December 10, 2002
Pronunciation

The most frequent question I tend to be asked via e-mail is how is my name pronounced.

It's kah-shia, sort off.. really hard to explain actually.. and that's just the first name. Trying to explain how to pronounce my last name will put everyone to sleep.. So as a service to humanity and to save myself from answering the same question over and over again, I'm posting a recording of my work voicemail message. I suppose I could just post the number and have everyone call, but I have this annoying aversion to receiving phone calls from strangers mid attempting to work..

What you can hear in here (mp3) (it's probably hard to understand for most due to my accent and fast speech - I do talk this fast all the time, sorry).. is me pronouncing my first and last name..

Oh yah, don't leave a message.. it's just an mp3 not my voicemail.

Edit: I'm an idiot and screwed up the mp3.. it should work now, sorry.

Posted December 10, 2002 10:29 PM in Random
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.unix-girl.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/405
Comments
On December 10, 2002 11:31 PM Techie2000 added:

There is nothing in the file. Did you upload it correctly?

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On December 11, 2002 12:59 AM Greg "Grzegorz" Klebus added:

I can almost hear these poor people trying to pronounce "Kasia Trapszo"... I remember a comment in your blog like "What? Katarzyna? I thought your name was Kasia!" in a post with your old driving license.
As I mostly work in international projects, I introduce myself as "Greg" to foreigners, whereas my actual first name is "Grzegorz" or "Grzesiek".

Hmm, it's harder with one's last name, isn't it?

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On December 11, 2002 01:26 AM Jeremy Zawodny added:

It's strangely silent on the TiBook.

Hmmm.

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On December 11, 2002 10:59 AM Scott Johnson added:

Could we just refer to you as "The blogger known as K" ?

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On December 11, 2002 01:00 PM Ronaldo Ferraz added:

Interestingly enough, Brazilians would likely pronounce your name easily. Even your last name as the sounds are already present in Portuguese. In fact, a somewhat rare first name here is Cássia, which is pronounced similarly to yours (the "s" is not so sibilant), although it bears no relation to the Portuguese form of your name, which would be Catarina.

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On December 11, 2002 01:15 PM kasia added:

Greg, personally I always liked "Grzes".. of course there's no accented s in English which makes it hard to explain spelling.. nevermind pronunciation.

Scott, 'k' is how most of my friends refer to me and it's also how I sign my emails..

The problem with Polish culture is that majority of our first names have more than one form.. for instance while my legal name is "Katarzyna" nobody ever called me that (except my mom when she was mad at me)... but try to explain to an American "yah, my name is Kasia but it's really Katarzyna".. and then there's the third form.. "kaska" with accented s.

I think the whole idea behind creating all these versions is just to confuse foreigners.. well and so you know when your mom is mad at you.

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On December 12, 2002 02:26 PM Steve added:

Many Russian names have shorter informal names too (these from my ESL students - dunno about spelling)

Raisa »» Raya
Mikhail »» Misha

English has this as well: my legal name is "Stephen", but everybody calls me "Steve".

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On December 13, 2002 09:32 PM Asim added:

It would be nice if you load an MP3 of your legal name. Also please say it slowly and not as fast as the present one. :-)

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