|
On people mispronouncing Chemda's name; When it comes to learning a language the human brain basically slows down recognizing "new" phonetic sounds after about for or five years. So if you grew up speaking only one language and it didn't contain the Hebrew "ch" sound it is going to pretty difficult to say Chemda's name correctly. To make it worse the "ch" sound, sounds rude to a native English speakers. So again we think, "that can't be right." Not to mention the people that pronounce Chemda as "Kem*da" are also pronouncing it correctly from a native English speakers perspective. Since they are breaking up the word phonetically, "Hmm... Chem*da sounds like Chem*is*try... ok I got this". having no frame of reference, namely that you are Israeli and your name is Hebrew so using English language, phonetic reading conventions to parse how to pronounce the name is incorrect. You can't really blame them.
I think Chemda should go the route of Louie C.K. and just spell her last name phonetically. Or just drop the C, "Hemda." Which technically is still not the correct way to pronounce it. But it's the closest native English speakers usually get anyway.
|