Non-English Names

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after a lifetime of "fatty patty boom bah laddy" taken in good humor i'm not feeling the rage here

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I’m a super white lady living in a pretty multicultural area. Sadly I feel like I mostly experience the opposite here from my non-white friends. Those with names from their ancestral culture (is that a good way to put it? Not sure) either ignore our mispronunciations or simply adopt western names. I had a coworker from Shanghai whose name I always said wrong because of the inflection. It makes me sad that they kind of give up trying to teach people to pronounce their names correctly, but at the same time, I get it. It’s a lot of constant work and some of us white people, or other non-whites from different cultures, just aren’t going to try or see why it’s important. I probably wouldn’t force the issue either if it were me, but man, what a constant way to feel othered.

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You don't even have to go outside of English for examples. See: the pen/pin distinction in English: some speakers have it, some can hear it when I speak, and some can't.

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Funnily enough, Shawn is the anglicisation of the Irish name Seán, so spelled for the reasons outlined in the OP.

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Ah, see, here's the problem; I'm not Shawn either.

Brahvim Bhaktvatsal

I'd've pronounced it "Yu-shu-wann" first-try, probably.

𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍

It's true that everyone is different. I've known people across the spectrum, who'd pick English names they liked the sound of ("Pearl") and would refuse to tell me their given name; people who had long ago adopted nicknames to make it easier for foreigners ("JC", "Raj"); folks who obviously didn't give a shit ("eh, course enough"); but also the occasional person who'd go back and fourth with me on the pronunciation until we mutually realized it wasn't going to happen.

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Not hearing the difference is absolutely a thing. I took a university class on the nature of language and I still have clear memories of some of the example videos we watched when we studied the phenomenon. It’s a very “how is this possible” kind of feeling.

Iirc it just depends on the language(s) you spoke while developing. You could probably hear the difference when you were very little.

Dragon Rider (drag)

If you want everything in Chinese to spelled right, then learn Kanji.

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Yeah but that would make for an even shittier comic.