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J Herbin Pronunciation


LightYagami

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As someone who has properly studied French, I cringe every single time when people pronounce the French brand J Herbin as 'Shay Herbaaaaaan.' Even S Brown, who seems particulate in the spelling of foreign words, makes this mistake, though I forgive him for that since his doctorate is not anything about language.

 

Please, guys. Stop. I don't know why but if someone pronounces a German word wrong, someone else will correct him immediately, but that's never the case for French.

 

The correct pronunciation is more like 'Shī Airbang.' So J in French is not Shay but sounds more like G; the 'her' in Herbin is pronounced without the 'H' sound; and the 'n' at the end is not pronounced.

 

I'd like to encourage you to watch this short clip. The pronunciation here is on point.

 

https://youtu.be/1DAaJa77ju0

 

Otherwise, just simply say Jay Her-bin. It's still much better sounding.

Edited by LightYagami
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It's times like this I'm glad I buy it online and never have to pronounce it; I've never been good with foreign languages- even Latin, which is sad for an old Catholic. :(

 

Thanks for the link, but I still can't pronounce it. :(

 

Sean

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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If the French wish to have the rest of the world pronounce their language correctly they need to remove all those unnecessary letters. Worse than the English with their odd vowels popping up everywhere.

 

:lticaptd:

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If the French wish to have the rest of the world pronounce their language correctly they need to remove all those unnecessary letters. Worse than the English with their odd vowels popping up everywhere.

 

:lticaptd:

There's seriously no worse language than English when it comes to pronunciation! (Though I can only speak for European languages!) Even most (if not all) of my English professors at university would complain and make jokes about it. English pronunciation and spelling is a right mess, mostly because of the various influences the English language has had during its formation (French, Germanic (Norse), Latin)..

There are words which look easy enough and in my head (and embarrassingly out loudly) I pronounce them one way, thinking there can't be another, but nope! And the "right" way tends to not make much sense at times! This isn't even just a problem for foreigners, but also native speakers, which underlines the messiness of the English language...

 

French has indeed superfluous (ha!) letters, but once you get the hang of it, it's quite easy (and even logical I daresay!).

 

Other languages are even better, they are written phonetically so no confusion there, ever. Once you learn the alphabet, you can spell and read anything. (eg Slavonic languages are like this, some Romance languages like Italian and getting the hang of Spanish is also easy. Even Japanese pronunciation and reading (Latin letters) is dead easy (to me), I have read that Korean is also really easy (ie phonetic) as well).

 

I am only writing so much on this because I speak a few languages and am currently working on/ trying to learn and brush up on a couple more, so this topic has been quite ongoing in my head, sorry to write a whole novel!

(And also please don't take this as lecture or me taking your comment offensively or anything, just wanted to get it off my chest after days of thinking about this and this opportunity was the best which came my way :D )

 

Interesting question on why no one corrects French words.... I think the wrong pronunciation of "J Herbin" is just too ingrained and sounds quite French to a non-speaker, so no one bothers looking it up or correcting...

And it also seems like most people who are actually saying the brand name in a public way are not French speakers, eg I cannot think of one person who has a public channel about stationery, who is French (ignoring the French hobby community and just looking at English speaking channels/ influencers; that said I don't watch too many videos on the topic and don't listen to podcasts on the topic either, so my knowledge of influencers is rather limited, but those I know of are usually US American, British, Dutch..).

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Yeah, I'm probably just going to sell my Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit. That way I need not bother.

 

Anyone in Toronto want to buy a bottle o' Jock Herbin Blewed Min-wit? ;)

Edited by bemon
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Yeah, I'm probably just going to sell my Jacques Herbin Bleu de Minuit. That way I need not bother.

 

Anyone in Toronto want to buy a bottle o' Jock Herbin Blewed Min-wit? ;)

Sell it Quebec; they'll know how to pronounce it. :D

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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There's seriously no worse language than English when it comes to pronunciation! (Though I can only speak for European languages!) Even most (if not all) of my English professors at university would complain and make jokes about it. English pronunciation and spelling is a right mess, mostly because of the various influences the English language has had during its formation (French, Germanic (Norse), Latin)..

There are words which look easy enough and in my head (and embarrassingly out loudly) I pronounce them one way, thinking there can't be another, but nope! And the "right" way tends to not make much sense at times! This isn't even just a problem for foreigners, but also native speakers, which underlines the messiness of the English language...

 

French has indeed superfluous (ha!) letters, but once you get the hang of it, it's quite easy (and even logical I daresay!).

 

Other languages are even better, they are written phonetically so no confusion there, ever. Once you learn the alphabet, you can spell and read anything. (eg Slavonic languages are like this, some Romance languages like Italian and getting the hang of Spanish is also easy. Even Japanese pronunciation and reading (Latin letters) is dead easy (to me), I have read that Korean is also really easy (ie phonetic) as well).

 

I am only writing so much on this because I speak a few languages and am currently working on/ trying to learn and brush up on a couple more, so this topic has been quite ongoing in my head, sorry to write a whole novel!

