When reading the name Melanson, how do you think that it's pronounced?
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Do you have to spell it out for everyone who ever hears it?
Mel Awn Son
And the French pronunciation spelled slightly different: Melançon
The reason why I asked this is because everyone always butcher my last name.
I usually get “Melon(fruit)son”.
@Mama_Cakes
The reason why I asked this is because everyone always butcher my last name.
I remember a dude named Pierre Sideofbeef who had the same problem. ;-)
I know now but I would have said Melon son….
I have to correct them! I used to get Melonhead! ;)
This is me doing my best french pronunciation. Almost, but not quite like the guy’s version from France.
Don’t feel bad @Mama_Cakes No one has ever said or spelled my last name correctly. Even though my last name is spelled exactly how it is pronounced. And it always sounds really awful like calling Mr. Spock Mr. Spook. Not very flattering.
OMG! You sound so sexy! My ancestors were from France! I don’t speak a word of French except for my last name.
People make a mess with my last name, too. Half the time I don’t bother correcting them. Unless they’re someone who I am friends with or are going to deal with a lot, does it matter?
Depends where you are. If you’re in the US, I would guess “melon son”. If you’re in Quebec, it would be pronounced as you did in your Forvo link. :)
Whoo! I was right XD
I originally though mel an son, but since I am part french (levesque, can you get any more french than that) I figured it should sound more like men awn son
” If you’re in the US, I would guess “melon son”.”
That’s not right, though.
Hmm. What’s the origin of the name?
This guy does the French pronunciation well.
@Mama_Cakes I may have to get a room or a bucket of cold water : P Damn!
@Kardamom I would love to hear you pronounce my name with a French accent!
Caaa der mah
Listen to the name said here.
Although, @XOIIO may do it better. He’s the Frenchy. :)
@Mama_Cakes: Very cagey to not tell us it is a French name.
(Like the difference between Luke and Luc (that French “ew” that is so difficult to get right, although I have a wonderful trick).
@Mama_Cakes I loved the voice of the first male newscaster. He sounds a bit like some of the cast of a Scottish TV series that I’ve been watching called Monarch of the Glen.
This is apparently the spelling of my name in French, cardamome. I have no idea how that would be pronounced. Anyone?
Car da mome (long o, rhymes with home).
You soften the “k” sound, soften the a and use the French “r”
Soften it like Melancon (with a cédille)?
I, too, am curious about this softening of the “k” sound… I’m not aware of there being a difference in pronunciation of the hard C and the K in French.
I could be wrong- even though I did take 1.5 yrs. of French about 50 years ago ;-p – but it seems that the French aren’t particularly fond of the letter K, although they do use it occasionally.
Here’s the Google translation for “The king knew who killed his knife and drank his kerosene!”:
“Le roi savait qui avait tué son couteau et a bu son kérosène.”
@Mama_Cakes I don’t see why it is not obvious and understandable to you that people are going to pronounce your last name incorrectly. They are pronouncing as they would read it in English. Especially in the US where we speak very little French, except maybe in states that border QC and Louisana. I had never seen that last name before I knew you. I would bet Americans who have that last name, at least some of them pronounce it melon-son or mel-in-sin or mel-an-sin or some variation there of. We butcher foreign names all the time, even the ones that look easy. You may have seen me tell the story of the racer we know Rafeal Matos. Everyone initially in the racing circuit was calling him May-tose (like toes on your feet but the s is like s not z). It annoyed him. I told him, if it was spelled Mattos, with two t’s they would get it right off the bat more likely. He didn’t understand why because English was his second language and in his language the vowel a is always pronounced the same. He kept correcting them and eventually they all started to get it right.
I agree with @JLeslie. The English pronounciation, which is what the majority would use, is Melon-son, and the name looks pretty basic.
@jca Well… to someone from Quebec, it looks like an obviously French name. It is exactly the sort of thing that we laugh about people pronouncing incorrectly. It’s all in your point of view, I suppose. But yes, I would expect Americans to mispronounce it, just as I expect the Québécois to mispronounce my obviously Anglo name.
” But yes, I would expect Americans to mispronounce it, just as I expect the Québécois to mispronounce my obviously Anglo name.”
Right.
