How do you pronounce 'Lili'?

[The Cap]

Originally Posted by RMJ

English does not have French i sound. You cannot pronounce it correctly with English examples.

Well, then, I guess that's that. The "great language god" RMJ (against whom we are all compared to small, worthless insects or maybe some kind of bacteria) has decreed that we lowly native English speakers cannot correctly pronounce this "Lili" name because there is no corresponding sound in the English language that can be used to vocalize "the French i sound".

There. Let us never speak "Lili" ever again.

[RMJ]

Originally Posted by The Cap

Well, then, I guess that's that. The "great language god" RMJ (against whom we are all compared to small, worthless insects or maybe some kind of bacteria) has decreed that we lowly native English speakers cannot correctly pronounce this "Lili" name because there is no corresponding sound in the English language that can be used to vocalize "the French i sound".

There. Let us never speak "Lili" ever again.

What exactly stops you learning the right sound ? It has not stopped most of the world... are English people some how special cases ?

But it's good that you are finally starting to understand your place in the grand scheme of things.

[Killian]

Originally Posted by RMJ

What exactly stops you learning the right sound ? It has not stopped most of the world... are English people some how special cases ?

But it's good that you are finally starting to understand your place in the grand scheme of things.

RMJ please try to be nice about these things. People are merely saying that it was unfair to say it is pronounced Lili without explaining what you meant, but then, you proceeded to tell us the way in which we tried to explain to eachother, in a helpful and good hearted manner, was wrong and obsolete. If there was a sound, which there are, that existed in English but not Finnish, and you didn't speak Finnish, we would do our best to explain it to you through ways you would find easiest.We wouldn't try to shoot down your attempts beacause they weren't perfect, and exact, according to the grand scheme of things. That's being elitist and is not nice, regardless of what is being talked about.

I'm not trying to start another argument, I'm just saying that I feel you are being unfair and unhelpful here. It would have been easier to make a constructive statement at the beginning, rather than allow it to erupt into this...

[Candide]

In French, we pronounce LEELEE ^^

[ZachLovesAlizée]

i usualy pronounce it lily, but thats cause i never new the french pronouciation, i still like lily better than leelee

[The Cap]

Originally Posted by RMJ

But it's good that you are finally starting to understand your place in the grand scheme of things.

Yes ... several large steps above you, evidently, on the civility scale. Go be rude and obnoxious to somebody who gives a da*n.

At least I know how to correctly pronounce Lili. How you choose pronounce it is your own business.

[RMJ]

Apparently you do not know.

[fsquared]

Originally Posted by RMJ

English does not have French i sound. You cannot pronounce it correctly with English examples.

RMJ is indeed correct about this. "Lee-Lee" is a approximation, which is close mainly in the respect that it forces a long "e" sound unambiguously, but the long "e" sound of English is not quite the French "i", being both longer in time duration, and also diphthongized at the end (i.e., not "pure"). It's funny, we even learned about that in elementary school, the "a that turns into an e", where the teacher would pronounce the letter "a" (long "a" sound) like "aaaaaaaaaaaa.e.e.e.eeee". That's what has always bothered me about those phrasebook transcriptions like "pahr-lay voo frahn-say?", because it can lead English speakers to end up using their own vowels rather than try to imitate the vowels that are being used in the target language. English vowels are rather odd ducks relative to lots of other languages; almost all diphthongized, not written consistently, etc. There was a joke that the biggest, busiest, most international of all airports, "Heathrow", has a name which has so many sounds peculiar to English that almost any non-native speaker is missing at least one of them in his/her native language.


RMJ's attitude about the whole thing is another story entirely. If he wants to emphasize to everyone his opinions about how America, Americans, and English are not the center of the world, then that's his right, but I think doing it in this manner is not particularly productive.

Originally Posted by Killian

I'm not trying to start another argument, I'm just saying that I feel you are being unfair and unhelpful here. It would have been easier to make a constructive statement at the beginning, rather than allow it to erupt into this...

He's clearly not trying to be easy.

[zpa]

I gotta admit that "leelee" is prolly the closest for a native English speaker. It's just that it's easy to forget the differences and the fact that there aren't all the "weird" phonetics. Let's cut the irrelevant bs..it's not helping anyone.

[Ben]

I'd just like to thank fsquared for his informative posts in this thread.