Video: How to correctly pronounce the names of German camera companies, products

I am sure that not the WHOLE North American population is ingorant... that is a quite bad generalization. And it has to do with culture, not with ignorance. And to pronounce a German word properly is much harder for them than to pronounce an English word for us Germans, as we (have to) learn it in school and hear it in the media all the time.

BTW, the French also widely do pronounce names and brands the french way and not with the original pronounciation. Would you call them ignorant?

Mar 18, 2021permalink

charea

yes

Mar 18, 2021permalink

NancyP

We are ignorant because we have no models. Up to now, I have never heard anyone, German native speaker or other, pronounce "Voigtländer". I have a foggy idea of German pronunciation because I listen to opera and read along in the libretto side by side German and English. That's more ear time with the German language than most American native English speakers get, but I am still going to mispronounce unfamiliar German names and words .

Mar 22, 2021permalink

Don't worry Nancy, German is a difficult language. English is so much easier. And no German would blame you for pronouncing German words wrong :).

Mar 22, 2021permalink

JakeB

The correct way to pronounce 'Leica' is 'Den Tist Toy.''

Mar 17, 2021permalink

NancyP

You win one DP internet.

Mar 22, 2021permalink

Pixel8888

German and English are just Germanic dialects after all.
These two languages used to be much closer in the middle ages.
The highest tower of Munich's medieval city wall was named
lug ins land = look into the land or country. The word lug aka look is lost in today's German and still only exists in Swiss German.

Mar 17, 2021*permalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodenstock_GmbH

ha, wrong! "lug" still exists in southern German dialect my friend ;). Greetings from south Germany!

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Pixel8888

One of my favorites is the Rodenstock Isaron lens named after the Isar river flowing through Munich. They did produce great lenses. Unfortunately they do focus on other more profitable optical products today.

And the Germans try to learn English, it never hurts to speak another language :)
German coastguard, funny commercial of a language school
https://youtu.be/x9wJxZc2KF8

Mar 17, 2021*permalink

@Confusedabit: Old English was certainly compulsory (in the first year) when I went up to Oxford in 1978 to read English. The set textbook was Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader, which was ancient even then. Don’t know what the Old Firm does now... and we wouldn’t have had Middle Earth at all if Tolkien had spent more time actually teaching.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

MichailK

ενδιαφέρον!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Zeyeman

Ah, thanks!
But I'm left wondering if the typewriter is Lee-ton or Light-ton... :-)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Litton_Sr.

That is not a german name:

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Hasseman

My name is pronounced different is most languages:
Haaans in Swedish
Häns in Danish
Hâns i Dutch
Ans in French etc.

That is how it is

Mar 16, 2021permalink

mick232

It would be "Gans" in Russian (no H), which means "goose" in German. Fun fact!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Antisthenes

.
> It would be "Gans" in Russian (no H)

Uh no. The commonly accepted Russian transliteration of "Hans" is "Ханс", which, from a phonetic perspective, is similar for example to the fact that Johann Sebastian Bach's family name is transliterated "Бах".

Mar 16, 2021permalink

mick232

Regardless what the more common transliteration is, I can tell you that my wife, who is Russian, pronounces e.g. the first name of the well-known author Hans Kristian Andersen as "Gans". This sounds very funny to me.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Antisthenes

.
Your initial comment could be read as if, in Russian, there was no voiceless fricative sound [H], thus /requiring/ "Hans", for example, to be transliterated "Ганс".

It's known that the absence, in some language, of some sound will affect said language's native speakers due to the loss of phonetic plasticity with age.

For example, in Japanese, there is no written character combination for the sound [hu], as in "Dachshund"; older Japanese people will often find it difficult to hear the difference between [hu] and its Japanese substitute [fu].

OTOH, in Russian, a proper consonant for the voiceless fricative [H] exists, and can, unlike in Japanese, be easily combined with vowels — e.g.

