Transcribing a German name into Korean

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Stassri
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Transcribing a German name into Korean

Postby Stassri » Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:30 pm

I have to transcribe a German male's name into Korean.

His name is written 'René', as in 'René Descartes', except it's a German first name.

My German knowledge is very shallow, so I'd like to ask you about the most idiomatic way of pronouncing the name spelled as above in German, please.

From the following Forvo link,
https://forvo.com/word/ren%C3%A9/

I guess its IPA transcription would be [ʀəne], but is this correct?

For what it's worth, I'm not interested in the phonetic values of the consonants, as they clearly correspond to some Korean phonemes, so there's no problem with them. I'm more interested in knowing the values of the 2 vowels, preferably in IPA symbols.

Thanks!
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Re: Transcribing a German name into Korean

Postby vonPeterhof » Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:48 pm

The Korean Wikipedia article about the German opera singer René Pape transliterates the name as 르네, the same way as Descartes' given name is transliterated from French.
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Josquin
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Re: Transcribing a German name into Korean

Postby Josquin » Mon Jul 24, 2017 3:32 pm

[ʀəne] is the French pronunciation. In German, it would be [ʀe:'ne:]. Unfortunately, I've forgotten all I ever knew about Korean, which wasn't much to begin with, so I won't offer a Hangeul transliteration here. VonPeterhof's suggestion seems to be sensible though.
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Stassri
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Re: Transcribing a German name into Korean

Postby Stassri » Tue Jul 25, 2017 3:51 pm

vonPeterhof wrote:The Korean Wikipedia article about the German opera singer René Pape transliterates the name as 르네, the same way as Descartes' given name is transliterated from French.


Yes, '르네' is actually quite close to how I would transcribe the recordings at Forvo.

Josquin wrote:[ʀəne] is the French pronunciation. In German, it would be [ʀe:'ne:]. Unfortunately, I've forgotten all I ever knew about Korean, which wasn't much to begin with, so I won't offer a Hangeul transliteration here. VonPeterhof's suggestion seems to be sensible though.


The 2 vowels that follow 'r' and 'n' respectively sound distinct to my ears in the 2 recordings on the Forvo page.

Upon further research, there is another page which gives 2 other recordings of the word 'rene':
https://www.howtopronounce.com/german/rene/

The 2 vowels sound somewhat similar to me in the first recording, but they sound like 2 distinct phonemes in the second recording.

I wonder if they are allophones.

Anyways, since Josquin's a native speaker, I'll go with his transcription, which I believe is supported by the first recording at howtopronounce.com.

So I'll transcribe the name as '레네', making the 2 vowels identical.

vonPeterhof and Josquin, thank you both for your help!
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Re: Transcribing a German name into Korean

Postby Josquin » Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:11 pm

No, these sounds are no allophones, but I guess there is some possible variation in the pronunciation of the name. "René" is a French name after all, so Germans who know French might pronounce it the French way. Also, the first e might also be more or less open, but to my mind [re:'ne:] is the standard pronunciation in German.
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