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Re: Americanized Pronunciation, how do you feel about it?
I simply respect how people want to be called. I have a knack for languages, so I can get the hang of saying anyone's name correctly if they want me to. But in most of these situations, I'll ask the people about their pronunciation preferences and they honestly don't mind. I don't think I'd really mind either. I think it would be interesting to be called slightly differently depending on the language. Sometimes when I'm in a Spanish-speaking setting, I just have people call me Luz. I don't really care what people call me (as long as it's not a name I hate). You say you "believe a person's name is special to them." But it's really nothing sacred to a lot of people. Some people love their name, some people would love to have a chance to be called something else. I think for your English class, you should let the kids choose whether they'd like to take on a foreign name or not. Some people prefer to, while others don't.There's one point I agree with you very strongly on though. Americans "Americanize" foreign names and words entirely too much with no thought to the correct pronunciation. It's stemmed from some cultural superiority complex, and it's just rude when people prefer that someone pronounce something culturally correct, but then many won't even make a real effort. I do think that many Americans are more inconsiderate than most in that regard because, culturally, not enough energy is focused on understanding of cultural differences. In America, differences are generally tolerated, but they are rarely understood.
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