# Linguists . . .



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I am, for all practical purposes, monolingual. But as a former radio announcer I always tried to familiarize myself with foreign pronunciation rules so I could sound halfway credible. So recently a couple of things came up to which I have no answer but which I'm sure you people can help with. 

Not knowling anything about Portuguese, I always pronounced Villa Lobos the Spanish way ("VEE-ah"). I recently heard an otherwise reputable announcer say "VILLE-ah." What's right?

Beethoven's pupil, Ferdinand Ries. For no reason other than it seemed to sound right, I always said "REEZ." Recently watching the BBC movie "Eroica," I noted everyone (admittedly all British actors) calling him "REESE" (as in peanut butter cups). Again, what's right?

cheers --


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## ido66667 (Aug 29, 2016)

MarkW said:


> I am, for all practical purposes, monolingual. But as a former radio announcer I always tried to familiarize myself with foreign pronunciation rules so I could sound halfway credible. So recently a couple of things came up to which I have no answer but which I'm sure you people can help with.
> 
> Not knowling anything about Portuguese, I always pronounced Villa Lobos the Spanish way ("VEE-ah"). I recently heard an otherwise reputable announcer say "VILLE-ah." What's right?
> 
> ...


From Wikipedia: : [ejˌtoʁ ˌvilɐ ˈlobus], which somewhat like Eytor Vile Lobus, the R is an uvular trill (French R).

About Rees, it's probably [Re:s], because german 's' is pronounced as 'z' at the beginning of words and between vowels, that not what happens in this case. Also note that is is not [Ri:s] with a long 'i' like you would read in english, it is read with a long 'e'.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

MarkW said:


> I am, for all practical purposes, monolingual. But as a former radio announcer I always tried to familiarize myself with foreign pronunciation rules so I could sound halfway credible. So recently a couple of things came up to which I have no answer but which I'm sure you people can help with.
> 
> Not knowling anything about Portuguese, I always pronounced Villa Lobos the Spanish way ("VEE-ah"). I recently heard an otherwise reputable announcer say "VILLE-ah." What's right?
> 
> cheers --


Listen at 0'59'' this is "Heitor Villa-lobos" spoken by a Brazilian (the only right way we know) 





All the best
Artur


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

The language differences make me very glad for the written word and easy identifiers like opus or other catalog numbers. A lot of times, I feel like the girl from _It Takes Two_ saying "chop in" when she sees Chopin's name on the sheet music. I try to learn from the radio announcers and other classical music fans, but I still have so much to learn.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

bharbeke said:


> The language differences make me very glad for the written word and easy identifiers like opus or other catalog numbers. A lot of times, I feel like the girl from _It Takes Two_ saying "chop in" when she sees Chopin's name on the sheet music. I try to learn from the radio announcers and other classical music fans, but I still have so much to learn.


The best way, normally is try to find a documentary (or movie sometimes) made in the country the composer was born.
hardly you will find a Polish documentary about "Show-pan" :lol:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

cimirro said:


> The best way, normally is try to find a documentary (or movie sometimes) made in the country the composer was born.
> hardly you will find a Polish documentary about "Show-pan" :lol:


Not to mention his first names: Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin.


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