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rohmerin wrote: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.

Deborah is pronounced Kaa...r i think.

Post-vocalic 'r' is a quaint Americanism, I'm afraid, so no r at the end.

I know, but it's more fun this way

It would be even more fun witha trilled Spanish Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

"Kerr" - as in "ay caramba!"

I've always assumed that 'Dieterle" was pronounced 'Dee-ter-lee'.

zedz wrote:"Kerr" - as in "ay caramba!"

"There's a new star in Deborah Kerr," or something like that

Gracias, but another problem of mine is when I say "Deborah" it doesn't sound UK English, I sound Spanglish ](*,) that I don't know if it's fun, well, for me it¡s not. I feel very shamed with my RRRRs and specially our SSSSSSs like snakes.

What about Borzage? I say his name always in a French way.

In his American Cinema documentary, Scorsese pronounced Borzage as Bor-ZAY-gee (with a hard 'g' in the last syllable), which I found so surprising I assumed it was authentic. I don't remember how they pronounced it in the box set documentary, but I don't remember it being different. If I ever had occasion to say the name out loud I'd follow like a sheep.

How many syllables in Vincente Minnelli's first name? I've heard knowledgeable people take the two- and the three-syllable approach. Is it something he was flexible about?

Vin-cen-te has got 3 syllables in Italian, but 2 in English.
My English is not perfect, but trust me, my Italian is. My accent seems from Torino (99% of Italians said to me that).

Borzage sounds better in a French way (bor-sashhhhh ) than in the Sorsese's. Sorry, I'm a snobbish sheep

But Scorsese is right.

Evgenii Bauer? And is it Evgenii or Yevgeni?

YevGEHnee, with a hard 'g', as in 'get'.

Thanks!

zedz is right on the pronunciation. There isn't necessarily one correct way to spell his name in our alphabet. His first name in Cyrillic is Евгений.

Murdoch wrote:Evgenii Bauer? And is it Evgenii or Yevgeni?

The English transliteration is "Yevgeni" and is obviously "wrong". The correct spelling is "Evgenij", which is pronounced as zedz said.

PS: and yes, Borzage is probably the strangest surname ever.

"Yevgeni" is actually only one letter off from the British Standard and Russian passport romanizations (Yevgeniy). There's about half a dozen romanizations in semi-common use, it's kind of a mess.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov tripped up at least one sports anchor...

No one asked, but I have it on good authority that Pál Fejös is pronounced Pal Feh-yoosh.

I still look at the name Naruse and pronounce it mentally Nah-roos. And I just realized it yesterday when I thought, "wait, that pronunciation doesn't make any sense... Damn phonics." Is Na-ru-say the correct way to pronounce his name?

I have no idea about the real pronunciation but I think it is as it is spelled Na-ru-se. At least that sound most right to me so thats what I use

I believe the actual correct pronunciation is NAH-roo-say (I think you're generally supposed to emphasize the third from last syllable) but the Americanized version would be nah-ROO-say (second from last syllable, consistent with how most Americans pronounce Kurosawa).

swo17 wrote:(I think you're generally supposed to emphasize the third from last syllable)

Ku-RO-sa-wa?