How do you pronounce Qatar?

[Pollux V]

On the news programs that I've seen it's been completely unanimous. They pronounce the fledgling islamic nation like this:

kahter

It sounds stupid. From the second I knew that Qatar existed, I pronounced it like this:

Kah-tahr (like the ar in guitar). I also stress the t (unlike the above). Is this correct, or isn't it? How the hell does it work, eh?:bugeye:

[NenarTronian]

I'd pronounce it the same.. "Kah-tar"

[Pollux V]

That reigns maan:cool:

[Pollux V]

Is that how you pronounce it or is that how it is officially pronounced?

[Thor]

I thought it was pronounced

"Kway-tar"

[John Mace]

I've often wondered the same thing!

IANAA (I am not an Arab), but I can read Arabic, and when I've seen it written in that alphabet, it sure looks like Kuh-TAR or KUH-tar. Kind of hard to tell precisely, though, since volwels are not written out in Arabic-- their just understood to be there. I can't figure out why so many jounalists who have been there pronounce it like Gutter. Maybe it's more like KUT-t'r, which gets anglicised to Gutter.

There's got to be some real Arabs out there who can shed light on this weighty issue...

[sycoindian]

normal way to pronounce it is KA-TAR... dont emphasize on the T... KA (Kuh)-TAR (Tur)... hope this helps..

[Virgin]

Originally posted by Pollux V
On the news programs that I've seen it's been completely unanimous. They pronounce the fledgling islamic nation like this:

kahter

It sounds stupid. From the second I knew that Qatar existed, I pronounced it like this:

Kah-tahr (like the ar in guitar). I also stress the t (unlike the above). Is this correct, or isn't it? How the hell does it work, eh?:bugeye: Well the writing is clear I hope since it s written as Q-A-T-A-R but the pronunciation, it’s a little naughty. You first open your mouth as if to pronounce K with your tongue blocking the airway just a little, next with teeth almost closed, extend the tongue forwards, flat and placing the tip of your tongue just about caressing the opening between your teeth, you next pronounce a soft T, after that it is as simple as rolling back the tongue and in the process apply a soft vibration as it often happens with R’s.
Simple, hey!
:m:

[Pollux V]

That post reigns, virgin. Welcome to sciforums:cool:

[platzapS]

today on CNN a Western news reporter pronounced it "cutter"

[GB-GIL Trans-global]

You say it like "kah-tahr", except the tongue is farther back than an English k (if it was, it would be romanised as Katar)

A sufficient English pronunciation, especially for newscasters, is "kah-tahr", without the tongue further back.

[Neville]

I would sau Kwayter like in e-quator but it looks like thats just me.

[Mr. G]

"qutr", I believe -- but don't quote me.

[Pollux V]

Mr. G...that's the way all the news reporters say it.

I think that Geebee probably knows what he's talking about, so I'll have to agree with him.

Qatar is a fairly liberal Arabic country bordering Saudi Arabia, I'm pretty sure it's on the Persian Gulf. If that isn't enough doing a google image search will probably get you a map.

[Pollux V]

This is one of those times that speaking verbally would work better for everyone. I imagine sciforums as a table surrounded by a few couches, where people sit down and shout at each other while sipping hot drinks in the morning. But it's really far from that, isn't it?

[Virgin]

Jesus Christ!, ..I can not believe that this thread is under World Events & Politics!

Ok here goes one more time,…

K U W A I T is pronounced as follow;
First the KU it’s accomplished by producing a nice small opening with your mouth, rounding your lips in a circle form, living just a little tiny circle. Next, place your tongue
in a curvature form so that from its origin goes upwards and folds leave and let it vibrate
smoothly a couple of times. Next the W_A_I-T is actually handle in two positions, the WA its nicely produced by following from your previous tongue position, opening wide to wider your mouth letting your tongue going a little backwards but not too deep, and bringing it forwards to prepare it to form a quick Klitch by blowing while you’re leaving just a little opening of your mouth sealed by your tongue as when we pronounce IT.

DO YOU GUYS FINALLY GET IT?

..Now you can dry your sweat!
:rolleyes:

[Microzoft]

Originally posted by Virgin
Jesus Christ!, ..I can not believe that this thread is under World Events & Politics!

:rolleyes:

In deed Virgin, you are fully right, sometimes I don’t know wassup with our Mod’s.