Hans ➛ Ханс
Bach ➛ Бах
Houston ➛ Хьюстон

I thus suspect the Х/Г orthography choice in Russian would be dictated more by individual preference / familiarity than an inability to write down, hear or produce a voiceless fricative.

Mar 17, 2021*permalink

dr.noise

@mick232
"Gans" or "Hans" in Russian are equally represented and each case is dictated by some historical, educational and cultural reasons. Hans Christian Andersеn is "Gans", but Hans Zimmer is "Hans". Anyway it means the same and we can interchange "Gans" with "Hans" sometimes.

Mar 21, 2021permalink

Joachim UK

Just an add-on: Carl Zeiss was founded in Jena - so technically it is/was East German as well.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

vscd

There was nothing like east- or westgerman when Carl Zeiss was founded. If you want to be correct, you should know that...

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Baba Ganoush

This was en enjoyable video to watch. I do think the hardest letter in German and in French for most native English speakers to pronounce correctly (and not even mentioned in the video) is the letter "r" (the uvular fricative, otherwise called the French r).

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Because of the ‘Back R’ and certain consonant phonetics, Welsh speakers do quite well with German. Fun fact.

Mar 17, 2021*permalink

Taught me a lesson about Voigtländer...

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Weia

Indeed the only one I mispronounced. (I am dutch.)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

So am I ;-)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Mortal Lion

You probably mispronounce Oisterwijk as well :p

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Weia

No!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

“Ojsterwijk”!

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Weia

Oosterwijk!

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Mortal Lion

Oistenrijk?

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Cut your teeth on these two: "Goidschalxoord"; "Charlois"!

Mar 17, 2021*permalink

Bryan Costin

Very interesting. We had some German speaking friends of the family growing up, and I'm happily surprised that I managed to absorb some correct pronunciations by osmosis.

Of course common pronunciations always adapt to fit the sound combinations familiar to the locals, including English words adopted by other languages. I expect the typical Japanese pronunciation of Cosina's adopted Voigtlander brand name varies from the German original, too.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Sezano

Hilarious and instructive. Të lumtë bytha!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

hikerdoc

It seems the English speaking world does not have set pronunciations even of English words! You can be listening to someone speaking your native tongue and be thinking I don’t have a clue what she just said.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Agreed. Back in the day my band had a roadie from Glasgow. I don’t recall understanding a word he said. We just had to avoid laughter, in case he’d just told us that his mother had died.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

400trix

Many years ago I visited the Britain, and whenever I ran into a Northern Irish bartender I had to get a translator.

Mar 21, 2021permalink

Ed Ingold

Considering the size of the US market, Germany (and England) should change their pronunciations to match ;) One practice is engraved in stone in Germany. If there are two or more German words which together mean the same thing as a foreign word, they are strung together into one word like a pearl necklace.

For those who rembember sloshing prints in trays, the safe light was not just a light, it was a "dunkelkammerbeleuchtung." Read any food or prescription label, and you see that US chemists fall right in line with that practice.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Toni Salmonelli

One good example is "Auftragsdatenverarbeitungsvereinbarung". And yes, that's a real word, albeit a very technical one. :-) It means the contract a company A has to close with another company B, which is assigned to process personal data of the customers of company B in order to meet EU data protection regulation.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

sirkhann

Considering the size of the Chinese market, US and the rest of the world should change their pronunciations to match.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Dragonrider

But Mandarin hurts your throat even more than German. :-).

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Suave

Someone needs to tell BMW that they are actually B, M, V.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Ed Ingold

You mean "Bey Em Vey (not Fau)"

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Suave

And not Bee-Em-Double-You.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Bayrische Motoren Werke - Bavarian Motor Factory

Mar 16, 2021permalink

vscd

In Deutschland heißt es "Bring mich Werkstatt". ;)

Mar 17, 2021permalink

For those DPR readers that "speak" only one language.

