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Jennifer - will people be able to pronounce it properly?



TurtleonfireThreads: 9
Posts: 21
Joined: Sep 9, 09 		Edited by: Moderator   Oct 4, 09, 20:19 /  #
Will people have trouble pronouncing the name of my friend, Jennifer? She's thinking of changing it because she doesn't want to be called Yenny!
PolskaDollThreads: 44
Posts: 4,134
Joined: Jun 15, 07 		  Oct 4, 09, 20:27 /  #
Turtleonfire:
Will people have trouble pronouncing the name of my friend, Jennifer?

Possibly for a little while but they'll get used to it I imagine. Is your friend moving to Poland?

People adapt to different name pronunciation though. A lot of people in the UK got/are getting used to pronunciations of Polish names. Just takes a little time to get used to the difference. :)
TurtleonfireThreads: 9
Posts: 21
Joined: Sep 9, 09 		  Oct 4, 09, 20:34 /  #
She's going to be living in Poland for at least a year with her boyfriend...and will possibly be teaching English during that time....just out of interest, is there a different way she could spell her name to keep the English 'j' sound? :)
mavThreads: -
Posts: 10
Joined: Oct 4, 09 		  Oct 4, 09, 20:48 /  #
the closest sound to English 'j' would be Polish 'dż' but I don't think she should be that much concerned about her name being pronounced incorrectly as it shouldn't really... many young people know Jennifer Aniston and have no major problems with pronunciation of her name ;)
beazeeThreads: -
Posts: 46
Joined: Sep 9, 09 		  Oct 6, 09, 13:57 /  #
If a word sounds weird in Polish people tend to pronounce it English.

Thus no probs with Jessicas, Jeniffers...
znafca   Nov 2, 09, 03:53 /  #
Yup, I know a person in Konin (city), she is polish and her name is:

Dżesika Kiełbasa

That is not a joke, the spelling had to be polish and her parents watched to many shite on tv which made them brains collapse.
frdThreads: 8
Posts: 1,956
Joined: Feb 3, 09 		  Nov 2, 09, 04:06 /  #
There are actually people in Poland who go by the name of "Dżesika" or "Dżenifer" ;) they are usually Jehova witnesses...
mafketisThreads: 17
Posts: 1,880
Joined: Mar 31, 08 		  Nov 2, 09, 12:14 /  #
They'll generally pronounce it JEN-ee-fair.

Poles don't change j to y. On the other hand, the final -er sound doesn't exist in Polish and tends to be replaced by something that sounds like 'air' but with a Spanish style r at the end.
hancockThreads: 1
Posts: 118
Joined: Oct 18, 07 		  Nov 2, 09, 15:56 /  #
Strangely I have also heard it pronounced as in a French drzenifer much softer with a soft
d not Drzenifer with a hard one.
Polonius3Threads: 1,005
Posts: 4,833
Joined: Apr 11, 08 		  Nov 3, 09, 17:24 /  #
Jennifer is nothing mroe than one of the English equivalents of Genowefa. And the short form of that in Polish is Gienia - something every Pole can pronounce.

Genevieve also exists in English. The origin of this dithematic first name was Geno (a Roman clan) and the Germanic wifa (woman, wife).
frdThreads: 8
Posts: 1,956
Joined: Feb 3, 09 		  Nov 3, 09, 17:27 /  #
Polonius3:
Genowefa

That's so cruel.. I soo liked the name Jeniffer until now : (
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