Question How do you pronounce 'Hohmann' in your language?

[PeterRoss]

I've always pronounced 'Hohmann' in Russian as 'Хохман' which is the exact spelling of 'Hohmann' if you read it letter by letter. My confusion was great when I found that it's generally accepted to be pronounced in Russian as 'Гоман' ('Goman') :blink: Is it the correct way to pronounce 'Hohmann' in other languages too or is it just another case of Russian language mutilating foreign words? How do you pronounce it in your language?

I'm interested in German specifically, but English pronounciation is of interest for me too. All other languages are welcome too.

 

[george7378]

I'm not sure of the proper pronunciation, but I usually say 'Hoffman'.

 

[Urwumpe]

In German, it is pronouced as "Hohmann"... which means, a long vocal o (second h is silent) and a short "a" (because of the double "n"). Basically the concat of "Hoh" and "Mann". And "Mann" is not spoken like man, which has the same meaning in English, but the a is spoken like in bath.

 

[Mojave]

I usually pronounce it "How-men". But based on what I've seen above, my pronunciation is horribly incorrect. :lol

SE

 

[Eccentrus]

actually, for some English speakers, the the a in bath is still pronounced as ae

Perhaps I'll try to elaborate more the English transliteration of the German pronounciation of Hohmann

the o in Hoh is spelled as the o in Horn and ended with deep H, and the a in Mann as the u in Much ended with deep n.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Omen with an h

 

[Urwumpe]

actually, for some English speakers, the the a in bath is still pronounced as ae

Damn... you are right. My fault, one more reason why German school English is not making you fit for life.

I meant the IPA "mɑn"

 

[Notebook]

As george7378, probably through exposure to Hohhmeister at an early age(me, not george7378).

N.

 

[Codz]

I've always pronounced Hohmann as hoe-men.

 

[martins]

Here's a fairly good (if bored sounding) one:
http://www.forvo.com/word/hohmann/

Here's a terrible one:
http://www.pronouncehow.com/english/hohmann_pronunciation
(although with this one you could rhyme: nomen est Hohmann)

 

[sorindafabico]

The "H" letter is silent in portuguese, but here in southern Brazil we usually pronounce german words in a german way (like martins first example) due to a large german-brazilian community. It wouldn't be unusual northern brazillians pronouncing "oman".

 

[SolarLiner]

"Normal" french people would pronounce like the left-side of the traductor: http://translate.google.fr/#fr/en/Hohmann

I pronounce more like a 30%-70% mix between the french and english pronounciations.

 

[martins]

Ernst Mach is another name that tends to cause problems for English speakers (at least those without a working knowledge of Klingon).

 

[MeDiCS]

The "H" letter is silent in portuguese, but here in southern Brazil we usually pronounce german words in a german way (like martins first example) due to a large german-brazilian community. It wouldn't be unusual northern brazillians pronouncing "oman".

Strictly, H is silent, but many of the people I asked did pronounce the first H correctly. Mostly due to influence of the English language in Brazilian society, I guess. What varied most was the tempo - some stressed the O, some stressed the A.

 

[Kaito]

I used to say "Hoffman", but I have changed to "Hoe-men"

 

[sorindafabico]

Strictly, H is silent, but many of the people I asked did pronounce the first H correctly. Mostly due to influence of the English language in Brazilian society, I guess. What varied most was the tempo - some stressed the O, some stressed the A.

English influence is a good (and probably right) explanation outside the "colônias". :thumbup:

But depends on cultural background. It's natural in big cosmopolitan cities like São Paulo, but in far Amazon is less probable.

I like how Brazil is big and diverse.

 

[mjessick]

Similar is Kutta:

Where I went to school and worked (Northwest, USA), amongst working engineers, in aerodynamics it is always the "KOO-tah Condition". (Proper German pronunciation.)

However, it seemed most often to be the RUNG-gah - CUT-tah (Runge-Kutta) family of integration methods.

Same guy, different application - different common pronunciation. Wierd. And why does Herr Runge get proper German pronunciation but Herr Kutta doesn't?

