As someone married to an “Eugenio” (Brazilian Portuguese ay-oh-ZHEN-ee-oh) I was delighted to find the website Hearnames.com, which offers audio pronunciation by native speakers of hundreds of names in 44 language categories.
Dale Carnegie taught millions how to Win Friends and Influence People with ideas like “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” And in today’s global market, interacting and selling “in any language” is indeed a reality.
Telling Jianguo “how about if I just call you Jim,” especially if he’s the CEO, might not bode well for your big international deal!
I heard about the site from Andres Tapia, author of The Inclusion Paradox and Chief Diversity Officer of Hewitt Associates, on his blog (via @joegerstandt, @andresttapia on Twitter). His point, well taken, is that
To achieve inclusion, we need to know how to constructively call out our differences. But what if you can’t even pronounce each others’ names?”
What if you need more advanced lessons? You won’t want to miss twochinesecharacters tongue tennis. I’m not even going to try to explain. But, as a marketer I’ve got to respect their use of visuals, and it does work (take a look at the link above).
I finally wrote a love poem to my husband 10 years into our marriage. In the poem I pointed out “I would have written sooner, but the problem YOU-MAY-KNOW, was finding the right word, to rhyme with EU-GEN-IO.”
Hmm…any websites to help with that? What about you? Do you have a hard name to pronounce? How is your pronunciation?