How about a next instalment of : How to correctly pronounce the names of French camera and lens companies"?

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Angénieux, Beaulieu etc.?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Eljot: They're the ones that come to mind! Je suis sure ils sont plus.

You see? My pronunciation of French (lots of "uhh's) maybe ok, but...

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

http://www.lallement.com/pictures/Altessa/Altessa.html

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Ze De Boni

Much better the opposite: French youtubers speaking brand names from other languages.

Mar 19, 2021permalink

smartphone guy

I took German in high school and still pronounced some wrong.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Ishiido

:-) High School German is not enough for Voigtländer :-) Greetings from Germany :-)

Mar 22, 2021permalink

DFPanno

And now we will learn the pronunciation of the German and Swiss watch brands...

Proud to say I have always referred to them as folk - lenda.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Tungsten Nordstein

I didn't realise that words have to be pronounced or spoken out loud. Thank-you for reminding me.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

All this time I've been saying the Voigt in Voigtlander wrong.

I didn't even realize that the Leica and Zeiss lens names were German although in hindsight it seems obvious that they would be. Since they sound like invented brand names, they could easily have been invented in English too. Did not know summicron sounds like zummicron. Neat stuff.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Carl Zeiss an invented brand name? That was just his name.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Sorry I was referring to the lens design names like Planar

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

They are made up. However, planar is derived from "plan" - plane, even, which means that is has a very even focal plane.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Leica lenses are at 5:25 and Zeiss lenses are at 6:15 for those who want a shortcut :)

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

As a native Welsh speaker the only one I got wrong was Voigtlander. Obviously there are regional differences in dialect, which I'm sure is true even within Germany and is certainly true in Wales, so the pronunciation will not be precisely identical even for people living 50 miles apart.

As for the lens names, these are made-up names chosen for international appeal and so who cares what the German pronunciation is? It's not in the least important.

Nobody seems to agree how to pronounce Nikon, but does it matter? It isn't even written like that in Japanese. So your German correspondent really needs to see more of life and travel some and learn regional dialects as well as different languages to appreciate how diverse all languages are, including German. Language also changes with time and it is unlikely that the same German is spoken today than I the 18thC for instance, which would probably be very different to read and possibly difficult to understand.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

For anyone with a basic familiarity with Japanese pronunciation though, Nikon is obvious pronounced neekon. As an American, I find it weird that Americans don't pronounce it that way.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

@Aberaeron Bore da, dydd da, Aberaeron! Ron'in buw a'r bwys Ffostrasol am wyth mlynedd.
Welsh and German, both are strictly phonetical. Which is why it was relatively easy for me to learn how to pronounce Welsh words - sometimes easier for me than it was for our English friends. Actually, some words are almost identical in Welsh and German; think of papur (Papier) and ffenstre (Fenster) to mention just a few; it is their common latin/roman origin in parts.
On the other hand, oh boy, Welsh grammar! But somehow I did manage, thanks to the Lampeter Welsh courses.
Gyda dymuniadau gorau

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Aberaeron wrote: "As for the lens names, these are made-up names chosen for international appeal and so who cares what the German pronunciation is? It's not in the least important."

Well then, at least it is a matter of politeness when you pronounce German words correctly.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Treverorum

@Aberaeron: Are you (a native Welsh speaker) really trying to lecture a native German speaker about the German language? I mean I wouldn't complain if you were at least correct in your assumptions.

However when it comes to 'voigtlander' there is only one correct way to pronounce it. Yes there are people in Germany who might pronounce the 'i' but that's not a matter of dialect but of education. It's the so called 'Dehnungs-i'. You'll find plenty words using it in the German language.

