught ESL there for two years) says you pronounce it Meek-loash Yan-cho.

[Lemmy Caution]

I've known ESL students at an old school under the names of Bird, Mint, Cookie, Snowy, Cake, Sky, Bank, Benz, Mo, Wilson and Brian, among others...

I like Benz (here in China, nobody says Mercedes). Surprised I haven't heard that before. Cake ranks pretty high. Here in China, I've met people English-named Pebble, Three, and Bovey ... and an IT guy who went by the name of Puter.

My favorites are when Chinese people take on Western family names as well. Examples I've run across: Linda Green, Panther Robinson and Rockefeller Steele. (I guess this isn't as strange as it seems, since if a Westerner adopts a Chinese name, it will be a full Chinese name, including a Chinese family name).
A great girl's name I've run across a several times: Swallow.
And I think our all-time favorite wacky English name came from a friend's student: Solvent. She found it in the dictionary and liked the sound.

[Peacock]

Lemmy Caution why do you always make me want to move to China?

[fiddlesticks]

I hope Swallow and Solvent never get together without the presence of their mutual friend, Ipecac.

[puxzkkx]

I've known ESL students at an old school under the names of Bird, Mint, Cookie, Snowy, Cake, Sky, Bank, Benz, Mo, Wilson and Brian, among others...

I like Benz (here in China, nobody says Mercedes). Surprised I haven't heard that before. Cake ranks pretty high. Here in China, I've met people English-named Pebble, Three, and Bovey ... and an IT guy who went by the name of Puter.

My favorites are when Chinese people take on Western family names as well. Examples I've run across: Linda Green, Panther Robinson and Rockefeller Steele. (I guess this isn't as strange as it seems, since if a Westerner adopts a Chinese name, it will be a full Chinese name, including a Chinese family name).
A great girl's name I've run across a several times: Swallow.
And I think our all-time favorite wacky English name came from a friend's student: Solvent. She found it in the dictionary and liked the sound.

Solvent! Haha.
Bank and Benz were brothers and, of course, they were both really rich - which leads me to think that their mother chose their English names as a way of showing off.

I knew very few Koreans or Japanese kids who adopted English names - usually it was the Chinese or Thai kids (the Thai kids are definitely understandable, seeing as their real names have upwards of 20 syllables).

[MichaelB]

I've just got back from lunch with Márta Mészarós, who confirmed that her name is pronounced "Maarta Mehsaroosh" (the last vowel perhaps not quite as long as a full 'oo'). We're in Poland, where most people have been getting it wrong, because in Polish 'sz' is pronounced 'sh' while 's' is usually a plain 's', but in Hungarian it's the other way round. (i.e. István Szabó is 'Ishtvaan Saboo')

Pawel Pawlikowski was also there - his name is pronounced exactly as written after substituting all the 'w's for 'v's - i.e. Pavel Pavlikovski.

[GaryC]

How is Márta Mészarós's English these days? When I saw her interviewed at the NFT as part of a retrospective twenty years ago, she was speaking via an interpreter.

[MichaelB]

How is Márta Mészarós's English these days? When I saw her interviewed at the NFT as part of a retrospective twenty years ago, she was speaking via an interpreter.

Her French is much better, but her English isn't bad at all - we've had no problems communicating.

[Camera Obscura]

My favorites are when Chinese people take on Western family names as well. Examples I've run across: Linda Green, Panther Robinson and Rockefeller Steele. (I guess this isn't as strange as it seems, since if a Westerner adopts a Chinese name, it will be a full Chinese name, including a Chinese family name).
A great girl's name I've run across a several times: Swallow.
And I think our all-time favorite wacky English name came from a friend's student: Solvent. She found it in the dictionary and liked the sound.

Rockefeller Steele is my favorite. Just brilliant! I'd like to meet this guy.

