Pronunciation guide....

I do that, too. When I was very young, I once read an entire book in which the heroine was, in my head, named Sie-oh-ban. Siobhan. Which is pronounced Sh-er-vaun, since it's Irish. D'oh! The worst one for me is in Zelazny's 'Donnerjack'. There's a monkey called Dubhe. It annoyed me so much that I looked up the word online (it's the name of a star) - the pronunciation guide says "The first part is 'Dub' and you can pronounce the last bit pretty much any way you feel like - there's no standard".

I tend to find very bothersome, because I don't generally reference a pronunciation guide throughout the book. I think it bothers me more when a book is adapted to the movie and I have to hear other people saying the name differently, though. If I'm reading, I'll just let my imagination keep my own pronunciation, but it bothers me if I am corrected.

I also get a bit bothered when I find out I had been pronouncing names wrongly. But what is even more annoying, is like when you hear in sports players from other countries and the sportscaster cannot decide what the pronunciation or stressed syllables are. It is common that you will hear a different version of the player's name between different matches. Have a nice day!

I read loads of high fantasy novels with strange pronunciations, but I can't say that it's ever bothered me. It's usually only when I'm trying to explain the characters and the land names to someone else that I even try to get the pronunciation right, and if there's a guide (there usually is) then I just refer to that. I don't think I've ever been upset or felt stupid finding out I've been reading it in my head wrong.

I think i have the same problem too. I am a Filipino who really crazy about learning English. I feel frustrated whenever I can't pronounce the words perfectly. Common nouns are okay like names of people, places specially fictitious words. But I can't forgive myself if I mispronounce commonly use words. I usually check dictionaries about this, I usually compare British English and American English. So that I can express these words in a lot of ways.

Yes, the pronunciation of the name of people and places bothers me a lot. Sometimes I may be able to check the right pronunciations of places and names which really exist in reality or frequently been used by people online, but for those names which are really fiction, I may never be able to know how they should be pronounced. Also, in addition to the situation you have just mentioned, sometimes I found it difficult to pronounce the names correctly if their origin is not English. Like the word Enchanted (a movie name), at the beginning I pronounced the word using the way I guess how an English word should be pronounced. Later on I discovered I was wrong and correct it embarrassingly after reading it in a presentation. So it is good if there is a CD for us to know the correct pronunciation of a glossary of words appeared in a book.

Haha. Thats funny, I do know how you feel tho. I ususally don't find later that I am wrong because I f Don't look! I do however get really frustrated when I know it's wrong and have to just make something up.

That's another fun way to read. It is difficult to pronounce proper names that are not familiar, but it does not bother me at all. I am more bothered when I fail to pronounce correctly the more common names or words. Sometimes I check my online dictionary to determine the correct pronunciation. Good thing there is an online dictionary that has audio and pronounces the words. Keep on reading!