On YouTube I have a series of videos giving pronunciation tips for those who are interested in getting as close as reasonably possibly to the most accurate pronunciation of a name or other borrowed or non-English word. Here’s a list of all of them. Click on each one to view it. (It would cause a lot of trouble loading this page if I embedded each of them in it!)
Å
Å, Danish, Norwegian, Scandinavian, Swedish, the letter Å
Aalborg and Aarhus
Aalborg, Aarhus, Ålborg, Århus, Copenhagen, Danish, den lille Havfrue, Københaven, the Little Mermaid
Agincourt
Agincourt, Scarborough, Toronto
al dente
al dente, Dante
Ancient Greek philosophers
Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Antisthenes, Arcesilaus, Aristippus, Aristotle, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Democritus, Diogenes, Empedocles, Epicurus, Euclid, Heraclitus, Leucippus, Parmenides, Plato, Protagoras, Pyrrho, Pythagoras, Socrates, Thales, Xenophanes, Zeno
Banff
Banff
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic venues
Běijīng, Wǔkēsōng, Shǒugāng, Shíjǐngshān, Xiǎohǎituó, Dàzhuāngkē, Zhāngshānyíng, Yánqìng, Tàizǐchéng, Chónglǐ, Zhāngjiākǒu, Héběi, Rúyì, Genting
bergamot
bergamot, Evelyn Waugh, Twinings
book words
albeit, antithesis, askance, awry, biopic, boatswain, book words, cache, calliope, caveat, draught, ennui, epitome, façade, Greenwich, Hermione, hyperbole, inchoate, infrared, misled, often, Penelope, Persephone, potpourri, segue, soften, victuals, viscount, waistcoat, Worcester, Yosemite
Boston: Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall
Boston, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market
Brueghel
Breughel, Bruegel, Brueghel, Dutch, Flemish
Calgary
Calgary
Canada’s provinces, territories, and main cities
Alberta, British Columbia, Calgary, Canada, capitals, Charlottetown, cities, Edmonton, Fredericton, Halifax, Inuvik, Iqaluit, Manitoba, Moncton, Montreal, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, North West Territories, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Ottawa, Prince Edward Island, provinces, Quebec, Quebec City, Regina, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, St. John’s, the Yukon, Toronto, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Victoria, Whitehorse, Winnipeg, Yellowknife, Yukon
Celebes
Celebes, coffee, Sulawesi
Champagne houses
Épernay, Billecart-Salmon, Bollinger, champagne, Dizy, Dom Pérignon, Drappier, Henriot, Jacquart, Jacquesson, Krug, Lanson, Laurent-Perrier, Louis Roederer, Moët et Chandon, Mumm, Nicolas Feuillatte, Perrier-Jouët, Piper-Heidsieck, Pol Roger, Pommery, Reims, Ruinart, Taittinger, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin
Chinese pronunciation tips part 1: Beijing, Zhongguo, Zhang
Beijing, Chinese, Mandarin, Zhang, Zhongguo
Chinese pronunciation tip 2: Q, X, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang
Chinese, Li Keqiang, Mandarin, Pinyin, Xi Jinping
Chinese pronunciation tip 3: Mao Zedong, Cao Xueqin, Z, C
Cao Xueqin, Chinese, Mandarin, Mao Zedong
Chinese pronunciation tip 4: Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, -ang, -eng, -ing, and -ong
Chinese, Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Mandarin, Mao Zedong
Chinese pronunciation tip 5: Lucy Liu’s feng shui
Chinese, feng shui, Liu Xiaobo, Lucy Liu, Mandarin, Pinyin
Chinese pronunciation tip 6: si, shi, ci, chi, zi, zhi, Cixi, and mei shir
bu shi, chi, Chinese, ci, Cixi, I, Mandarin, mei shir, Pinyin, Romanization, shi, si, transliteration, zhi, zi
claret, Rothschild
claret, Rothschild
decisive, divisive, err
decisive, divisive, err
Dutch names
Carien Kleibeuker, Daan Breeuwsma, Dutch, Dylan Hoogerwerf, Irene Schouten, Jens van ’t Wout, Kai Verbij, Kjeld Nuis, Marijke Groenewoud, Merijn Scheperkamp, Olympics, Patrick Roest, Selma Poutsma, Sjinkie Knegt, speed skaters, Suzanne Schulting, video, Xandra Velzeboer
Dvořák
Antonín Dvořák, Czech
Einojuhani Rautavaara and Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Estonian, Finnish
excelsis
excelsis, in excelsis, in excelsis deo
French philosophers
