How could you spell this pseudo word in a way people would know how to pronounce it on sight?

“Geen bean” in my head sounds like green bean without the “r.” Throw in an apostrophe, maybe? G’een bean.

It is the r that causes the hard g so that is your problem.

I like your solution of gheen bean. I would pronounce that gheen.

I like gheen, too. I would never think of pronouncing that zsheen. I don’t see a zh sound there.

That’s the English language for ya… there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to pronunciation.

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Personally, I like using the apostrophe… that is its intended use for contracted words.

@robmandu has a point. “G’een bean” would be pronounced the way you intend.

Either of the above two would be fine. My aunt’s last name was Ghee pronounced just as you like without the n. I would go with that because it is familiar to me.

I like all of the solutions offered. I am glad this wasn’t as painful as my brain was making it. Like I said, it wasn’t a major thing, but it’s one of those things that pops into my head at 3AM and then I can’t sleep.

Thanks for the ideas.

I would read “geen bean” the way you intended, and I am pretty good at phoenetics.

I think “geen” by itself would make me think “jeen.” But, combined with “bean,” it seems pretty clear. To me, anyhow.

“Geen” would have to be spelled “geene” or “gen” to change it to a “j.”

Why would it be pronounced with “j”? There are plenty of words that aren’t: geek, get, give, gill, geyser, geld, gecko, gear.

g’een bean?

If you spell it ‘green’ people know how to pronounce it even if they can’t.

@morphail

I agree: there are also gang, goose, goofy, gas, guarantee, and gynoterrestrial.

I’m going to try to give some ideas that haven’t been said yet.
ggeen
gkeen / gkene
dgeen
These all follow the idea of adding an extra (silent, because it is unpronounceable) consonant to the G that forces anyone who tries to pronounce it make the G a hard G.

@Brian1946 except that “ga go gu” are always hard, while “gi ge” are sometimes soft.

This was silly. I didn’t really want to spell out Geen Bean specifically. I just thought—what if I wrote a fantasy novel and for whatever reason, I wanted to have a character named Gheen? I was also like.. shouldn’t we be able to spell every possible syllable combination in the world phonetically?

Seriously.. I think my brain looks for excuses to give me pointless insomnia.

@keobooks We could turn the English alphabet into a syllabary. That would put an end to any questions involving the spelling and pronunciation of words.

@PhiNotPi No it wouldn’t! Different pronunciations and dialects would still exist, and there could still be more than one way to spell the same syllable.

Or mebi wi kæn rajt lajk ðɪs ænd mek ɛvriθɪŋ iziər, no?

mebi ðɪs wʊd bi bɛtər?

DIs w@n mayt du D@ dZAb {z wEl.

wət ə hɛdek. ju kæn trænzlet ðɪs hɪr.

mods… please don’t delete this legitimate answer!

@morphail It would in a perfect artificial syllabary (not in naturally occurring one, though). I made the assumption that we would make the syllabary to be as perfect as possible, with only one character per syllable and vice versa.

@PhiNotPi You could do the same with a constructed alphabet.

@morphail True, but I just like the idea of having a syllabary.

Make her think of an angry lion or dog. Grrrrr. Grrrrr.

Green bean.