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SteveMCarroll / PronouncingNamesForEnglishSpeakers

A practical guide to how to pronounce non-English names for English speakers

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Chen does not rhyme with fun

yegle opened this issue · comments

commented

Chen (陈) does not rhyme with fun, instead it's more close to rhyme with London.

I think you were mistaken with Cheng (程) which sounds more close to fun.

commented

Here's the (English language) Wikipedia Standard Chinese Phonology chart on this one:
image

for words ending in the sound -en, they notate it in IPA with the neutral schwa vowel [ən].

In the first dictionary (Merriam-Webster) I checked (and my own accent which is a midwestern variant on Standard American English), fun is listed as: fun [fən].

Turns out that in Oxford Learner's the pronunciation is /fʌn/. so this is a UK vs US thing.
I'm open to changing this to a word that is the same in both accents, but I would definitely prefer a one syllable one to a two syllable one. In "London", Oxford Learner's lists the first vowel (/ˈlʌndən/) as the same as fun, and the second vowel as the schwa so I feel like that word doesn't bring the desired clarity. let me think about this one and find a better word.

commented

I included your example after spending 15 minutes searching for a one syllable word that ended in an -n and had a schwa vowel in both UK and US english. thanks.