But…I don’t know if you know French, but would you try in
helping or better, guide me in pronouncing “Bonjour mon cheri”. ?
Please, I don’t mind if you do it via my private message.

Thanks a thousand!
:)

[Microzoft]

Originally posted by Virgin
You better not be teasing me?

I don’t know French but I would love to teach you how to pronounce “Von den Fond Do”. Would you really, really like that?
;) Oh Yea,.. Sweet Virgin,

I also don’t have a clue of French either.
But yes, I would really, really love you to teach me the pronunciation
of “Von den Fond Do”. It sounds so romantic.
Pleeeeaseee!
:) ;)

[lawfool]

I live in Qatar. It is pronounced cahtar. . . .

[redarmy11]

Pff.

It's an old thread, this. You're the first person to post in it for 5 years.

Welcome to Sciforums.

[Asguard]

old alright, unfortunatly the guy who asked the question isnt even here anymore.

[DeepThought]

'Cutter'.

As in box cutter.

[redarmy11]

I think we've just had the definitive pronunciation. I mean, it is his country, so presumably he has a better handle on it than most?

But feel free to continue getting it wrong.

(Wait. Were you making a joke..)

[DeepThought]

(Wait. Were you making a joke..)


I probably think so.

:o

[Fraggle Rocker]

I live in Qatar. It is pronounced cahtar. . . .Since this thread was moved to Linguistics (a subforum which did not existe five years ago) I cleaned up the flaming and trolling, including yours.

Everyone: please be polite. The Linguistics board gets a lot of international traffic and not everyone is as thick-skinned as us Americans.It's an old thread, this. You're the first person to post in it for 5 years.Still no one has completely answered the question. Which syllable takes the stress? Is it qa-TAR or QA-tar? I asked S.A.M. to join the discussion.

In Arabic (and other languages which borrow heavily from Arabic such as Farsi), Q is a glottal/uvular stop and has nothing to do with the QU sound in English. So there's no W sound after the Q. If you can't pronounce the Q then just say it as a K: katar.

[hypewaders]

Native English speakers usually need some coaching and practice to pronounce the Arabic "Qa" right, but it's a relatively easy word say correctly. It's a little harder for Westerners to pronounce "Arab" or "Iraq" correctly.

To say "Qatar", you start with a K sound, but you move the back of your tongue a little further back, to touch the roof of your mouth there. As others have noted, the accent is on the first syllable, the "ah"s are as in "car" and the R is rolled, but not prolonged. Qatar.

In truth, you can enjoy some practice pronouncing Qa: "Haqíqa"

Even if we don't learn Arabic, I think it's more respectful in the USA if we don't overly "Americanize" our pronunciations of common foreign names and places.

[S.A.M.]

I've heard it pronounced as cutter, but its actually a cross between kitar and gitar. The sound of the Q is like the end sound in ack!

[Enmos]

normal way to pronounce it is KA-TAR... dont emphasize on the T... KA (Kuh)-TAR (Tur)... hope this helps..

Like "cutter", but make the "e" a longer sound ?

[S.A.M.]

Nope. Its qatar there is no e

[Myles]

Why the assumption that all speakers of Arabic will pronounce it in the same way. I am no expert but I know that Arabic pronunciation can vary as do all other languages. I have been present when an Egyptian has criticized a Saudi for his poor pronounciation.

I suggest that the pronunciation of QTAR can vary, depending on the speaker. Best ask someone who is a native of that place, if one wants a definitive answer !

[Yorda]

Welcome to Sciforums.

how do you pronounce sciforums? is it like shyforums or skyforums?

[Reiku]

On the news programs that I've seen it's been completely unanimous. They pronounce the fledgling islamic nation like this:

kahter

It sounds stupid. From the second I knew that Qatar existed, I pronounced it like this:

Kah-tahr (like the ar in guitar). I also stress the t (unlike the above). Is this correct, or isn't it? How the hell does it work, eh?:bugeye:

qutar

[redarmy11]

how do you pronounce sciforums? is it like shyforums or skyforums?
No.

[Myles]

how do you pronounce sciforums? is it like shyforums or skyforums?

Try psyforums and let your mind move mountains !

