Maybe that explains why some people tell me to just pho off . . .richsilver wrote:It's not correct to assume that a transliteration system was created for Americans.
Cafe Indochine
- Gaybutton
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Re: Cafe Indochine
Re: Cafe Indochine
It seems to me that if a menu is written in English, the transliteration system would correspond to English pronunciation.
- richsilver
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Re: Cafe Indochine
That may be true, but there is no accepted way to pronounce vowels in English (unlike some other languages where you don't have to guess).RichLB wrote:It seems to me that if a menu is written in English, the transliteration system would correspond to English pronunciation.
For example, the o in go is pronounced completed different from the o in to. So if you saw the word fo, how would you know how to pronounce it? You would not. The only way for a transliteration system to work is to have rules that are agreed upon. And without knowing those rules, you might think the system is not logical or correct.
For example, when you see a ph at the beginning of a Thai word (like in Phuket in the most common transliteration system) you must know that rules say you do NOT pronounce it as f like you would think. Instead, it merely denotes a "soft" p. The rules also tell you that at th at the beginning of a word (like Theprasit) is NOT pronounced as the th in then, but it is a "soft" t.
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Re: Cafe Indochine
Fee, fi, fo, fumrichsilver wrote:So if you saw the word fo, how would you know how to pronounce it?
I smell the blood of an Englishman