Tuesday, October 21, 2008

How DO you pronounce Jaen?



My married last name has been the source of many bad pronunciations. Not that I blame anyone. But after two weeks of hearing it butchered during jury duty, I was inspired to find an easy way to explain the pronunciation. So I Googled it. (How did we survive without Google?)

My first guess was HA-EN, and I was close. Variations I found: hä-ĕn', hä-ˈān, Jayyān‎ (I don't understand this one). I think mine is probably the easiest to interpret after all. But hä-ĕn' looks much cooler!

If you were wondering where the name comes from... My husband is from Panama (the country, not the city in Florida). Jaen is a province in Spain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaen.

Click the play button on the Forvo.com - Jaen page to listen to my last name pronounced in Spanish.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I would have totally screwed that one up. So how goes it?

Marilou said...

Where does Boese come from?