Audiobook mispronunciations

[Patri]

Most of my reading is by audio in the car. Lately, I have been noticing that some narrators mispronounce words, and wonder if they realize it, or why editors don't have them redo that section. It could be too much of a nuisance.
One word was figure, said figgur. But that was by a British reader, and maybe that is how they pronounce it.
The others were tumult and anathema (twice). I looked up both to make sure the way I say them is correct, and I am. It just interrupts the story line when my attention pauses on mispronunciations.
Oh well, if this is my biggest complaint, life is pretty good!

 

[DaveNV]

I hear you, but would just accept it as it is. Next time you’re in Hawaii, try using your car’s or phone’s navigation to get someplace. It’s hilarious, if you know the real Hawaiian words.

Dave

 

[Luvtoride]

Patri,
I’ve become a big fan of audiobooks and listen while walking on my commute and lunch time walks around NYC. Yes, I sometimes do hear some strange pronunciations but I am not bothered by it. The Narrators make some of these books awesome and I have chosen some books based on whom the reader is (rather than the author). I’ve Always been a big reading fan and I have found audio books a great way to keep up on this interest. For some reason, I don’t think i could finish reading these books in the 14-16 hours most take on audio.
What have you read lately that you enjoyed? I just recently finished-
The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter
The Paris Diversion- Chris Pavone
When we were Yours- Lisa Wingate



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[klpca]

Mispronunciations in audio books drive me nuts, and some are much, much worse than others.

I was listening to "Alone on the Wall" about Alex Honnold, and I would have liked to pull out my hair. The absolute worst for me were the names of the different areas in Yosemite. Ok, many of them are originally Native American and do not have traditional phonetic pronunciations, but with just a little bit of research the reader could have done it correctly. For example, the reader kept talking about a place called tu-o-LUM-ney. I couldn't figure out where it was, and I was really puzzled because we have spent a fair amount of time in Yosemite, and my kids are climbers, yet I had never heard of this place. Then I realized that he was saying the phonetic pronunciation of Tuolumne, which is actually pronounced too-ALL-um-ee (and the first and second syllables are almost combined). To be fair, pronunciation is not at all intuitive but no one stopped him, so he just said it over and over again. He called the Dawn Wall the Down Wall. It just went on and on, and was very distracting.

If you have nothing better to do, the reviews on Amazon are a fun read with respect to the multiple mispronunciations. https://www.audible.com/pd/Alone-on-the-Wall-Audiobook/B017DPEGU4

 

[klpca]

I hear you, but would just accept it as it is. Next time you’re in Hawaii, try using your car’s or phone’s navigation to get someplace. It’s hilarious, if you know the real Hawaiian words.

Dave

All of California. The best is La Jolla, which is actually correctly pronounced La Hoya. The GPS is getting better though, so I can't complain too much. It definitely saved our bacon in France with all of the roundabouts, but we rarely understood what it was saying.

 

[wackymother]

I actually wrote a book that had a selection available on audio. I'm American, the reader was British with a "mid-Atlantic" accent, and the audio was recorded in London.

Before the recording, I had to read out a long list of possibly problematic words over the phone, to demonstrate how an American would pronounce them. Many notes taken. Recording was done, and they sent me a sample disk (that will tell you how long ago it was), for reference.

I pop the disk into the CD player, just to hear how the reader sounds, and I'm doing something in the house and suddenly I hear--what???? The name Darius. Pronounced, if you're American, as Dar-E-us. But if you're British, you pronounce it Dar-I-us. Major international freakout because none of us had spotted it as an issue before recording. In the end they fixed it, but it was a pain all around.

 

[MichaelColey]

I listen to a TON of audiobooks. (Overdrive rocks!) I drive far more than I have spare reading time, so it works great for me.

Usually, the reader does a good job. I'm currently listening to one by a British reader, and it's amazing how differently they pronounce things.

I've run across a couple of words where readers pronounced it differently than I have and when I looked them up, I was surprised that I was actually the one who was wrong.

