How to Pronounce Your Favorite Director's Name

[TMDaines]

I quite like Töm. Deed Poll here I come!

[fiddlesticks]

Everybody's a (dia)critic!
Love, Fïddlêstìçkß

[Snob mon cul]

People at forvo.com, most if not all native speakers, pronouncing some of the names asked about in this thread:

Aki Kaurismäki
Miklós Jancsó
Andrzej Wajda
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Satyajit Ray
Luis Buñuel
Eric Rohmer
Catherine Breillat
Pedro Almodóvar
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Guillermo Del Toro
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Jan Å vankmajer
Alain Resnais
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Emir Kusturica
Bo Widerberg
Wang Xiaoshuai
Maurice Pialat
Georges Méliès
Marguerite Duras
Victor Erice
Abbas Kiarostami

[fiddlesticks]

Not a pronunciation question, but rather one of name order:
Recently there have been some posts in this forum that have left me completely at sea regarding Thai names. I can't seem to find anything definitive on the question of name order. Is it East Asian style FamilyName GivenName or Western style GivenName FamilyName? More specifically, which is the family name for Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and for Apichatpong Weerasethakul?

[TMDaines]

Thai names are FirstName FamilyName. Also Thais change their family names fairly often and each family name has to be unique to each family.

[onedimension]

The Hou Hsiao-Hsien girl sounds hot.

[fiddlesticks]

Thai names are FirstName FamilyName. Also Thais change their family names fairly often and each family name has to be unique to each family.

Thanks. I wonder, then, why virtually everything I turn up on the web, from Wikipedia to Thaifilm.com to The Bangkok Post to our own Forum Member of the Year refers to Pen-Ek Ratanaruang as "Pen-Ek" when using just one name. I would expect them to use the family name in such situations, but I can't recall ever seeing this director referred to (in print) as "Ratanaruang." (On the other hand, he is "Pen-Ek Ratanaruang" in imdb, which is usually ruthless in applying its "GivenName FamilyName" rule.) I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just confused and looking to be certain about this...especially since I store my DVDs alphabetized by director!

[TMDaines]

A vast majority of Thai first names are also unique too and I'm guessing what ever name is referred to depends on the social situation.

[aox]

Bela Tarr

is it:

Bay-Lah, Bay-ah, Bee-Lah, Bee-yah, Bah-Lah?

[tojoed]

Be-bop-a-lula.

[MichaelB]

Bela Tarr

is it:

Bay-Lah, Bay-ah, Bee-Lah, Bee-yah, Bah-Lah?

I'd say "Bay-lah", but that's going from a half-remembered talk on Béla Bartók given by a Hungarian.

[aox]

Bela Tarr

is it:

Bay-Lah, Bay-ah, Bee-Lah, Bee-yah, Bah-Lah?

I'd say "Bay-lah", but that's going from a half-remembered talk on Béla Bartók given by a Hungarian.

Cool, that's how I have been pronouncing it. Like the musician, Bela Fleck. Just wasn't sure if this is right. Anyone else have some thoughts?

[Zot!]

I can confirm that it is BAY-luh, like in "duh", not lah. And the last name would be the same short sound, rather than the "tawr" sound of the english word tar. Either way, you are getting awfully close. One of the few simple things about Hungarian is that is phonetic, so the pronunciations are actually pretty easy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_alphabet

[Duncan Hopper]

Here's another one I can be 100% certain about - Quay (as in Brothers) is pronounced "Kway".

I found it amusing that this was explained in the dictionary included in the bfi set. In the US, the word quay has to be one of the most commonly mis-pronounced (as "kway") words. I've had well-educated, extremely intelligent people look at me funny when I pronounced it correctly ("key").

That was literally a last-minute addition, made between the first and second proofs of the booklet.

On the same day, I heard someone at work pronounced their name "key" and since we had a tiny bit of space left, so I thought "let's nail this once and for all" and added that entry after I realised that nowhere on the DVD, despite two interviews and six commentaries, is the name "Quay" uttered out loud.

So is it 'Kway' or 'Key'?
I have to say I've never heard anyone pronounce it 'key' before, and that includes people I know that have worked with the Quay Brothers.

[MichaelB]

The word 'quay' is normally pronounced 'key', but the identically-written surname of identical twin animators Stephen and Timothy is pronounced 'kway'.

But I've heard people pronouncing it 'key' quite a bit, especially in the run-up to the release of the BFI's DVD of their short films - which is why I put it in the booklet in the first place.

[Matt]

Here's the literary version of this thread (but they're still wrong on Anaïs Nin).

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Sacha Guitry, anyone? I've been saying it Sah-shah Gee-tree, but I think I'm wrong.

[Snob mon cul]

Anaïs Nin
Sacha Guitry

[tojoed]

I've always said Sasher Gweetree, but I don't know if that's right either.

[Doctor Sunshine]

I thought Forvo mooted this thread.

[Lemmy Caution]

So if one were to develop Foreign Accent Syndrome, would they start pronouncing, say, french directors' names properly (or in this case Chinese).

[tenia]

Sacha Guitry, anyone? I've been saying it Sah-shah Gee-tree, but I think I'm wrong.

You're right, it's Sah-shah Gee-tree, with short vowels ([a] and ) and the G + u making Gee not like in Jesus, but like in Grand.

[MichaelB]

Since I'm going to have to introduce him on stage on Sunday, any tips on Alexei Balabanov? I could always ask him beforehand, but that seems a bit awkward.

I'm guessing AlekSEYee BalaBANov, but any more informed input would be greatly appreciated.

[TMDaines]

Since I'm going to have to introduce him on stage on Sunday, any tips on Alexei Balabanov? I could always ask him beforehand, but that seems a bit awkward.

I'm guessing AlekSEYee BalaBANov, but any more informed input would be greatly appreciated.

I'm pretty sure an "ee" sound on the end is erroneous and would be a how an English speaker would anglicise it [-X

I'd go for: ah-lyek-SAY or ah-lyek-SAI

I think the surname is OK.

[rohmerin]

I have to confess that I've never and ever knew how to pronounce Borzage and Dieterle, and, well, she's an actress, but Deborah Kerr, when I try to say it in the propper way, I can not.
Deborah Kerr is just the perfect example of all the difficulties - impossibilities for a Spanish speaker when he (me) tries not to sound Spaniard.