[Fraggle Rocker]

So the only consensus is:The Q is velar/uvular, a sound most Westerners can't pronounce but a K is close enough to be respectful. The R is flapped like Spanish, Russian or Japanese. The accent is on the first syllable.Other than that, the wide variance in pronunciation among the dialects of the various Arabic-speaking peoples leaves us with no guidance on the vowels. This is no surprise, since vowels are barely phonemic in the Semitic languages. (In Hebrew they're not even written except in textbooks for beginners, or in the liturgy for people who don't really know the language but want to recite it.) So the change of a vowel from one dialect to another would not cause the lapse in comprehension that it would in English, with cot-cat-Kate-kit-'keet-coat-caught-cut-coot: nine words with the same consonants but a different vowel.

[tim840]

Even if we don't learn Arabic, I think it's more respectful in the USA if we don't overly "Americanize" our pronunciations of common foreign names and places.

It bugs me when Americans ignorantly butcher the pronunciation of foreign place names by Americanizing them. (I probably do it now and then too, but I try to be aware of pronunciation). One common mispronunciation that annoys me is that of Beijing. Most westerners say the "j" like it's french, like "beige" (the color) with an "ing" after, when it should be pronounced as a hard "dzh" sound as in "jail."

[Fraggle Rocker]

It bugs me when Americans ignorantly butcher the pronunciation of foreign place names by Americanizing them. (I probably do it now and then too, but I try to be aware of pronunciation).Everyone does that with place names and personal names, in cases where:The speaker's language simply doesn't have the same phonemes as the original. E.g, Göte, Dvořák; The original language presents consonant combinations to which the speaker is unaccustomed. E.g, Plzeñ, Hranice (yes, I'm picking on my mother's language a lot but there's probably no language with more difficult phonetics for anglophones than Czech); or Transcribing foreign writing into the Roman alphabet is misleading and/or ambiguous, e.g...One common mispronunciation that annoys me is that of Beijing. Most westerners say the "j" like it's french, like "beige" (the color) with an "ing" after, when it should be pronounced as a hard "dzh" sound as in "jail."My third example. Mandarin J is not English J. Mandarin has no voiced stops or affricates. The English paradigm of voiced/voiceless consonants does not match the Mandarin paradigm of aspirated/unaspirated. The consonants in judge, ads, big are voiced, whereas the consonants in church, eats, pick are voiceless. In Mandarin the consonants in ping, cha, cai (pronounced tsai), qi (pronounced chi) are voiceless and aspirated, whereas the consonants in bing, zha (pronounced ja, more or less), zai (pronounced dzai, more or less), ji are voiceless and unaspirated.

So the J in bei jing (northern capital) is not the J in jingle. It's voiceless. It's hard to describe because it never occurs in English. If you consider that Mandarin T and D are like the T in English top and mistake, respectively, that gives you a clue to Mandarin J. But most English speakers are not conscious of that difference. Hang a piece of tissue in front of your mouth while you say top and mistake; in the first word a puff of air after the T will blow the tissue out, but in the second word it will not.

The Q in qing is an aspirated CH, a phoneme we also don't have in English. Try saying cheese with that little puff of air after the CH.

This is why the old Wade-Giles transliteration system had those apostrophes and no voiced consonants. In p'ei, ch'a, ts'ai they want you to put in the puff of air, whereas in pei, cha, tsai they want you to use voiceless consonants but leave out the puff of air.

Nonetheless the American newscaster pronunciation of Beijing grates on my ears too, even though a Chinese would understand it and probably not think it's any worse than the "proper" English way, with a voiced J, because they're both wrong. :)

[kmguru]

Now that we are here again...as per wiki

Qatar (Arabic: قطر ‎; IPA: [ˈqɑtˁɑr],[1] local pronunciation: giṭar[2]), officially the State of Qatar (Arabic: دولة قطر transliterated as Dawlat Qatar), is an Arab emirate in Southwest Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the larger Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south; otherwise the Persian Gulf surrounds the state.

