# Melvin



## Seeda

안녕하세요,

My first name is Melvin, which in French is pronounced as [mɛlvin]. [melvin] would sound acceptable but is quite rare to hear. Considering that Korean has both vowels ㅐ [ɛ] and ㅔ [e], why is my name transliterated as 멜빈 instead of 맬빈? Is it more natural for a Korean-speaker to pronounce [mel] over [mɛl]?

Many thanks in advance.


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## Hit Girl

안녕하세요,

I don't think 멜빈 deviates too much from the proper pronunciation of Melvin - except, there is no 'v' sound in Korean. 
So as far as the [mɛl] part is concerned, 멜 is the closest approximation in Korean.
Generally, /ɛ/ is transliterated as 에 and /æ/ as 애. 

I'm not sure here but by [e], do you mean the kind of sound involved in something like 'kale'? 
Then it would be transliterated as 에이. [melvin] would've been written out as '메일빈'.


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## Seeda

I recorded myself pronouncing [mel] followed by [mɛl] here.
I'm a beginner in Korean, but so far I've learned that
ㅔ → [e]
ㅐ → [ɛ]
(from Wiki, see #Vowels)
Since Melvin is most commonly pronounced as [ˈmɛlvɪn] in English and [mɛlvin] in French, I'm surprised that it's spelt 멜빈 in Korean.


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## Hit Girl

I looked at the vowel part on Wiki and realized I was referring to some other system in my previous post.
The /æ/ thingy seems to correspond to your [ɛ] and my /ɛ/ is an equivalent to your [e].

To avoid further confusion, I'll talk about examples instead:

b*e*d - 베드
M*e*lissa - 멜리사
B*e*lla - 벨라
Ang*e*la - 안젤라
Alb*e*rt - 알버트

b*a*d - 배드
c*a*t - 캣
M*a*x - 맥스
M*a*lcolm - 말콤
D*a*vid - *데이*빗
*A*pril - 에이프릴

As you can see, the letter E is often written out as 에 and occasionally 어;
A as 아, 애, or 에이.

M*a*lvin would've been spelled as either 맬빈 or 말빈. Melvin is stuck with 멜빈 

But I don't think 멜 is a severe misrepresentation of how Mel in Melvin should be pronounced.
Isn't the 'e' sound in Melvin closer to the 'e' in 'Melissa' than to the 'a' in 'Mad Max'?
In any case, it's really nothing to be surprised at. It's just a transliteration convention and especially for proper names, we may not be so attuned to the authentic native pronunciation.
Honestly, I wouldn't know 멜빈 from 맬빈. These two words sound almost identical in Korean.


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## Lysa.A

Seeda said:


> 맬빈



sorry, is it late? for me to give my option too?
overall, my advice is to use 멜빈 (mel-bin) based on the pronounce of 'Melvin' in french


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## Rance

Hit Girl said:


> I looked at the vowel part on Wiki and realized I was referring to some other system in my previous post.
> The /æ/ thingy seems to correspond to your [ɛ] and my /ɛ/ is an equivalent to your [e].



I believe you were originally correct, thus there is no need for correction.
Either /ɛ/ or /æ/ belongs to _International Phonetic Alphabet(국제음성기호)_, IPA for short.
I don't think any other system use those symbols.

According to 외래어 표기법 (국립 국어원 uses IPA), like Seeda said, the following seems to the case:
/e/  →ㅔ
/ɛ/  →ㅐ

As matter of fact, those are probably the original sounds of ㅔ and ㅐ, so such rules for translation seem to be logical.
(I say probably as not many native Korean speakers really differentiate those two nowadays. People simply pronounces both with /e/)

However, here comes the tricky part.
"Bed" is not pronounced as /bed/ but /bɛd/.
Here are some online dictionaries that lists the pronunciation for "bed".
Oxford Dictionary (uses IPA).
Dictionary.com (you can choose IPA as setting)
American Heritage (has own system.)
Merriam Webster (has own system.)


Then do we transliterate bed as *배*드 then?
We don't. We use *베*드 instead.
In practice, we pretty much transliterate both /e/ and /ɛ/ as ㅔ.
However for /æ/ (as in bad, cat, Max, etc), we use ㅐ.
At least that seems to be the case in English and I assume it shouldn't be much different for French.

Hence I find 외래어 표기법 somewhat wrong.
And this is probably the reason for the confusion that Hit Girl and Seeda were experiencing.

That being said, going back to original question.
Whether it is /mɛlvin/ or  /melvin/, I recommend to use 멜빈.
If it were to be pronounced as [mælvin], which is not the case, then use 맬빈.


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## Seeda

It's much clearer now! Thanks everyone!


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## Rance

Rance said:


> According to 외래어 표기법 (국립 국어원 uses IPA), like Seeda said, the following seems to the case:
> /e/  →ㅔ
> /ɛ/  →ㅐ



I must have gotten confused somewhere.
외래어 표기법 does indicate the following rules:
/e/ → ㅔ
/ɛ/ → ㅔ
/æ/ → ㅐ

I'm not sure how I got it wrong, but please ignore my comment on 외래어 표기법 being wrong from previous reply.

Regardless the conclusion is the same...
Follow the 외래어 표기법, rules I listed above, even though that may not be the perfect match for pronunciations(에 is pronounced as /ɛ/ and 애 is pronounced as /e/.)


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## Amaku

If you meet a Korean and ask him or her what the difference between the pronunciation of ㅔ and ㅐ is, they will tell you there is NONE. As a native speaker of Korea, I never made a distinction even once between ㅔ and ㅐ. Maybe there was a distinction, but even if there was, not anymore.


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## mink-shin

Amaku said:


> If you meet a Korean and ask him or her what the difference between the pronunciation of ㅔ and ㅐ is, they will tell you there is NONE. As a native speaker of Korea, I never made a distinction even once between ㅔ and ㅐ. Maybe there was a distinction, but even if there was, not anymore.



I agree with Amaku.

Of course there's a rule to distinguish between pronouncing ㅔ and ㅐ. But many Korean don't pronounce them with the rule.
Neither do I. 

As for the rule, it advises us to pronounce 'ㅔ' with your tongue placed in higher position.


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