• rifle (as in rifle through something) has a short I, while I had always read it in my mind as a long I (like the weapon).
• grimaced, apparently, the a is pronounced with a long A rather than the UH sound like grimace.

 

[clifffaith]

Our favorite Garmin pronunciation was Palos Verds Doctor North (Palos Verdes Drive North) locally, and in Arizona Ka-Mel Back Road. So puzzling that it can't pronounce Camel. Our old Garmin was a hoot in Santa Fe when it trilled its Rs in saying St. Frrrancis. Every year we correct the new Garmin as we sit at the intersection waiting to turn left on St. Frrrancis!

 

[b2bailey]

I listen to a TON of audiobooks. (Overdrive rocks!) I drive far more than I have spare reading time, so it works great for me.

Usually, the reader does a good job. I'm currently listening to one by a British reader, and it's amazing how differently they pronounce things.

I've run across a couple of words where readers pronounced it differently than I have and when I looked them up, I was surprised that I was actually the one who was wrong.

• rifle (as in rifle through something) has a short I, while I had always read it in my mind as a long I (like the weapon).
• grimaced, apparently, the a is pronounced with a long A rather than the UH sound like grimace.

I've been using your pronounciation as well on these two.

 

[moonstone]

I hear you, but would just accept it as it is. Next time you’re in Hawaii, try using your car’s or phone’s navigation to get someplace. It’s hilarious, if you know the real Hawaiian words.

Dave

When our DD & her friend went to Hawaii last year they borrowed our TomTom GPS to use in their rental car. The device got them to where they wanted to go but the girls were laughing so hard at some of the names they almost had to pull over at one point. They didn't know if the GPS voice was saying the names properly or not but the words sounded hilarious to them at any rate.
Just last week we had to put up with our GPS saying Saint Augustin (emphasis on the 'gus') while we were driving to St Augustine FL.

~Diane

 

[Ironwood]

On a driving trip to Montreal and Quebec City this fall, we used Google Maps voice directions on an iPhone. The pronunciation of french street signs was hilarious.

 

[Patri]

Patri,
What have you read lately that you enjoyed? I just recently finished-
The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter
The Paris Diversion- Chris Pavone
When we were Yours- Lisa Wingate

Half the time I don't know the author or title. I look for books in the 9 hour range. Right now I am listening to The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner. I am enjoying it because it rings a bell with my own parents having played bridge, and I did for a few years (would like to get back into it).
I go through phases - the classics, Agatha Christie, non-fiction, anything that looks interesting. I'm sure I have gone through hundreds of books in the past decade.

 

[heathpack]

I have an Audible.com annual membership and I listen to audiobooks during my commute. My favorites are The Great Courses Series, which are college professors presenting a series of lectures in their field of expertise. I’m currently listening to a great one on the subject of Human Nutrition.

I was going to comment that I never notice mispronunciations. But then I guess you don’t have em when it’s not a hired gun doing the narration!

 

[MichaelColey]

One of the genres that I’ve found fascinating lately is biographies. You can learn so much from the lives of great men and women. Some that I’ve enjoyed the most are Theodore Roosevelt (three volume set by Edmund Morris), Leonardo Davinci, John D. Rockefeller, Oppenheimer, Fred Rogers, Elon Musk, and Richard Feynman.

 

[MULTIZ321]

Google search will now give you feedback on your pronunciation.


https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14...nunciation-guide-feedback-machine-learning-ai.


Richard

 

[JohnPaul]

I do know what you mean about something jogging you out of the story. I was reading a story set in San Francisco and they referred to the airport as SFI (San Francisco International I assume). It was so wrong (since it's really SFO) that it pulled me out of the story for a bit.

The thing that amuses me is I can just see some editor telling them they had to change it from SFO because people wouldn't know what that was.

 

[Luvtoride]

I have an Audible.com annual membership and I listen to audiobooks during my commute. My favorites are The Great Courses Series, which are college professors presenting a series of lectures in their field of expertise. I’m currently listening to a great one on the subject of Human Nutrition.