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I studied Russian for a few semesters in university. My understanding that there was an accent or dialect of Russian that tended to pronounce 'h' as a 'g'? Our instructor at the time said Boris Yeltsin had this particular accent and that it made him sound a bit like what in America would be called a "hick" (a mildly derogatory term for a country boy).

I'm afraid my Russian skills have eroded badly over the years. Can any native Russian speakers comment on this? I'm curious.

 

[Linguofreak]

I've always pronounced 'Hohmann' in Russian as 'Хохман' which is the exact spelling of 'Hohmann' if you read it letter by letter.

Not exactly. "Хохман" would be more equivalent to "Chochmann" in German.

My confusion was great when I found that it's generally accepted to be pronounced in Russian as 'Гоман' ('Goman') :blink: Is it the correct way to pronounce 'Hohmann' in other languages too or is it just another case of Russian language mutilating foreign words?

A bit of both. Russian doesn't have the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_glottal_fricative"]sound[/ame] represented by "h" in English, German, etc, so a lot of early loanwords from those languages were spelled with "г", because that's apparently what the Russians of the time thought was the closest sound in Russian to the /h/ they heard in English/German/whatever. More recent loanwords tend to be borrowed with "х" (which certainly sounds more like /h/ to English speakers than "г" does, and given that English doesn't have the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative"]sound[/ame] represented by Russian "х" or German "ch", you don't even have to worry about an English speaker confusing [h] and [x]).

Neither German nor English pronounces "h" when it has a vowel before it and a consonant after it, as in "Hohmann", so "Hohmann" could be transcribed in Russian as either "Гоман" or "Хоман". (Also, in German, an h following a vowel tends to indicate vowel length, so you could even transcribe it "Хооман").

In IPA, the German pronunciation is /hoːman/.

The English pronunciation (my dialect) is /homɪn/ (speaking quickly) or /homæn/ (speaking slowly), though most English speakers would probably say /homən/ for the fast-speech form. /o/ in English is generally more exactly pronounced as [əʊ] or [oʊ], so in the end you'll get something like [həʊmən] or [həʊmæn].

Note: In discussing pronunciations, linguists tend to use quote marks (eg, "may") to talk about how something is written in a language, slashes (eg, /me/) to talk about the sounds that native speakers perceive, and brackets (eg, [mɛɪ]) to talk about the details of the actual sounds that are produced in an utterance.

 

[n72.75]

/hœmæn/

Not exactly. "Хохман" would be more equivalent to "Chochmann" in German.



A bit of both. Russian doesn't have the sound represented by "h" in English, German, etc, so a lot of early loanwords from those languages were spelled with "г", because that's apparently what the Russians of the time thought was the closest sound in Russian to the /h/ they heard in English/German/whatever. More recent loanwords tend to be borrowed with "х" (which certainly sounds more like /h/ to English speakers than "г" does, and given that English doesn't have the sound represented by Russian "х" or German "ch", you don't even have to worry about an English speaker confusing [h] and [x]).

Neither German nor English pronounces "h" when it has a vowel before it and a consonant after it, as in "Hohmann", so "Hohmann" could be transcribed in Russian as either "Гоман" or "Хоман". (Also, in German, an h following a vowel tends to indicate vowel length, so you could even transcribe it "Хооман").

In IPA, the German pronunciation is /hoːman/.

The English pronunciation (my dialect) is /homɪn/ (speaking quickly) or /homæn/ (speaking slowly), though most English speakers would probably say /homən/ for the fast-speech form. /o/ in English is generally more exactly pronounced as [əʊ] or [oʊ], so in the end you'll get something like [həʊmən] or [həʊmæn].

Note: In discussing pronunciations, linguists tend to use quote marks (eg, "may") to talk about how something is written in a language, slashes (eg, /me/) to talk about the sounds that native speakers perceive, and brackets (eg, [mɛɪ]) to talk about the details of the actual sounds that are produced in an utterance.

You are aptly named.