I understand that in English language schools and English courses in China, the students always have to choose English names, which is kind of understandable for teaching purposes, but as far as I know it's not common practice in other Asian countries. Anyway, part of my family is Chinese and one my cousins teaches English (he's half Australian/Chinese) at some fancy English school in Beijing, and once they had a student who wanted to enrol as Edward the Confessor. Now, they explained to him he couldn't enrol under this name, and he had to give his real (Chinese) name, if only for administrative or tax purposes or something, but he claimed this was his real name, and from what I understood from my cousin, he genuinely thought this was a 'normal' name in England. Now, I'm not sure if he actually was registered with the Chinese authorities as "Edward the Confessor", but for his English courses, I think they made a compromise so he went through a couple of classes as Edward C.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I may well have hallucinated this -- since I can't find evidence of it anywhere on the vast vast internet -- but I'm almost certain I once saw a cheap shot-on-video Chinese movie directed by a guy named "Batman."

And for the record, Fruit Chan's Chinese name is "Chan Gwo" (陳果), where the "Gwo" translates quite literally as "fruit." It sounds less strange in Chinese.

[thirtyframesasecond]

An actor, not a director....Zbigniew Cybulski?

[MichaelB]

An actor, not a director....Zbigniew Cybulski?

This one's surprisingly straightforward - aside from the final consonant of the first name and the first consonant of the surname, it's pretty much as spelt: ZBIG-nee-ev Tsi-BUL-ski.

And the other famous film Zbigniew, Rybczyński, pronounces his surname Rib-CHIN-ski, with a faint hint of 'ng' on the 'n'.

[zedz]

the other famous film Zbigniew, Rybczyński

This has to be the quote of the week!

(But I'll wager that Z. Preisner might have something to say about this)

[Grenasse]

Well, I found this thread and I think, I can be kind of helpful. At least a little bit

I find Eastern European names to be the most difficult. They are often completely different to how the name would be said in English.

But the spelling is usually completely phonetic, so once you've mastered the rules, you can usually get it right first time.

Walerian Borowczyk - Valerian Bo-rov-chick (or Bo-roff-chick?)

Sounds good to me - I don't know about the distinction between 'rov' and 'roff', but since you'll doubtless have a strong non-Polish accent anyway it hardly matters.

Jan Lenica - Yan Len-eat-za (or Len-it-za?)

The Quay Brothers seem to think it's 'Len-it-za', and I know they've discussed his work with Poles - I'm assuming their best mate Andrzej Klimowski knows how to get it right!

Right, I'm going to stop guessing Polish pronunciation and stick to what I do actually know:

Jerzy Kawalerowicz - Jurt-see Ka...No chance, anybody know how to say this one?

At a guess, 'Yerzhy Kavalerovitch', but that's not exactly gospel.

I agree about Eastern European names and their difficulty. For sure they can be hard even for me - like some Czech or Hungarian. Even some of polish are hard to spell for me sometimes, at least for the first time.

MichaelB: He He. Yes, you're partly right but when someone like me read such a thing it's hard to do not at least a wink Tell this to many people around me who are at my age and still have problems with many words to spell them right. I have them too sometimes. With the names it's even more hard, like in French or Spanish - the rules of phonetic language don't stick to them always. So, once you say the "s" on the end, once you can't do this. The same thing happens in Polish. Sometimes this "mastering the rules" takes people many years to conquer. Especially that when you decline in Polish you need to change endings which is pain in the ass for foreigners. For example when you simply say Krzysztof Kieślowski it simple. But when you decline and say that Blind Chance is made by .... Krzysztofa Kieślowskiego, Kieślowskiemu, Kieślowskim and so forth...I will avoid this.

Anyway

Walerian Borowczyk - Valerian Bo-rov-chick (or Bo-roff-chick?) - Yes it's almost - but mostly strong rov than a roff. Michael is right that it must be with strong accent which I quess it's hard to hit for non-Polish people. But there is a difference between "rov" and "roff". So everytime when you have a Polish name with "row", you need to spell hard "v" instead of soft "ff". "W" in Polish as people marked earlier - is your "v" - always. There aren't exceptions.