Same with Nikon. The Japanese spell it ニコン. That's pronounced "Nee - Ko -N" not "Nigh-Ko-N". There's only one correct way to pronounce it. Many people are just ignorant when it comes to other languages.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

hikerdoc

@teddoman. While the Japanese pronunciation of Nikon may be irrelevant in a discussion of German, do note that television advertisements from Nikon USA use the same American pronunciation. Seems they are less concerned with regional variations than in selling the cameras.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Shwmae @PowerG9atBlackForest

You can guess near to where I live. Not in town. Pass through Ffostrasol yn amal ar y ffordd i Gaerfyrddin.
When in Germany do as the Germans do I reckon. When talking to anyone else, its as well to use words and pronounce them to be understood and as the convention is locally in my opinion.
Christopher Frost posted a video yesterday from Llangrannog where he mispronounced Carreg Beca as Carreg Beaka and, for my sins, I wrote in the comments to correct him, seeing as he resides in Aberteifi.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

@hikerdoc
That is indeed the case. They use the local pronunciation wherever they sell their product. Just as BMW do everywhere.
Language is living and dynamic and pronunciation may vary significantly within short distances even within countries. Even different word may be used for the same item in different areas not far away in the same language. There are literally dozens of distinct dialects with a small country like Wales for instance and the same is true for England, Scotland, the USA and even within States in the USA. Between towns and areas within towns.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Eric Hensel

The OP seems to have missed the humorous tone of this video.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

@hikerdoc Life comes at you fast. Now there are American kids growing up listening to BTS. It'd actually be a great marketing campaign for Nikon USA to rebrand itself as Nikon USA (properly pronounced). They'd get tons of free exposure.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Aberaeron wrote: "Christopher Frost posted a video yesterday from Llangrannog where he mispronounced Carreg Beca as Carreg Beaka and, for my sins, I wrote in the comments to correct him, seeing as he resides in Aberteifi."

Lol. MirrorLessons, maent yn byw a'r bwys Aberystwyth dw'in meddwl. Hwyl da!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Toni Salmonelli

@ Aberration: "obviously there are regional differences in dialect, which I'm sure is true even within Germany and is certainly true in Wales".

That's absolutely right. Regional differences in pronunciation may differ very much within Germany because of the many dialects. BTW, that's something which is worth to preserve in any language IMO.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

FrancoD

I never met , over a 30 year period, A Nikon employee that pronounced that name the American way.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Mae Mirrorlessons yn byw naell yn Borth neu Aberdyfi fel yr wyf yn deall.

Matt and Heather live either in Borth or Aberdyfi, north of Aberystwyth. I suspect it is Aberdyfi, across the estuary from Borth.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

NickyB66

Video: How to correctly pronounce the names of German camera companies, products - Expensive but worth the money.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

My pet name for my Leica is ‘overdraft’.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

cxsparc

Well, Germans are actually very open to adapt. They tend to try to pronounce the names e.g. of cities as the natives do. They also gladly try to scratch their remnants of school English and French together to accommodate tourists asking for directions. Or try to find someone who speaks better.

This is a bit different to e.g. French, especially Swiss French who only stare at you when your car breaks down and you need to get help at the garage. If you don't speak French or not good enough, well that's your fault. Quite sobering experiences.

Germans mostly don't change the names of foreign cities either. Grenoble, Paris, Lyon it is.
Maybe due to the Post-Napolean age where French was the language of the elite and is still "cool" to this day, leading to palaces like Sansoucci (Berlin) and Solitude (Stuttgart). Now explain to me why Koeln changes into Cologne?? Muenchen to Munich?

I guess this different behavior still exists in many nations and cultures.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Kölln, originally Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. Bitte sehr!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Suuuper

Köln :)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Bryan Costin

Place names spin-off, diverge, and take on a life of their own. It's actually rather useful, historically speaking, since the names used for a city or location can provide quite a lot of context about the information being shared.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Ups! Typo! Köln. The natives there call it Kölle btw..

Mar 16, 2021permalink

KodaChrome25

@Bryan C - exactly. Copenhagen in Danish is København (købe to buy, havn is harbor) buying harbor. Købmand is the merchant. As is Kaufmann in German (merchant), and Chapman in English (merchant).

