# Ukrainian: IPA Pronunciation of Petro Poroshenko



## PHenry1026

Greetings,

Can someone provide an IPA pronunciation of the Ukrainian name Petro Poroshenko?

Please use only phonetic symbols from the English IPA phoneme set. Since I am looking for the best English approximation using English only phonetic symbols will suffice.


Percy


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## MPush

PHenry1026 said:


> ...Can someone provide an IPA pronunciation of the Ukrainian name Petro Poroshenko?...


Hi, Percy
I don't have an IPA for you, but I have a video where the correct pronunciation can be heard.
(scroll to 00:10)
fakty.ictv.ua/ua/index/view-media/id/64227

Misha


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## PHenry1026

Hi Misha,

Thanks for your reply, however the link to the video you referenced is not working for me.

P.S. Sorry my mistake; I was able to link to fakty.ictv.ua/ua/index/view-media/id/64227.


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## FairOaks

Without headphones on, I hear something very close to *[pɛ̝trɔ̝ porɔ̝̈ʂɛnkɔ̝]*. A catch-all transcription for Americans would be *[pɛtɾɔ pɔɾɔʃɛŋkɔ]* or *[pɛtɾɔ pʊɾɔʃɛŋkɔ]*, where */ɔ/* stands for */ɔ~o/* — that means anything in-between, just don't lower it too much lest it becomes */ɒ/* (as in *[kɒːt]* = _cot_; _caught_, which sounds a bit like *[kɑːt]* = _cart_).


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## PHenry1026

Greetings,

I tested the three phonetic representations you provided and none of them seems close:  You can test the pronunciations yourself at

http://www.ivona.com/us/

Choose an English voice (I recommend Joey) and enter 

<phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="porɔ̝̈ʂɛnkɔ̝"></phoneme>

the Press Play

Percy


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## FairOaks

Sure, if a semi-robotic, semi-zombie abortion of technology can't get it right, this proves the erroneousness of the transcription beyond any shadow of a doubt.


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## PHenry1026

Typical reaction from those who pollute the internet with these bad phonetic transcription believing that there is no way for people to check it.


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## FairOaks

All right. Let me test something else. I'm Bulgarian, so I'm supposed to know how to pronounce one of the simplest Bulgarian words, «ходя» (I walk). I get the transcription from a dictionary, so you can't hold me responsible for any bad results. I click on the link provided by Your Worship, wait for the site to load, then choose the recommended automaton (i.e. Joey) and enter the following:
<phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="ˈxɔdʲə"></phoneme>
I do press Play and hear something which is closer to the English word "harder" than to «ходя». Do you reckon I should take Joey's class?


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## PHenry1026

I do not know what you are trying to prove with this example but since the phoneme /x/ can either have an h or k sound, Ivona English voices choose the use the h sound (as is Spanish) for /x/.  If your intention was to get a k sound for /x/ you have to use k.

Second, everyone knows that English has a very limited phoneme set compared to most other languages, so when testing out a word from Bulgarian, it might be smart to test it with a voice that is closer to Bulgarian than English.


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## FairOaks

1) The consonant is the least of your problems. The crucial mistake in this particular case is Joey's inability to yield an /o/-quality vowel.
2) The English language has quite a rich phonology (at the expense of its freakishly poor grammar).
3) Well, you're the expert in the field of CompuMumble. Why didn't you choose an automaton that's closer to Slavic languages yourself?


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## PHenry1026

Was it your intention to get a k sound from /x/?

It did not choose a language closer to a Slavic language because I am trying to get an English phonetic transcription.  If you read carefully my first post, I made this very clear.


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## FairOaks

No, that was not my intention and I heard no K's. Happy?
What do you mean by "English phonetic transcription"? The way you vulgarise every other Slavic word (for instance, the name "Ivan" you pronounce as _eye-van_)? Or, perhaps, the closest pronunciation one can achieve without any phonemes foreign to English? Do vowel length and prosody count? And, by the by, if you had any notion of how the IPA works, you would've understood how the word is pronounced in Ukrainian and how to adapt it to English in accordance with the desired style (take into account the fact that some English speakers try to be faithful to the original pronunciation, esp. if the foreign word is French, Italian or something of that sort; whilst others can't be bothered, so they basically blabber out whatever trips off their tongues most easily).


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## PHenry1026

Your points are well taken; I think I am very respectful of trying to get the right pronunciations of foreign names and that is why I posted here.  

I understand IPA enough to get a rough approximation of Petro Poroshenko on my own but I believe I native Ukrainian speaker with phonetic training could do a much better job than I could.


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## FairOaks

Well, this ain't too hard, since there are only two vowel classes used.
1.) E. As in "bet", "pet", "vet". Short. You have it. It's close enough.
2.) O. No exact equivalent or adequate approximation. Therefore, find a substitute.
2.1.) "O" as in "cot", "blot" and "mock", but it should have an /o/-quality. I don't know what kind of American English you speak, but many an American uses that long vowel with the /a/-quality I mentioned above. To be certain, think more of how a typical Englishman would say it.
2.2.) The long O vowel (which is higher than the O in 2.1.) in "shore", "gawk", "port", but, you know, shortened. Don't elongate them.
*) Don't use the diphthong O as in "goat", "no" and "rope". Don't change the stress.
And that's it. The main question here is, can you keep these O's short in long succession…
**) Let Joey peacefully retire with false dignity.