Anyhow, I put this up just for fun. The only person who got it right (in my lifetime) when first meeting me was my first grade French teacher haha. Madame Meyers.
@glacial: I am thinking about the initial sound in the French cardamome. compared to the English version, which starts out carda. We, the linguistically impaired Americans, say car (automobile) and the French say car (because) in very different ways.
@Mama_Cakes: Again, I was referring to pronunciation of cardamome rather than your name.
@gailcalled I think I see what you mean. It is not the sort of thing I would ever have noticed without someone pointing it out, but if I pay attention to what my face is doing when I say “cardamome” and compare it to what it does when I say “carrying”, I find that that for the French word, I set myself up to speak more nasally before I begin saying anything, which I suppose could be said to slightly influence the pronunciation of the “c”. Maybe. A tiny bit.
@gailcalled No. I took French throughout elementary school and a few years of high school. I was told that I had wonderful pronunciation, though by a few French teachers.
My father’s family is French Acadian. They settled in Nova Scotia. That’s where the last name comes from.
@glacial; Try saying car (the French for because),
note where your tongue hits your palate, and then say car as in automobile and note the subtly different positions of all that soft stuff inside your mouth.
@Mama_ That’s tough. I got a few words and gathered that they were talking about Canadian cinema (I think). The folks from Montreal used to come down to Lake Placid when I summered there and their French was challenging. They rolled their r’s as though they were from Marseilles (or Rome) rather than Paris.
^^^This is why I love Fluther. Getting to listen to two guys speaking Acadian French before I go to the dentist and get tortured and bankrupted due to toothache. Thank you for the diversion.
I hope that everything goes well at the dentist. Enjoy that saltwater tank while you’re there! Another distraction!
My brother was lucky enough to get a French name. “Guy”. When with the french pronunciation of the last name it sounds great. Guy being pronounced G-ee (with a hard G as in garden).
Gee whiz.
I lived with a French family in Burgundy during the summer before I went to college. My French brother was called Guy. When I had to explain how to spell my name, it was “Jay, ah, ee, ell.”
Fish tank is at the oncologist’s, where I go, mercifully, only once a year. (What a memory you have.)
This thread made me think, I’d really like to take my partner on a trip to the East Coast. Starting with Nova Scotia. We’ll hit the other Eastern provinces. Prince Edward Island is lovely, as well. Anne of Green Gables anyone?
Oh well, your dentist should have one, as well. All dentist offices should have them!
^^ I’ll tell him. Given what he charges, he ought to be able to afford one. There are bird feeders outside each window, however, so I’ll get to watch the chickadees and finches enjoying themselves.
@glacial; Listen to the French pronunciation of glacial.
Spellcheck won’t allow me to spell it glaciale for some reason.
@gailcalled You realize that I’m fluently bilingual, right? ;)
A good friend of mine has a son named Daniel. She said when he was little, he got upset at a French woman friend of theirs who was calling him “Danielle.” He did not understand that in French, the pronounciation of Daniel sounds like “Danielle.”
@jca Indeed, Daniel and Danielle are pronounced the same in French.
It’s funny, I had an anglo classmate in high school who insisted on pronouncing the name of a certain famous author as “Stephanie King”. The first time I heard this, I just thought she’d misspoken… the second time, I corrected her. She responded, “Well, that’s impossible – Stephen is spelled with a V!” She was certain that I was wrong, and that Stephen was somehow an alternate spelling for Stephanie.
So I guess this sort of thing is not strictly limited to people who speak different languages! It definitely gave me a shock.
I knew two Guy’s growing up and one pronounced it the French way the other in English. In the end it doesn’t matter what langauge you speak or where the name is from, I think we should do our best to pronounce it as the person who bears the name prefers. Sometimes it is very difficult, because some sounds don’t exist in other languages, but a valiant try is a nice thing to do.
I do happen to know several people who don’t care how their name is pronounced and even use two pronounciations themselves. Like I know a family with the last name Jimenez; they say jim-en-ez and he-men-ez interchangeably, they don’t care.
@glacial That just makes no sense. If she had said stef-fan, or stef-fen that would make sense, but adding anie to the end that does not exist?
I went to school with a girl with that name; she pronounced it mel ANN sun.
I’m kinda turned on by the French pronunciation of my name, Ca du monde :)
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