How do you pronounce.....?!?!?!?!?!

[lkWinnipesaukee]

Let's get the correct pronunciations of:

Leica, Nikon, Zeiss, Zenit, Nikkor, bokeh, Tamron, et cetera.

I'll take a shot.

Leica=LIE-kah
Nikon=nee-kon (although I say neigh-kon)
Zeiss=ssICE
Zenit=tsee-nit
Nikkor=nee-KOR
bokeh=bow-kuh
Tamron=TAM-rin

 

[LaFoto]

Leica is LIE*-kah (*like in "to lie on the bed")

Zeiss is ts-ice

bokeh is boh-keh (both syllables equally stressed with very closed vowels)

 

[Sideburns]

all I know is that Bokeh is pronounced
bow kay
That's why they added the H...cause technically it's spelled boke.

 

[Alex_B]

Leica, Nikon, Zeiss, Zenit, Nikkor, bokeh, Tamron, et cetera.

Being German is a clear advantage here. Most of them are pronounced as you would pronounce them in German :mrgreen:

Just catch a German and let him read them out aloud.

 

[Garbz]

My take on phonetically saying:
Leica (LAY on the ground, - CAR)
Nikon (We are the knights who say NI, - CON as in con-artist)
Zeiss (ZEISS as in the way a german would pronounce "this", or the way Americans call the letter Z with a few ss on the end)
Zenit (never heard this before but I'd say it like the SENATE)
Nikkor (NICKelodeon - CORE)
bokeh (short sharp sounds BO KE)
Tamron (two names. TAM as in River Tam from the Firefly series or movie called Serenity, RON as in Ron from harry potter)
et cetera (et as in etc, and cetera as in etc)

 

[ThePup]

Let's get the correct pronunciations of:
bokeh=bow-kuh
Tamron=TAM-rin

Funny, I always pronounce Tamron exactly as it's spelt...

According to photonotes dictionary, Bokeh is 'Bow-kay' - Like a bunch of flowers. (Hyacinths perhaps? )

http://photonotes.org/cgi-bin/search.pl?input=bokeh&submit=Search&which=a

 

[Alex_B]

Funny, I always pronounce Tamron exactly as it's spelt...

By that you mean the American pronouniciation of that spelling, but there is also the English, the German , the Spanish, and so on ...

 

[LaFoto]

Garbz, Leica is a German product, so believe me its pronounciation as I said: Lie (as in "to lie on the grass") and "car" (if you so want). But not "lay" as in "lay the table". No. Lie. Car.

And sorry, Garbz, since Zeiss is also a German product, also that word is pronounced as I said: Ts - ICE (like in "ice cubes"). It is so.

As to the Japanese words we would need to know the language to be really sure about the pronounciation. We Germans tend to pronounce the words just like WE would pronounce THAT kind of spelling, and English speaking people will certainly pronounce it like THEIR way of speaking THAT spelling...

 

[Alex_B]

As to the Japanese words we would need to know the language to be really sure about the pronounciation.

The German pronounciation of transcribed Japanese words is almost exactly the same as the Japanese pronounciation.

 

[Mesoam]

i say "n-eye-kon"

 

[Alex_B]

i say "n-eye-kon"

that works for n-eye-key (Nike), but not for Nikon

 

[Helen B]

Here's one list of pronunciations.

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/pronounce.html

Sigh-nar or See-nar - the conventional pronunciation by the naughty English is not always the pronunciation used in the country of origin.

Then there is Chimera - they want their name to be pronounced 'shimmerer' rather than 'kimerah'.

Best,
Helen

 

[Alex_B]

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/pronounce.html

Great list... most are accurate, some are... well, let us say "close"
Voigtlander - FAWCHT lahn der

but this is not really one of the easiest anyway

 

[skieur]

i say "n-eye-kon"

So do all the Canadian photographers I work with or encounter.

skieur

 

[shundaroni]

Though I was corrected in high school when I took two years of Japanese (and that correction was validated in college during four years of German), I refuse to pronounce "Nikon" as "Nee-Kon". Here in the states, I (and most people I encounter) give the "I" an "eye" sound.

After further thought, that hard "I" has a more dominant, masculine sound to it, and "Nee-kon" sounds sickly. The last thing you need when competing against a brand named after a large, loud gun, is a diminutive name.

As for the other words, I'm pretty much on board with everyone else, though some of the sounds have been Americanized. For instance, we really don't have a "ts-" sound for "Zeiss" like there is in German. So it takes the American "zzzz" sound, which is a bit more drawn out. Zz-ice.