How on earth

[trophywench]

can the last name of Iga Swiatek, the Polish tennis player be pronounced as it is, with an N (apparently) inserted immediately before the T ?
- Sssh - wee (or vee)- on - tek.

OK so the name Rajkowsky is Rye - coff - ski, but that is completely logical to me. Does an N sound not exist in the Polish alphabet but needs one pronounced when a word's spelled including an 'at' - so that bit pronounced 'ant' ?

 

[Carlos]

can the last name of Iga Swiatek, the Polish tennis player be pronounced as it is, with an N (apparently) inserted immediately before the T ?
- Sssh - wee (or vee)- on - tek.

OK so the name Rajkowsky is Rye - coff - ski, but that is completely logical to me. Does an N sound not exist in the Polish alphabet but needs one pronounced when a word's spelled including an 'at' - so that bit pronounced 'ant' ?

Polish has some additional marks in some letters that change the sound, the a in her name is really ą, which explains the pronunciation. The proper spelling is Świątek.

 

[trophywench]

Aaaah - right! Like eg a tilde in Spanish, or acute/grave and circumflex/cedilla accents in French.

Thank you!

 

[Nayshiftin]

brrr. idiot here it too complex for me. Wow you are up on this i just shy away. Did you do languages at University? Or just interested in this. Wow

 

[Martin.A]

German can be the same - there's no 't' in the spelling of Schwarzenegger, and Świątek herself might wonder how on earth 'yacht' is pronounced the way it is.

 

[khskel]

.....and UK place names etc.

I come from Keighley and that's not the worst. Watch the footy results on Saturday aft. Tottenham pronounced Spurs.

 

[Sally71]

English must be absolutely dreadful to learn as a foreign language. Pronunciation-wise at least. I was on the London underground once and overheard a group of Germans working out where they were going, they decided they had to get of at Ly-Chester Square… (Leicester Square)
And what about though, through, thought, trough, bough, enough - all using the same group of letters yet all pronounced completely differently!

 

[Sarahp]

.....and UK place names etc.

I come from Keighley and that's not the worst. Watch the footy results on Saturday aft. Tottenham pronounced Spurs.

Have family near keighley and so confuses my Somerset born husband, mind you he’s even worse with Irish place names, least he tries though and learned quick to ask before attempting the spelling or how to pronounce

 

[Martin.A]

We lived in Germany for a while when I was a child and I became fascinated by the way letters were pronounced differently in German. It made me choose it as my foreign language at secondary school.

 

[Val1133]

.... and how about some Irish names e.g. Naimbh (Neave), Siobhan (Shevaun)
Place just outside Dublin called Dun Laoghhaire (Dun Leary)
Omagh (Oma), Armagh (Armaaa) - both in Northern Ireland with the same ending and pronounced differently.

I love languages, especially German