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Help[Opinions] How do YOU pronounce Helena
How do you personally pronounce the name Helena? I know there's a lot of different ways, just wondering how different people pronounce it.
~
Hello lads, ladies, and non-binary daisies
Just letting you know you are:
Loved, needed, and accepted
(regardless of gender, pronouns, or sexuality)
~
Hello lads, ladies, and non-binary daisies
Just letting you know you are:
Loved, needed, and accepted
(regardless of gender, pronouns, or sexuality)
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 10:58 AM
Archived Thread - replies disabled
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Replies
In my mother tongue, I say Helen-ah (stress on the first syllable). In English, my intuitive pronunciation would be hel-LEE-nuh.
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In English, HEL-e-nah
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Hell-en-ah
HEHL-ə-nə
HEHL-ə-nə
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heh-LAY-nuh
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HEH-lə-nə (English), heh-LEH-na (Polish)
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Like Helen, with an a tacked on; like the first sound in apple. It's a dactyl.
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heh-len-uh
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Helen-ah.
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It's a toss-up between hehl-en-uh, heh-lay-nuh, and heh-lee-nuh. There's not one that seems more natural to me than the others.
I never know how to say it when I see it written.
I never know how to say it when I see it written.
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 5:45 PM
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heh-LAY-na
:)
:)
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Hel-LAY-na
When I take mine to appointments, she sometimes gets called HEHL-en-a, which is fine and I don't correct
When I take mine to appointments, she sometimes gets called HEHL-en-a, which is fine and I don't correct
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 4:05 PM
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Hel-en-a
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HEH-le-na
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Helen-ah
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he-LAY-na
:)
:)
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I *like* "HEL-eh-nuh" better, but my mind usually defaults to "Heh-LEEN-uh"
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To borrow the phonetic spelling from the website, I say HEHL-ə-nə, as has every bearer of the name I've known (though admittedly all have been British so far).
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hel-eh-nuh
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 1:55 PM
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Without any context I'd say hay-LAY-na:h
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Helen-uh or Huh-Leena
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Hel-EN-ah
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My first instinct on a stranger would be heh-LEE-na, second would be heh-LAY-na. I would be surprised to meet a HELL-en-a.
My preference is for heh-LAY-na.
My preference is for heh-LAY-na.
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HEL-en-a
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I prefer Hah-LAY-nuh
My second choice is Hel-in-uh
My second choice is Hel-in-uh
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 11:21 AM
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I knew a Helena, with whom I attended business school in 1995. I can remember asking her how to pronounce her name. I don't remember exactly how I knew it was Helena without knowing how it was pronounced, but somehow I did. I asked her if it was he-LAY-na or HEL-en-a. (If enquiring minds want to know, she pronounced it he-LAY-na, but said she didn't care if it were pronounced HEL-en-a.)
Point being, I never knew if it was he-LAY-na or HEL-en-a and didn't have either pronunciation set in my head as the correct one as opposed to the other. Even now, I don't, and would pronounce it whichever way the bearer wanted it pronounced. You said that there a lot of different ways, but I'm aware of only those two.
Point being, I never knew if it was he-LAY-na or HEL-en-a and didn't have either pronunciation set in my head as the correct one as opposed to the other. Even now, I don't, and would pronounce it whichever way the bearer wanted it pronounced. You said that there a lot of different ways, but I'm aware of only those two.
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The last (English) pronunciation is He-leen-a which is how the capital of Montana is pronounced. Not sure how many people pronounce their name that way though.
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.HEH-leh-na(German, Czech) heh-LEH-na(German) heh-LEH-nah(Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) i-LEH-nu(European Portuguese) eh-LEH-nu(Brazilian Portuguese) ə-LEH-nə(Catalan) kheh-LEH-na(Polish) HEH-leh-nah(Finnish) HEHL-ə-nə(English) hə-LEEN-ə(English) [key · IPA]
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I was speaking of English pronunciations. I was well aware that there are foreign pronunciations and I could have looked those up myself. I'm not German, Czech, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Catalan, Polish, or Finnish, so I can't be expected to know or consider using those foreign pronunciations. Some of them seem identical to the he-LAY-na or HEL-en-a I already mentioned, anyway. There's just one English pronunciation there I didn't know, the last one, he-LEEN-a (I don't know how to make upside down Es, sorry.) I would not ask a fellow American in the United States if she pronounced her name leaving off the initial H sound or with an initial K sound. That would be silly.
This message was edited 12/15/2019, 1:09 PM
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Well, just because you meet someone in a certain country doesn't mean that's where they were born or that it's where their parents are from. An American Helena with Portugese parents might be called e-le-na or something.
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My Belgian-born mother-in-law, Anny, had to get used to being called AN-ee rather than the ON-ee she'd been called all of her life before immigrating to the US.
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hel-LAY-nah.
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