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Flowchart

Hehehe Köln, I got into an argument when buying train tickets in London, I was going to Köln but got tickets for Cologne (I thought it sounded too French to be somewhere it Germany).. needless to say I got to the right place.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

Bjoern Wunderlich

It's easy if you speak German.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Rik_C

Ja dann ist es selbstverständlich einfach! :-D

Even if you're not a native German speaker like me ;-)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

dumont67

Ikea names next please

Mar 16, 2021permalink

EEkea, The I stands for Ingvar, the founder's given name.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

tinetz

Very important, that. And necessary. But if you get the chance ask a German how they pronounce Colgate, or Micheline ;)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Colgate looks a bit like latin. Hence the confusion, I guess.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

it is Michelin, not Micheline ;). Greetings from Germany!

Mar 17, 2021permalink

tinetz

Haha, right.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

phouphou

Communication starts with a sender and ends with a receiver. To be understood you have to put yourself in the position of the receiver and figure out how they are going to understand you best.
As a german speaker i would not say Köln to cologne or München to Munich if i was speaking with someone about a geographic topic and expected the person to not be aware of the german pronouncations.
BUT if someone from abroad asked me how to pronounce München, i woulnt say Munich either.
The question is what you intention is and what your are trying to communicate. I don't think pronouncation should always be a factor since it might be a distraction.
I'll happily pronounce german names in an english way if it helps to get my point across...

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Idaho_X

Many German lens manufacturers chose the most difficult names :D
Even as a native German speaker I didn't know how to pronounce Voigtländer.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Rosember

That's just because you have not heard about the 'Dehnungs-i' or 'Dehnungs-e', my fellow German - and that is probably due to the region you were in (really a complex matter: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehnungszeichen#Dehnungs-e). :-)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Idaho_X

@Rosember thank you for the german lesson! I really haven't heard of that before. I'm Austrian btw :)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advocatus

Because you do not know what a Voigt actually is:

Mar 16, 2021permalink

timccr

Wow, that's really interesting. I never knew that but then I learnt German in Vienna :)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

sirkhann

Which is where Voigtländer was actually founded

Mar 16, 2021permalink

PankajDubey

Voigtlanderus noctonus maximus
Go Roman and all the quibbling stops

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

MyReality

Did that lens exist during the time of the famous Roman emperor, Maximus Erectus?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

PankajDubey

@MyReality
No, they didn’t need for:
Obscurua pin-parvi foraminis

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

marc petzold

Seen at YT Release Day, because Analog Insights is for Ages my fave YT Film Photography Channel. The Quality is outstanding, way well produced Episodes, and many Samples from Greg, Max & Jules. Love the Channel. :)

/edit As a native german, i don't have issues with our german Photography Brands. ;)

Good Light.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

(unknown member)

I enjoyed that. Thanks for the primer. As an American, I'm certain I've been butchering German proper names for decades. As a Philadelphian, my English pronunciation is also often a source of humor amongst other English speakers. Americans have a very fluid and evolving approach to spoken language which understandably irritates those with a stricter regard for language stability.

I put myself through school operating a Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. The maintenance manuals were full very interesting descriptive names for things whose purpose I understood but would often be embarrassed to attempt pronouncing out loud in front of the German factory techs. They say German naming convention is very logical once you get the gist of it but I have little natural gift for language so much of it is still a mystery to me.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Gkuzu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

https://easypronunciation.com/en/american-english-pronunciation-ipa-chart

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Felix E Klee

Mitdeutscher?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Damien Demolder

Fellow German

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Felix E Klee

Nein

Mar 17, 2021permalink

User1234567890

Nee - kon ✅
Ny - kon ❌

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Gkuzu

Niiikon is not Naayy-kon
or
Neekon is not Nyy-kon

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Eric Hensel

You sound like a dweeb pronouncing it Neekon, in the 'States. Just the way it is.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

David610

But for the T-34, this video would be completely nicht notwendig?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Just one of the unpleasant surprises of the Russian campaign.

