Madan wrote: > Of course there is another problem of different sounds > in other languages for Latin letters and this may > lead people speaking different languages to pronounce > the letters differently.
> For ex > John is pronounced John in English, but John is pronounced dzhon > Javier is Hahvier in Spanish and Javier is pronounced hah-vyair > Jeurgen is Yoorgen in German. No such name. Juergen, however, is pronounced yewrgn. > So any SI unit using 'J' may be wrongly pronounced in > other languages. Not if the speaker has been taught (in school, for example) the correct pronunciation. In Germany, for example, people seem to have no difficulty pronouncing Joule as Joule himself would have pronounced. > 1 more question ? does other European languages use > the letter 'W' and if so, how do they say kWh. Some European languages have no W in their alphabet (e.g., Italian) or vary rarely use W (e.g., Spanish). However, their dictionaries include words (borrowed from other languages) starting with or including W, so it's no mystery to them. And, of course, W is included on their typewriter and computer keyboards. Kilowatt hour is chilowattora (ch pronounced as k) in Italian (plural is chilowattore) and kilowatt hora (h not pronounced) in Spanish. Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
