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Re: How to pronounce last names
by acnecyst
5/25/2013, 9:54 PM
in reply to a message by HailCthulhu
How do you pronounce the nguyen name?____________
Acne Cyst
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- kittykat2006   +2
5/27/2013, 12:33 AM
In English it's pronounced 'win' or 'when'. Of course in Chinese it's more like saying the word wing minus the wi, but this sound doesn't actually exist in English as a start of words which is way 'win' is used instead.
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- ClaudiaS   +1
6/1/2013, 8:46 AM
Nguyen is Vietnamese, not Chinese. We have a friend with this surname who pronounced it slowly for me. It's "Ngwin": NG (the sound at the end of "sing") immediately followed by WIN. It is unnatural for English-speakers to pronounce NG at the beginning of a word, but not difficult.
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- movieskel
6/4/2013, 10:24 PM
Thanks. i have learned something
__
movies
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- HailCthulhu (dramaelf)   +2
5/26/2013, 10:03 AM
I always heard nuh-GWIN, but I'm not sure.
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- তন্ময় ভট্টাচার্য্য (guest)   +1
5/26/2013, 1:24 PM
I don't know this particular name, but it is likely to be prenasalized stop /ⁿg/. It is the probably close to the sound in English finger, except in English, this combination doesn't appear syllable initially. So, one could start by realizing that one can keep humming a nasal like nnnnnnn without any other vowel, then think of saying nnnnnnguyen, and then shortening the initial sequence down so that the ng takes roughly the same time as a g would in that position.
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- তন্ময় ভট্টাচার্য্য (guest)
5/27/2013, 7:24 AM