(And also please don't take this as lecture or me taking your comment offensively or anything, just wanted to get it off my chest after days of thinking about this and this opportunity was the best which came my way :D )

 

Interesting question on why no one corrects French words.... I think the wrong pronunciation of "J Herbin" is just too ingrained and sounds quite French to a non-speaker, so no one bothers looking it up or correcting...

And it also seems like most people who are actually saying the brand name in a public way are not French speakers, eg I cannot think of one person who has a public channel about stationery, who is French (ignoring the French hobby community and just looking at English speaking channels/ influencers; that said I don't watch too many videos on the topic and don't listen to podcasts on the topic either, so my knowledge of influencers is rather limited, but those I know of are usually US American, British, Dutch..).

I've heard A LOT of people say that English is one of the hardest languages to learn and yet, it seems so simple to me. :huh:

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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I've heard A LOT of people say that English is one of the hardest languages to learn and yet, it seems so simple to me. :huh:

In many ways it is dead simple (just the verb conjugation is ridiculously easy, no change except for he/she/it and even then you just tack an "s" onto the regular verb and that's that), many other things are also really easy (this again is a thing of perspective, depending on which languages you speak (ie easier for a European than an Asian learner), how well you learn languages, how dedicated you are etc).

 

But other things are a real headache, like some pronunciation. Then if you have changing teachers and some prefer American English, other British and no one comes around to explain their difference properly and you have some very confused students on your hands. Add to that the mix of media (so much American media, the most popular seem to be US films and shows; but then also some British stuff) and you have new levels of confusion, because of the various accents, esp British vs American and it helps best to have that properly explained (which is now really easy with YouTube and whatnot, but I remember looking up "ain't" on the internet many moons ago and getting nowhere, learning languages now is really easy comparatively...).

 

But even when you think you know the language really well and you have little trouble following films and TV shows, you then get into academia and get hit over the head, feeling like you're back to basics because you know bloody nothing! It's a whole other level.... That's when the real dedication and grit starts (though I've met some students with abysmal English skills during university, how they advanced and graduated remains a mystery to me to this day!).

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Point taken about the pronunciation. But those in glass houses... :P

 

Even S Brown, who seems particulate in the spelling of foreign words

 

 

Particulate,
adjective
of, relating to, or composed of distinct particles.
noun
a separate and distinct particle.
a material composed of such particles.

Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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It's more 'Earbeen' French has the 'e' and 'i' base sounds reversed from English.

 

English, at the absolute base "I need to use it to get by" level, is dead simple. You can completely trash a sentence in English and still make yourself understood. "Bathroom I need go", to someone who knows the language, will be immediately understood as "Where is the toilet?" You can't do that sort of thing in most languages. If you mis-order the sentence, the best you can hope for is a stupid look. In Quebec or France, possibly assault. I'd guess that 250 words in English would let you get by, even if you never figured out verb tense. Which makes certain groups of people not learning English even more confusing.

 

As for the pronunciation? English had what is known as the Great Vowel Shift (read up on it. It's REALLY interesting). It started around 800, and _mostly_ finished around Shakespeare's time. The thing is, it didn't finish the same way in different locations. (We won't talk about the Geordies and Newfies). That's part of why you end up with the Canadian 'ooot' that people make fun of on TV. (it's not actually 'oot', it's simply a longer 'a-ou' sound to certain words. In Ottawa and northwest, it's because of the Irish settlers. )

 

At least one source from the NE discussed how the vowel shift is still happening from New York across the northern US to (approximately) Michigan. One of his grad students, when asked if she had everything down, said "Party Salad." (pretty solid). Apparently that particular student was from around the Rochester area. There's "Bah-stan", for an obvious example :)

 

I don't know if anyone has any idea if that sort of vowel shift happened/happens in other languages. It just turned out that they had early linguists in England at the time, and pronunciation was tracked.

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The best rule in the English language is that there are practically no rules. Re pronunciation, re spelling. I just love that poem "I take it you already know". At least (at best?), English (non-personal) substantives have no gender, while French has two and German three. Worse yet, in German they also have to start off with a capital letter.

Whew

Life is too short to drink bad wine (Goethe)

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Maybe OP should turn the sound off the videos.

 

Most people of the planet mispronounce the words from other languages. Who cares? I teach some foreign students. I correct some of their pronunciation when it impedes understanding. Otherwise it always gets a pass without comment. We all know that it isn't precisely correct.

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I think Irish might win the prize in superfluous letters, peculiar pronounciations and singular phonetic rules. I'm by no means fluent - not by a long shot, but even my own real life name has a phonetic rule that only applies to my name.

 

Back to the topic at hand; I've always pronounced it as je her-baw(n). Not sure my phonetic spelling makes much sense though considering the differing emphasis of accents.

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The best rule in the English language is that there are practically no rules. Re pronunciation, re spelling. I just love that poem "I take it you already know". At least (at best?), English (non-personal) substantives have no gender, while French has two and German three. Worse yet, in German they also have to start off with a capital letter.

Whew

Precisely this poem!!

Ah yeah, I forgot, gendered words...

