Chatting about cat
The very exciting news, if our source is reliable (and it usually is), is that the Miraculous London special will be on Disney+YourSoul in the US on November 29! It's really nice that we have a specific date to look forward to...but also kind of a bummer that it's a whole six weeks away. If only our hotel in Paris had had the Disney Channel... That's okay; we can wait.
But speaking of Miraculous (and when are we ever not?), I've been thinking about something we talked about in Paris. One of the guys we talked to on our last day asked what they call Chat Noir in the English version of the show, and my answer was, "Cat No-ARR, because Americans can't pronounce French." He replied, "They can't pronounce chat?" ...And honestly, we can't. It's a matter of spelling rules. In English, it's a hard CH, and the T is never silent, so I guess to replicate those sounds in French writing, it would be something like tchatte? So probably the real reason they made his name Cat Noir instead of Shah Nwarr (wow, that phonetic spelling does not look pretty) is to avoid confusion. While I do firmly believe that it's possible to teach American children about the French word for cat, I also understand that maybe they don't want to bother.
Anyway, at the time of the conversation, and always, I'm more concerned about the pronunciation of the word noir. For some reason it really bothers me that the English voice cast of Miraculous is so articulate with the O and the A sounds, so it sounds like no-arr. On further consideration, I realize it's kind of unfair of me to be so particular about pronunciation, because even I say Adrien the American way ("AY-dree-en," as opposed to the French way of "ah-dree-AN"). I like to say it's because the English language has adopted the word noir, like with film noir, so people should know how to pronounce it. We didn't even Anglicize the word, we just adopted it wholesale. But really, it's probably because I like to criticize the English dub. I'm sorry, English dub people.
The whole thing has made me more conscious of the habit among learners of any language to roll their eyes and groan at anyone who pronounces a word from that other language incorrectly. So many anime fans correcting pronunciations and complaining about how the dub says things... Of course, I am just as guilty (obviously; this whole thing started with my complaining about Chat Noir).
On the other hand, if somebody from another country learns English, most of the time, we're very forgiving of their pronunciation, and in fact, we usually like to hear their accent. So I suspect the reason we (or at least I) tend to be so critical of English speakers pronouncing Japanese, for example, is that I want to be the smart one. I'm pretty sure it's a similar process that goes into most faultfinding--if you can recognize someone else's mistake, that makes you superior. And that sounds like a pretty awful attitude, so now I am repenting of complaining about the English dub's pronunciation of Cat Noir.
Today I'm thankful for finishing our work quota for today, getting a head start on tomorrow's work, finally having a date when we can be reasonably sure we'll be able to see the Miraculous London special, having plenty of video games to keep us occupied until then (including a new Miraculous one!), and it almost being time for ice cream.
But speaking of Miraculous (and when are we ever not?), I've been thinking about something we talked about in Paris. One of the guys we talked to on our last day asked what they call Chat Noir in the English version of the show, and my answer was, "Cat No-ARR, because Americans can't pronounce French." He replied, "They can't pronounce chat?" ...And honestly, we can't. It's a matter of spelling rules. In English, it's a hard CH, and the T is never silent, so I guess to replicate those sounds in French writing, it would be something like tchatte? So probably the real reason they made his name Cat Noir instead of Shah Nwarr (wow, that phonetic spelling does not look pretty) is to avoid confusion. While I do firmly believe that it's possible to teach American children about the French word for cat, I also understand that maybe they don't want to bother.
Anyway, at the time of the conversation, and always, I'm more concerned about the pronunciation of the word noir. For some reason it really bothers me that the English voice cast of Miraculous is so articulate with the O and the A sounds, so it sounds like no-arr. On further consideration, I realize it's kind of unfair of me to be so particular about pronunciation, because even I say Adrien the American way ("AY-dree-en," as opposed to the French way of "ah-dree-AN"). I like to say it's because the English language has adopted the word noir, like with film noir, so people should know how to pronounce it. We didn't even Anglicize the word, we just adopted it wholesale. But really, it's probably because I like to criticize the English dub. I'm sorry, English dub people.
The whole thing has made me more conscious of the habit among learners of any language to roll their eyes and groan at anyone who pronounces a word from that other language incorrectly. So many anime fans correcting pronunciations and complaining about how the dub says things... Of course, I am just as guilty (obviously; this whole thing started with my complaining about Chat Noir).
On the other hand, if somebody from another country learns English, most of the time, we're very forgiving of their pronunciation, and in fact, we usually like to hear their accent. So I suspect the reason we (or at least I) tend to be so critical of English speakers pronouncing Japanese, for example, is that I want to be the smart one. I'm pretty sure it's a similar process that goes into most faultfinding--if you can recognize someone else's mistake, that makes you superior. And that sounds like a pretty awful attitude, so now I am repenting of complaining about the English dub's pronunciation of Cat Noir.
Today I'm thankful for finishing our work quota for today, getting a head start on tomorrow's work, finally having a date when we can be reasonably sure we'll be able to see the Miraculous London special, having plenty of video games to keep us occupied until then (including a new Miraculous one!), and it almost being time for ice cream.