[Opinions] Re: Spellings vs Prns
in reply to a message by Bear
I think you mean zhunn ? it is an uhn sound in Jeanne, not an ann sound as in uhm Ann :P Anne is pr. UHN in French, not Ann (behindthename has it wrong) or AHN (difficult to explain) and Jeanne is zhunn or zhuhnn with a short uh sound. really difficult to explain, sorry. yes, Jehanne should be pretty much the same as the H in French is silent unless in very rare cases where it is said softly but it doesn't sound like the English H. In Germany she is called Johanna.
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So is it closer in sound to the name Shawn?
no, it isn't an aw sound it's a short ah sound almost like an uh. the zh just stands for the French j, a sound that doesn't exist in the English language and is impossible to explain. a zh comes close but is not exactly it. sorry i couldn't be more helpful but i think it is very hard to explain because there are sounds in it that just don't exist in the english language.
Fair enough, theres lots of languages that don't have names that work in english.. like most welsh names. it'd be nice if they made us US kids actually take languages for more than a year to understand things :P
I know what you mean and we are pronouncing it the same way. :-) Thanks for confirming that the "h" in Jehanne is silent.