 

In some languages the gender even affects verbs and adjectives and whatnot, making learning them great fun!

 

Another way in which English is dead easy.. No genders... (Exceptions exist, eg "blond" for men and "blonde" for women, like in French).

 

I've heard that Turkish is also very easy (eg no genders, few grammar rules, phonetic spelling(?)), but I don't know for sure.

 

 

Maybe OP should turn the sound off the videos.

 

Most people of the planet mispronounce the words from other languages. Who cares? I teach some foreign students. I correct some of their pronunciation when it impedes understanding. Otherwise it always gets a pass without comment. We all know that it isn't precisely correct.

Do you teach English? I recommend learning a bit about the International Phonetic Alphabet and trying to get students to take note of the IPA in dictionaries as well as writing down phonetic spellings of words. That helps with any language you learn.

 

For English specifically I find the Cambridge dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/) of immense value, as they always give the pronunciation in AmE and BrE in both IPA and verbally (ie sound file)!! It's imo the best dictionary there is for students and anyone else who's uncertain about pronunciation. (eg the word "water" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/water)

 

Though ages ago, I found that I knew the proper pronunciation and could do it on my own, but when I had to speak in front of people I really messed up and sounded way worse in terms of speaking skills than I really was.... That was a thing of being shy and insecure, luckily I got over that eventually!

 

The IPA is really fantastic and the Cambridge dictionary helped a lot...

 

 

I think Irish might win the prize in superfluous letters, peculiar pronounciations and singular phonetic rules. I'm by no means fluent - not by a long shot, but even my own real life name has a phonetic rule that only applies to my name.

 

Back to the topic at hand; I've always pronounced it as je her-baw(n). Not sure my phonetic spelling makes much sense though considering the differing emphasis of accents.

That reminds me.... There's also Welsh! That one seems like a crazy tough nut to crack!

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...Do you teach English? I recommend learning a bit about the International Phonetic Alphabet and trying to get students to take note of the IPA in dictionaries as well as writing down phonetic spellings of words. That helps with any language you learn.

 

Yes, for 35 years now. We give students several tools and classes. Thanks.

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Uncial, on 05 Feb 2020 - 00:14, said:

 

I think Irish might win the prize in superfluous letters, peculiar pronounciations and singular phonetic rules. I'm by no means fluent - not by a long shot, but even my own real life name has a phonetic rule that only applies to my name.

 

Back to the topic at hand; I've always pronounced it as je her-baw(n). Not sure my phonetic spelling makes much sense though considering the differing emphasis of accents.

 

That reminds me.... There's also Welsh! That one seems like a crazy tough nut to crack!

 

 

 

Yes, Welsh isn't exactly straight forward although I think - but may well be entirely wrong- that Welsh phonetics have english equivalents. There are Irish phonetics that have no english equivalents and with english as my first (strictly speaking only) language, I'd be hard pushes to spell them out phonetically.

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That reminds me.... There's also Welsh! That one seems like a crazy tough nut to crack!

 

I've learned to pronounce words in Welsh. Irish Gaelic, OTOH? I look at it and go, "yeah, whatever...". A friend of mine describes It as "backslash delete".

I've had to learn to pronounce various languages for the amateur madrigal choir I'm in. The additional complication, of course is that the words are generally in Middle English, medieval French, Old High German, a mixture of Spanish and Catalan, etc.

But yes, English *is* one of the hardest languages for foreign born speakers to learn because we have so many words that sound the same but are spelled differently, and lots of words that look the same but are pronounced differently. Although I do agree about not having genders makes things some things easier, as is not having formal vs. informal methods of address (I took a couple of adult ed Conversational French classes and the instructor, who was from Belgium originally, said she was HORRIFIED by the idea of using familiar forms to her parents' friends). But one thing that I've learned is that English (especially) doesn't really have a second-personal plural form, except as slang or in regional dialects (like "Pittsburgese" and the use of "yinz").

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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English did have a more formal structure, but was mostly abandoned other than certain Mennonite groups. 'Thee, thou, and thine' singular. 'You and Yours' were plural. (similar to Tu and Vous in French) The King James version of the "Bible" is just standard educated English for the time period.

 

One thing that many people _also_ forget is that while spelling and pronunciation have changed over time, grammar and punctuation have not changed in English in centuries - other than certain idiots in the last four decades. This is how we (modern English) can make sense of Middle English (Chaucer), and follow the structure of Old English. I have a copy of Canterbury tales in the OE (with modern translation, which sometimes makes my head hurt at how they butcher it to try to keep things in meter)

 

Anyone who grew up with English want to have fun? Go to Youtube and listen to some of the Frisian videos. Don't try to understand the words, just listen to it. It and Old Scots (East coast Scots Gaelic) are the closest relatives left to English. Frisian sounds just like someone wrote English and put nonsense sounds to the sentences. (There's actually a video for just that, to help show the rhythm of the language) If you listen long enough, you realize that you _can_ understand the general thrust of the conversations; probably much like Portuguese understanding Spanish and vice versa, if talked slow enough.

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