Thread: Russian pronunciation compared with other languages

Google says:

Xьюго: 516,000
Гюго: 431,000

As for Юго... well, Google doesn't know!

Originally Posted by pranki

Actually, often Hugo is pronounced and written as "Хьюго". The name of well-known Agent Smith from "The Matrix" and Elrond from LOTR Hugo Weaving is often written and pronounced as Хьюго Уивинг

Sure, but that's when the guys are English like in your examples, also "Хуго" if one is German.

I agree with everything on the page.

At university I had a teacher who taught specifically pronunciation - in his view good Russian pronunciation was very hard for French and Germans, not too difficult for English or Spanish, hardest of all for Poles, and easiest of all for Italians.

Italian I can sort of see - the quality of the vowels seems similar. A German colleague had terrible problems, though his Russian in other ways were good - in Russia you could hear the German students coming a mile off! Polish I suppose the similarity of words might inhibit correct pronunciation.

I think what's important is that a russian would pronounce my name the same way as I do.

For "Hu", it's simply a "u" french sound. So, how do you write a "u" french sound?
If it's Юго, just too bad if it's like a cardinal point...

I'm not the only one with this problem: The russian president Vladimir Poutin has the same here: Poutin is pronounced exactly the same way as the more popular fast-food of Quebec (poutine), french-fries with barbecue sauce and pieces of cheese. Everybody here are laughing about that.

Originally Posted by snorkyller

I think what's important is that a russian would pronounce my name the same way as I do.

For "Hu", it's simply a "u" french sound. So, how do you write a "u" french sound?
If it's Юго, just too bad if it's like a cardinal point...

I'm not the only one with this problem: The russian president Vladimir Poutin has the same here: Poutin is pronounced exactly the same way as the more popular fast-food of Quebec (poutine), french-fries with barbecue sauce and pieces of cheese. Everybody here are laughing about that.

Юго - You-go
Уго - ou-go <---- I think this is the closest you can get to the French.


As for the Italians speaking Russian. I've heard them and the problem they have speak Russian with an Italian rhythm (that is first syllable stressed).

Portuguese is known to have similar phonetics to Russian. In fact the way Portuguese people and Russians sound when they speak English is quite similar.

But surely Ukrainians and Belarussians are the best at speaking Russian?

Originally Posted by TATY

Юго - You-go
Уго - ou-go <---- I think this is the closest you can get to the French.

You're right...
So I would write it "Уго".

Thank you

Originally Posted by snorkyller

Originally Posted by TATY

Юго - You-go
Уго - ou-go <---- I think this is the closest you can get to the French.

You're right...
So I would write it "Уго".

Thank you

However, there are some common conventional principles of transliteration between any two languages. Unfortunately, those principles do not always follow pronunciation nuances, but anyway we just have to accept them as they are.

So far, the rules of transliterating French into Russian dictate that French U is reproduced via Russian Ю, not У. Hence, Hugo -> Юго. (Гюго is a historical tradition of writing Victor Hugo's name).

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

Originally Posted by snorkyller

Originally Posted by TATY

Юго - You-go
Уго - ou-go <---- I think this is the closest you can get to the French.

You're right...
So I would write it "Уго".

Thank you

However, there are some common conventional principles of transliteration between any two languages. Unfortunately, those principles do not always follow pronunciation nuances, but anyway we just have to accept them as they are.

So far, the rules of transliterating French into Russian dictate that French U is reproduced via Russian Ю, not У. Hence, Hugo -> Юго. (Гюго is a historical tradition of writing Victor Hugo's name).

If you read the thread you will see that we've already discussed proper transliteration. But the guy wants to write his name how it sounds. And that is Уго.

Well, if a Russian knows French more or less and sees "Юго" he might pronounce it rather close to French - that is without [й] sound at the beginning but it won't be [у] either (I might be confusing something but I think I heard it in some French films). If one sees "Уго" I think it would be more difficult to guess. Anyway, if it helps, there are Russian last names for which it's not evident for Russian native speakers how to stress them correctly - so the way words are written is not always sufficient for them to be pronounced correctly.