Sunday, August 9, 2009

ERC Pronunciation Guide of European Towns

To the non-native speaker, the proper pronunciation of words in a foreign language may be a daunting task. Many of us can remember traveling to a foreign country and trying unsuccessfully to communicate with others in their native tongue. Here, at the Museum's ERC (Education and Research Center), an effort has been made to aid those interested in learning the correct pronunciation of various town and city names, as spoken by those native to that particular country. Currently, pronunciation guides are available for Polish, Magyar (Hungarian), Lithuanian and Romanian. Perhaps a Russian language guide will be available at some time in the future.

Just as in a tape you might buy to practice phrases in a foreign language before taking a trip abroad, you can listen to each audio clip for a particular first letter from the beginning, but you may be able to pause, go forwards or backwards, or play it again, depending on your computer's media player. You can choose to repeat the town name each time after the speaker says the name.The particular towns and cities that appear in each guide have been chosen because their names appear within the museum's website. Left-click onto the head letters to begin each clip, e.g. the letter "A" to hear the pronunciation of the towns beginning with the letter "A."

Here are the links to the four pronunciation guides at the Museum of Family History:
Lithuanian
Magyar (Hungarian)
Polish
Romanian

Good luck!

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