[cosmictraveler]

^ The pronunciation of Qatar in English varies; see List of words of disputed pronunciation for details.
In terms of English phonemics, the vowels sound halfway between short u /ʌ/ and broad a /ɑ/. The q and the t have no direct counterparts, but are closest to the unaspirated allophones of English k and t. However, since these allophones cannot occur in these positions in English, in this context they will sound more like English g and d. So the closest pronunciation, according to English phonemics, to the original Arabic might be /ˈgɑdər/ or /ˈgʌdər/

WIKI

[hypewaders]

(on reading Fraggle's post)

Good diction for multilinguals seems related to a knack for music: Easy for some, and not easy for others. I've been lucky enough to have a knack for accents and pronunciation- I speak Czech without any difficulties with ř and the occasional compound consonants. I've found that learning songs in a new language and mimicking them is a great way accelerate the acquisition of good pronunciation. Before I went to work in the Czech Republic, I memorized and often practiced singing some of their folk songs, and it really helped get my tongue in shape to take on full-immersion language learning. I'm convinced that music can be used to greatly accelerate the learning of additional languages. I've often wondered what the relative effectiveness would be learning Mandarin in a musical way, considering the particular importance in that language of tone. Are songs in Mandarin constrained by the tonal requirements of the speech (Fraggle, or anyone)?

[tim840]

Everyone does that with place names and personal names, in cases where:The speaker's language simply doesn't have the same phonemes as the original. E.g, Göte, Dvořák; The original language presents consonant combinations to which the speaker is unaccustomed. E.g, Plzeñ, Hranice (yes, I'm picking on my mother's language a lot but there's probably no language with more difficult phonetics for anglophones than Czech); or Transcribing foreign writing into the Roman alphabet is misleading and/or ambiguous, e.g...My third example. Mandarin J is not English J. Mandarin has no voiced stops or affricates. The English paradigm of voiced/voiceless consonants does not match the Mandarin paradigm of aspirated/unaspirated. The consonants in judge, ads, big are voiced, whereas the consonants in church, eats, pick are voiceless. In Mandarin the consonants in ping, cha, cai (pronounced tsai), qi (pronounced chi) are voiceless and aspirated, whereas the consonants in bing, zha (pronounced ja, more or less), zai (pronounced dzai, more or less), ji are voiceless and unaspirated.

So the J in bei jing (northern capital) is not the J in jingle. It's voiceless. It's hard to describe because it never occurs in English. If you consider that Mandarin T and D are like the T in English top and mistake, respectively, that gives you a clue to Mandarin J. But most English speakers are not conscious of that difference. Hang a piece of tissue in front of your mouth while you say top and mistake; in the first word a puff of air after the T will blow the tissue out, but in the second word it will not.

The Q in qing is an aspirated CH, a phoneme we also don't have in English. Try saying cheese with that little puff of air after the CH.

This is why the old Wade-Giles transliteration system had those apostrophes and no voiced consonants. In p'ei, ch'a, ts'ai they want you to put in the puff of air, whereas in pei, cha, tsai they want you to use voiceless consonants but leave out the puff of air.

Nonetheless the American newscaster pronunciation of Beijing grates on my ears too, even though a Chinese would understand it and probably not think it's any worse than the "proper" English way, with a voiced J, because they're both wrong. :)

It's OK, I speak Chinese. :)

[hypewaders]

Another pronunciation trick in your initial learning of a new language: Study and mimic the heaviest accent in your own language, by a native speaker of the language you wish to learn. If you are a native English speaker, you can master new mouthshape combinations relatively quickly by (for example) mimicking a heavy Arabic accent in English. This helps train your mouth early to try on and get comfortable with a new pronunciation repertoire. Once you cultivate a new accent in your first native language, you can very easily graft it into a new language you're learning, and reinforce your ability to sound more "native" and fluent from the outset.

[Fraggle Rocker]

Are songs in Mandarin constrained by the tonal requirements of the speech?The short answer: yes. That's why syllables are often spread over two notes, to convey rising and falling tones. However, in the 20th century when they started importing pop songs from other countries, particularly Japan, they translated the lyrics and just did the best they could. The vocabulary of pop tunes is pretty limited so they don't really have a lot of trouble understanding them. Soon they began writing their own pop tunes with no regard for tone correspondence. I used to go to Chinese movies with my Sichuan girlfriend in the 1970s, and even with my modest command of Mandarin I could understand some of the song lyrics. Of course it's easier for a foreigner because we never develop the same tight synapses for tonality that native speakers do. I could sometimes follow her conversations in Sichuan dialect, which has six tones in addition to some simple consonant shifts, and that's something people from Beijing have to struggle to learn to do.