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ArchivesHow do you pronounce "Ottilie"?
I should probably know this, but for some reason I don't.
How do you pronounce "Ottilie"?
How do you pronounce "Ottilie"?
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Replies
There is a minor character (Alfred Ill's daughter) with this name in "Der Besuch der Alten Dame". Our German teacher (who was German) said OTT-i-lee and that's how I still say it now.
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Based on the two Ottilies I know, it sounds like OTTER-lee in English. Doesra sums up how other languages says it however, oh-TILL-ee-ay.
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That is actually a rather difficult sound to represent in (American) English. In the general American dialect, the "e" of "very" is rhotacized, that is, colored by the following /r/. In other words, we don't say ve-ry, we say vair-y, and that's not the sound at the end of Ottilie. It's more open than the "e" of "get" but without the glide of "day." Perhaps the easiest way to express it is as the vowel of "day" cut short.
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Meant it ´cos somebody said its o-till-ee-AY ;-)
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I'm sorry if that was how it was interpreted, as ClaudiaS said, it is difficult to represent the sound in English due to the different pronounciations of sounds. The way I wrote out the pronounciation as "oh-TILL-ee-ay" would be how I would say it as you mean it; the accent on the TILL softens the last syllable of ay. It's a bit of a strange sound to get across in English, I hadn't really thought of it before.
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So, we both meant the same ;-)
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I would say OTT-illy?
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Here in Germany its O-tee-lee-eh.
The last "e" is "e" as in v"e"ry.
The last "e" is "e" as in v"e"ry.
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