I was going to comment that I never notice mispronunciations. But then I guess you don’t have em when it’s not a hired gun doing the narration!

Heath, that sounds like some heavy topics to listen to. Do they charge for these courses or are they offered as add-on's to the 1/ month titles they charge for?

 

[Luvtoride]

One of the genres that I’ve found fascinating lately is biographies. You can learn so much from the lives of great men and women. Some that I’ve enjoyed the most are Theodore Roosevelt (three volume set by Edmund Morris), Leonardo Davinci, John D. Rockefeller, Oppenheimer, Fred Rogers, Elon Musk, and Richard Feynman.

Michael, I'm sure some of these must be very interesting. I just started Mobituaries by Mo Rocca, which is basically a compilation of his podcasts on obituaries for not so famous (but fascinating) people that should have been written. Very clever and enjoyable to listen to.

 

[heathpack]

Heath, that sounds like some heavy topics to listen to. Do they charge for these courses or are they offered as add-on's to the 1/ month titles they charge for?

You can use your credits to buy the books, they're in the range of 12-18 hours long mostly, with 30ish min long "chapters". Its kind of like auditing a college course.

I mostly pick subjects that have to do with health or wellness. I find that they keep me on track with trying to live a healthy lifestyle. I listened to one on Meditation, one on maintaining health through different phases of life, and the current one on human nutrition. I tried one on Sports Psychology but it was too boring and I wound up returning it. I have one on Resilience in my library still t listen to, plus courses on the non-health topics of Medieval English History and Ancient Civilizations of North America.

I do have some other more normal books- mostly nonfiction. I really enjoyed one about a cadaver search dog called What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs. One on the link between exercise physiology and mental health called Spark. And a great one called the Happiness Hypothesis, which is one the subject of positive psychology (which is the study of mental health as opposed to mental illness).

 

[Luanne]

I hear you, but would just accept it as it is. Next time you’re in Hawaii, try using your car’s or phone’s navigation to get someplace. It’s hilarious, if you know the real Hawaiian words.

Dave

Happens in Santa Fe as well. Those Spanish names must be hard for a GPS. But the one that got me was Ridgetop Road. Should be simple right? Ridge top. But our GPS kept calling it Ridg e top.

 

[DaveNV]

Happens in Santa Fe as well. Those Spanish names must be hard for a GPS. But the one that got me was Ridgetop Road. Should be simple right? Ridge top. But our GPS kept calling it Ridg e top.

Back in the day, (decades ago), we had moved to Mount Vernon, Washington. (Sometimes abbreviated as Mt. Vernon, Washington.) To get the local Prodigy dial-up number for the Internet (anybody remember Prodigy and dial-up? It was a thing...) we had to dial an 800 number, then enter our zip code. They'd tell us the local number to dial into for accessing the Internet.

The very specific, don't-argue-with-me, recorded voice came back with "The local number for Empty Vernon is..." We cracked up when we figured out what they'd said. Obviously, Siri's great-grandmother had taken the MT. Vernon spelling a bit too literally.

So naturally, we then had to tell everyone we lived in Empty Vernon.

Ah yes, modem humor... LOL!

Dave

 

[geist1223]

Just thank your lucky stars the Reader is not from the Shetlands.

 

[isisdave]

I've run across a couple of words where readers pronounced it differently than I have and when I looked them up, I was surprised that I was actually the one who was wrong.

• rifle (as in rifle through something) has a short I, while I had always read it in my mind as a long I (like the weapon).
• grimaced, apparently, the a is pronounced with a long A rather than the UH sound like grimace.

Now, I'm not seeing this, at least on dictionary.com -- it offers the usual pronunciation of rifle for both the noun and the verb. There IS a word "riffle" however, and one of its definitions is similar to "to rifle".

As for grimace[d], they offer both: grimace [ grim-uh s, gri-meys ] for both the noun and verb, and without distinction as to tense.

One of the amazing things about English and its speakers is the wide range of pronunciations found throughout the world, and the willingness of its speakers to try very hard to understand each other.