As I recall my schoolboy German, (as taught by native german speakers).
Initial S in german is sometimes like english z, but in listening to native
speakers somewhere in between (and variable from speaker to speaker). "e"
in German is taught either as Bernd describes (short) or somewhere between
english "long e" and english "long a" long (also variable by speaker) My
inclinination was to that it is short. Bernd also asserts this. The
pronunciations soosah and soosuh are most likely English speaker use of the
uh (schwa) sound for final short e such as in "the" or "duh". My
German teachers used to refer to this and other anglicizations of German
pronunciation as "lazy" because typically the schwa sound is made with more
relaxed facial muscles. (try it). On the hand Andreas, another native
German, took it as long and equated the sound to English "long e" .
However, notice that he spelled his example susi. This is because the
German long i is pronounced like the english "long e". His long e may be
closer to "long e" than "long a" and he represents the sound to english
speakers accordingly.
This was a fun diversion for me, thanks for the patience if you read this.
Joe Temple
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
845-435-6301 295/6301 cell 914-706-5211 home 845-338-8794
Bernd Oppolzer
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-online.de> cc:
Sent by: Linux on Subject: Re: pronunciation of SuSE
390 Port
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
IST.EDU>
08/05/2003 01:08
PM
Please respond to
Linux on 390 Port
Hello,
I'm native german.
It's difficult for me to explain to english speaking people my
pronounciation
of SuSE in written english, but I give it a try:
the U as in "smooth" and the E as in "eleanor (rigby)" :-)
the S is NOT pronounced "ts", never, but C is sometimes pronounced like
"ts",
see below. Z is always pronounced like "ts", see Konrad Zuse :-) sounds
almost
like SuSE, except for the "t" at the beginning.
CICS in Germany is pronounced like "tsicks", you know, the
german version of the old latin rule: C before I and E is pronounced as
"ts",
otherwise "k".
Regards
Bernd
Am Die, 05 Aug 2003 schrieben Sie:
> Serendipitously, I have two visiting Swedes at hand. Confronted
separately
> with 'SuSE' written on a scrap of paper, they both said
>
> TSOO-seh
>
> with the accent, not a strong one, on the first syllable.
>
> I suspect, however, that anglophones, Germans, and Swedes are going to
> continue to pronounce it a bit differently. The precedents are bad.
> Agreement about how to promnounce names and acronyms is hard to come by.
> After many decades Brits pronounce 'CICS' as 'kicks', Americans say
> see-eye-see-ess, and francophones, even Canadian ones, say 'keeks'.
>
> John Gilmore
> SystemCraft LLC
>
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