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## MPush

PHenry1026 said:


> Your points are well taken...





FairOaks said:


> ...Let Joey peacefully retire with false dignity.



Guys, stop fighting each other.  I think that it is all about emphasis.
I want to know what do you think about the phonetic representation with following stresses:
*<phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="pɛ̝t'rɔ̝ poro'ʂɛnkɔ̝"></phoneme>*

Misha


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## PHenry1026

Greetings,

Can a native Ukrainian speaker check the following IPA Pronunciation of Petro Poroshenko and recommend any changes:

ˈpɛtrəʊ(.)pɔˈʃæŋk.əʊ  (U.K. English)

ˈpɛtroʊ(.)pɔrˈʃæŋk.oʊ  (U.S. English)


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## FairOaks

Oh, I don't know anymore. You tell him how he's supposed to pronounce it in English and let that be the end of this irksome exercise in futility.
I'll just say that your adding a primary stress symbol improved the quality a tad, but the overall prosody is still wide of the mark. For no apparent reason, Joey refuses to follow your instructions and shoves secondary and even tertiary stresses whitherever he pleases, not to mention his inaccurate mechanical articulation and annoying clipping of certain sounds (which has to be the reason why you retracted and subsequently raised the otherwise centralised vowel /ɔ̝̈/, i.e. *ɔ̝̈ –> ɔ̝ = o̞ –> о*).


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## PHenry1026

ходя /ˈxɔdʲə/ /ˈkɔdʲə/

Pronounce using Russian Tatyana

<phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="ˈkɔdʲə"></phoneme> 

or 

http://www.forvo.com/word/ходя/

Definitely sounds like a k to me.

P.S. ходя using <phoneme alphabet="ipa" ph="ˈxɔdʲə"></phoneme> is also pronounced correctly with Russian Tatyana


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## FairOaks

«хо̀дя» is *[ˈxɔdʲə]*, with a more careful pronunciation — *[ˈxɔdʲɤ̞̈]*.
«ко̀дя» (a non-existent verb) would be: *[ˈkɔdʲə]* / *[ˈkɔdʲɤ̞̈]*.
If *ходя ~ hip*, then *кодя ~ kip*. I hope you can differentiate between these two, at least.

As for the pronunciations provided by Forvo, there is one Bulgarian, «хо̀дя» (realised in a rather yokellish manner, namely *[ˈxɔdʲä]*) — uttered by а woman, and there is one Russian, «ходя́» (*[хɐˈdʲa]*) — uttered by a man.

The only way you can get a K (respectively, kodya/кодя) is to visit your favourite text-to-speech site and write /k/ instead of /x/, however, I haven't the faintest idea why anybody but you would.


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## PHenry1026

At this point I have no idea what you are trying to prove. Please give another user a chance to help me with the pronunciation.


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## FairOaks

Thy wish is my command, o Master Joey!


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## iezik

A joke that I heard from a Texan might be in place here.

A man saw a tourist and asked him: "Where are you going to?"
The tourist replied: "To San Jose [sæn dʒouzei]".
The man remarked: "Over here, we name that place [saŋ xose]. And how long will you stay?"
The tourist was quick to adapt: "From [xun] to [xulai]."

Back to the original question 



PHenry1026 said:


> Can someone provide an IPA pronunciation of the Ukrainian name Petro Poroshenko?
> Please use only phonetic symbols from the English IPA phoneme set. Since  I am looking for the best English approximation using English only  phonetic symbols will suffice.
> Percy


Given that I took the phonetic symbols from one of the finest English  pronunciation dictionaries (LPD) and the joke is about different  pronunciations, it would be better to explain first which pronunciation  is wanted. There are plenty of words in English dictionaries with  multiple pronunciations, e.g. Petronas has in LPD some 12 pronunciations  (if I managed to get all the combinations right). If I recall correctly  from reading the IPA Handbook, Lagefoged remarked that the same text  can be correctly rendered in IPA in different ways. Also, he claimed  that it was somewhat incorrect to refer to any of the dialects of North  America as "American English". So, depending on the need, all the  following renderings appear suitable:



FairOaks said:


> [pɛ̝trɔ̝ porɔ̝̈ʂɛnkɔ̝]. ... [pɛtɾɔ pɔɾɔʃɛŋkɔ] or [pɛtɾɔ pʊɾɔʃɛŋkɔ]





PHenry1026 said:


> ˈpɛtrəʊ(.)pɔˈʃæŋk.əʊ (U.K. English) ... ˈpɛtroʊ(.)pɔrˈʃæŋk.oʊ (U.S. English)


It seems unusual to me to shorten the surname from 4 syllables to 3  syllables, but then again I haven't listened to any news reports from  USA.



PHenry1026 said:


> I am [...] trying to get the right pronunciations


To recap, please specify your criteria for _right pronunciations_.


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