I have an interview and the interviewer's name is Erjie. I'd like to be able to pronounce when I get there. Can anyone give me guidance on how to pronounce his name?
FWIW, the person is from Singapore.
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You can make a rough guess, but will never get an 100%-sure answer. Because Latin letter's pronunciation depends on the context, you didn't even give what language that name is.– 炸鱼薯条德里克Apr 1, 2019 at 6:07
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1 Answer
I'm assuming that this person's name is spelt according to standard Mandarin Pinyin.
[jie] is pronounced something like "jyeh".
[er], in the International Phonetic Alphabet, is /ˀɤɻ/, made up of the close-mid back unrounded vowel and the retroflex approximant. Speaking for an American English audience,
A fair approximation of the close-mid back unrounded vowel is IPA /o/, which is the vowel in the English word "go".
The retroflex approximant can be given as the consonant in the English word "red". See http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/research/gsound/Eng/Database/Phonetics/Englishes/ByWord/Word_075_red.htm and listen to "Standard American".
Putting this together, and ignoring the tones, you should be pronouncing the name like the following:
(The sound plays at about 4 seconds in both videos.)
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Maybe. I’m only giving a toneless guess assuming it’s mandarin. It might not be chinese at all but...– dROOOzeApr 1, 2019 at 6:11