Zbigniew Cybulski - as Michael wrote ZBIG-nee-ev Tsi-BUL-ski - but a little detail. This "Tsi" which stays as Polish "Cy" can't be spell exactly like "tsi" with this "i" at the end, because it's too soft and make it sounds too much funny in Polish (I mean it). It's something more like "tsyyy". I can't type "tsy" because you will spell it like a "sky". This "y" after "C" it's something like the end of for example - lunacy or finally - these "y" at the end of these words are the closest one to that.

Zbigniew, Rybczyński - the same as above. As Michael wrote - "Rib-CHIN-ski, with a faint hint of 'ng' on the 'n'." This "Rib" as "Ry' is the same thing as with Cybulski.

Although those "ń" "ś" "ź" "ć"(especially) are really hard to explain. Those consonants exist (phonetically) as I guess only in Polish (some kind of combinacy of them occure in Czech or countries from ex-Yugoslavia).

So in both cases - Rybczyński and Kieślowski - those "ń" and "ś" stay properly as "ng" and "sh" with a faint hint like Michael wrote. Though I guess you would need to hear that closely to get what I mean. It's obvious and many languages have such a tricks with spelling.

Jerzy Kawalerowicz - 'Yerzhy Kavalerovitch' - it's the closest one But I would suggest even use longer "veetch" instead of "vitch". I guess for a non-Polish people who spell that name, it will sound much more correct because Polish people have some tendency to spell ends of the words like that one with some kind of extension. But a little one, not too long.

Krzysztof Kieślowski - KSHI (it's the same issue as I wrote above with "Tsi-BUL-ski" meaning this "KSHI" and "TSI") so it would be KSHI-SH-TOFF (the soft one, not "v") and KYEE-SH-LOVSKEE with this "sh" with a faint hint.

Jerzy Skolimowski - simply SKO-LEE-MO-VSKI or rahter VSKEE

as for example Hungarian - Márta Mészarós - I hear for the first time that most people in Poland have been gettng it wrong I've heard always "Marta MEhsaroosh" as well because I've noticed most people here rather know that "s" in Hungarian isn't the same one as plain, Polish "s". Well, maybe that's because my surname has Hungarian provenience ...

Someone wrote earlier about Andrzej Wajda so I will add only that Wajda can be simply spelled as VAYDA. No more, no less. I don't remember now if someone explains how to speel Andrzej but it's late here and I need to think how it would be spell good, mostly because of this hard "drz" which is tough.

So, although. Sorry for any lack in explaining. Since I can risk and say that my Polish is exceptionally good, I can hardly say that my English is at least average. Fell free though to ask me about Polish names.

Thanks God, none of the Polish filmmakers have names like... Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz or Szczepan Dzierżoniowicz or Sprzeszczka-Niedołóż Małgorzata...whatever, my tongue's tangled.

[MichaelB]

Sometimes this "mastering the rules" takes people many years to conquer. Especially that when you decline in Polish you need to change endings which is pain in the ass for foreigners. For example when you simply say Krzysztof Kieślowski it simple. But when you decline and say that Blind Chance is made by .... Krzysztofa Kieślowskiego, Kieślowskiemu, Kieślowskim and so forth...

This sort of thing regularly drives my colleagues in the BFI's Filmographic Unit up the wall - they like to work from frame grabs of actual onscreen credits as the most authoritative source, but with Polish and indeed most Slavic films they have to take case endings into account. Something like 'Film Andrzeja Wajdy' ("A film by Andrzej Wajda") is obvious - but if the name isn't a household one, it gets much tougher.

[Skritek]

I'm a little surprised that there is not one person at BFI with good knowledge of one Slavic tongue, as then it wouldn't really be difficult; since, even if the endings differ, the system is the same and thus mostly easy to determine the name, even in another language.