In Reply to: I've several times been in a position to have to take rollcall posted by ej on January 05, 2025 at 21:39:43
Additionally, I did a lot of ESL classes. And after getting kids who are first day in school in the U.S., I already knew how to great in Spanish, tried real hard to learn how to greet in viet namese. I couldn’t get it, but I tried. And I blew a kids’ mind when I greeted him with “namaste.”
And I did my best to correctly pronounce each kid’s name. I was conscientious about it. But I guarantee that I never sounded like a native speaker on the Asian names, and I was hopeless on Cambodian and Thai names.
So, as I said, I’m sure there are names you are mispronouncing - have grace for those who mispronounce yours.
I think having your friends and teachers make a best effort at pronouncing your name is different from insisting that the international media can’t pronounce your name in the way it would in the language they are broadcast in.
You’re going to get broadcasters pronouncing the R in Mara like a d or a t and never getting it right. But if that’s his choice, great! That’s his choice.