Abélard, Althusser, Bachelard, Barthes, Bataille, Baudrillard, Bergson, Bourdieu, Brunschvicg, Camus, Canguilhem, Cavaillès, Cixous, Comte, de Beauvoir, Debord, Deleuze, Derrida, Descartes, Diderot, Duhem, Foucault, Gilson, Kojève, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Levinas, Lyotard, Macherey, Malebranche, Merleau-Ponty, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Poincaré, Ricœur, Rousseau, Sartre, Saussure, Tocqueville, Voltaire, Vuillemin, Wahl
German philosophers
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (von) Schlegel, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, Jakob Friedrich Fries, Wilhelm Dilthey, Ernst Alfred Cassirer, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl, Karl Theodor Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas
glögg
glögg, Swedish
Glühwein
Glühwein, German
hegemony
hegemony
jalapeño and habanero
jalapeño, habanero, Spanish
Kilkenny
Kilkenny
Łódź
Kraków, Polish, Wrocław, Łódź
more Irish
aspiration, eclipsis, Gaelic, Irish, Siobhan
Mozart’s operas
Apollo et Hyacinthus, Ascanio in Alba, Bastien und Bastienne, Così fan tutte, Der Schauspieldirektor, Der Stein der Weisen, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, Il re pastore, Il sogno di Scipione, König in Ägypten, La clemenza di Tito, La finta giardiniera, La finta semplice, L’oca del Cairo, Le nozze di Figaro, Lo sposo deluso, Lucio Silla, Mitridate, Mozart, operas, Pronunciation Tip, re di Creta, re di Ponto, Thamos, Zaide
N’Awlins, Worcestershire, and the “dropped R”
allophones, dropped R, N’Awlins, New Orleans, phonemes, phonemics, phonology, Sinclair, St. Clair, Worcester, Worcestershire
Nguyen
Nguyen, Vietnamese
The One Ring inscription
ash nazg, Dark Tongue of Mordor, Nazgûl, the One Ring, Tolkien
Oktoberfest
dunkel, Götterdämmerung, gemütlich, Oktoberfest, Schadenfreude, Weissbier, Weltanschauung, Weltschmerz, Wunderkind, Zeitgeist
pronunciation
categorical perception, great vowel shift, pronounciation, pronunciation
Riesling and Gewürztraminer
German, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, wine
São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
Brazilian, Portuguese, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo
sausages
andouille, boerewors, chorizo, sausages
Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, wine
sbagliato
Gigli, negroni sbagliato, sbagliato, Sbarro, tagliatelle
schism and schedule
schedule, schism
Scotch whisky
Aberlour, anCnoc, Auchentoshan, Balvenie, BenRiach, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Cardhu, Chivas Regal, Craigellachie, Edradour, Glen Garioch, GlenDronach, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Glenmorangie, Glenrothes, Islay, Knockando, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Macallan, Oban, Strathisla, Té Bheag, Tomatin
Sláinte, Céad míle fáilte
céad míle fáilte, Gaelic, Irish, sláinte, St. Patrick’s Day
Southern Tier
Allegany, Bemus Point, Bolivar, Caneadea, Cassadaga, Cattaraugus, Ceres, Chautauqua, Cuba, Delevan, Fredonia, Gerry, Ischua, Olean, Salamanca
Toronto places
Berczy, Bloor, Dundas, Eglinton, Etobicoke, Roncesvalles, Sherbourne, Spadina, Strachan, Tecumseth
Toronto places 2
Adelaide, Balliol, Bloor, Dundas, Gloucester, Grosvenor, Queens Quay, Scrivener, Shuter, The Esplanade, Toronto, Wellesley
Turandot
Turandot, Puccini, Gozzi
umlaut
Albrecht Dürer, diaeresis, Elisabeth Langgässer, Fräulein, Götz von Berlichingen, Günter Grass, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Göthe, Käthe Kollwitz, tschüss, umlaut
Uranus
Uranus
waistcoat, boatswain, gunwale, victuals, forecastle, blackguard, topgallant sail
blackguard, boatswain, forecastle, gunwale, shanty, topgallant sail, victuals, video, waistcoat
Winter Olympic: 2018 venues
2018 Winter Olympic venues, and Bokwang, Gangneung, Jeongseon, Kwandong, Pyeongchang, Yongpyong
Winter Olympics: Finnish
Andreas Alamommo, Antti Aalto, Eetu Nousianen, Finnish, Janne Ahonen, Jarkko Määttä, Julia Kykkänen, Mika Pyörälä, Noora Räty, Winter Olympics
Winter Olympics: Pita Taufatofua, the Tongan flagbearer
flag bearer, opening ceremony, Pita Taufatofua, Tonga, Winter Olympics
Winter Olympics: sz – Polish vs. Hungarian
Emőke Szőcs, Hungarian, Karolina Sztokfisz, Magdalena Czyszczoń, Natalia Wojtuściszyn, Petra Jászapáti, Polish, Sára Luca Bácskai, Winter Olympics
Zoltán Kodály
Hungarian, Zoltán Kodály