Mar 17, 2021permalink

And Nikon is pronounced Nikon.
Not Nigh-Kon.

Also, colour has a U in it, as does mum.
Aluminium has two i's, both pronounced.

Z is Zed.
Zee's dead baby.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Chaitanya S

Also americans butcher pronunciation of Bokeh.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Arcimboldo

Well, English having the most irregular pronounciation of all languages I know of, and Anglo-Saxons in general 'butchering' Latin words like there's no tomorrow, I'd say: Brits who sit in glass houses shouldn't throw stones ;)

Okay, that 'aluminum' thing bothers me, too :D

Mar 16, 2021permalink

I'm Indonesian.
English is difficult.

I was just poking anyway.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Arcimboldo

Okay, got it :)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

User2491691251

Maybe the dingo ate Zed's baby.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

Tim Reidy Productions

German is easy to pronounce, once you know the rules.
spelling is easy in German.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

I disagreë wïth thät stätemënt, especially after travelling to 6 countries for work for decades and finding french and Italian much, much easier (and sexier).

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Tim Reidy Productions

do you know the rules, or just travel there?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

I usually stay for a few weeks at a time with suppliers and/or clientele.

I find Cherman more difficult than french and least difficult is Italian which is phonetic.

I'm an Indonesian living in Australia.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

QuarryCat

I might be wrong
thinking english, french, italian are maybe sexier but not as precise in words.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Tim Reidy Productions wrote: "German is easy to pronounce, once you know the rules. Spelling is easy in German."

Because it is fairly phonetic rather than English; think of G.B.Shaw pronouncing 'ghoti' as 'fish'

Mar 16, 2021*permalink

tschotsch

I agree, German is fairly (easy) to pronounce and is easy to spell, but German grammar is very complex!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Studor13

Only the German language could come up with “Straßenbahnhaltestelle” for tram stop.

Then again, I really hate how Americans pronounce Hahnemühle. It ain’t Ha-nay mule. Mule, as in the horse/donkey animal. How on earth did it become mule from moeh-le?

Whatever...

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Straßenbahn - Street Train
Straßenbahnhaltestelle - Street train stop point

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Eric Hensel

Why is the "S" pronounced differently in "Sonnar" than in "Summilux"?

Mar 16, 2021permalink

It is not. Both are Z (IPA) like in Zoo.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

carandu

Why did it take you so many years to post this? This should have been the opening topic of dpreview:)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Flowchart

Mar 17, 2021permalink

JackiePan

Some other interesting things here.
Nikon should be Ni'Kon, not Nai' Kon, Ni stands for Japan, there are other bands such as Nissan,NipponPaint.
Godox, should be God Ox, not Go Dox.

Mar 16, 2021permalink

midlingphotographer

Don't go dox the godly ox!

Mar 16, 2021permalink

stratman1976

"Ni" as in "The knights who say "ni" " ;-)

Mar 16, 2021permalink

Wildbegonia

Very amusing. I do find Leica got a spark of imagination in naming their lenses, and they are easy to remember instead of naming their lenses with letters and number, try to remember mixed letters and numbers! 😒 I do take pride in properly pronouncing the words from my language, and specilly when helping someone who is learning it as a second language. I do relate to the sentiment that nears insult, if they are German words, well, pronunce them as such. To me the biggest killer is when people change completely the name to suit their translation and own language prononciation. For example, when refering to an artist such Leonardo da Vinci (italian name and should properly pronounce in italian) they translate the name to their language and pronounce it in foreing language, like Leonard de Vinci (pronounced in French), and therefore changing it completely. It borders a complet disregard acknowledgement for other culture. That is murdering someone's name.

Mar 16, 2021*permalink