Hello everyone,
I’m living in Germany now for some years, but I came from Russia. In my last name, I have the sound /ʒ/ (ZH) ([short article on where it could be met in English](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Forming-the-zh-Sound.htm)) in the beginning, so Zharov. Obviously, the typical vocalization of this is way off of how it really sounds (typically pronounced somewhat like Tskharof).
While on one hand, I just used to it and also used to pronounce it with this weird sound (so could be written down correctly), I would like to know is there any way to write it down, so it sounds closer to the original one? I know, there is no “proper German” way to write it down, however, when germans read some name like Jean-Luc Godard they really can pronounce it without any kind of hesitation. This makes me think there should be some way to put it on paper to be read closer to the original sound.
– Closest option I can think of in original German is Scharow, which is way closer, but really shifts this first letter.
– Some western Slavic people just use their own diacritics like Žarow. This is way nicer towards the sound, but on the other hand, confusing and easily just missed.
P.S. Of course, I have official documents, and can not change them, but I want to have an idea on how to write it down for my friends or something like that. So, mostly my spare interest, any weird ideas appreciated.
5 comments
Write it Scharow. Yes it may not be exactly the same, but it is the closest you get and it is also how that would generally be transliterated in german.
Žarow will be just pronounced as a Z sound, which is even further from how you would pronounce Zharov.
Scharov, or maybe use Jarov with the mention that it’s meant to be pronounced the American way.
Sharov?
> Closest option I can think of in original German is Scharow
Yes, that would be the standard German transcription (as in, e.g., “Solschenizyn” for “Солженицын”), the problem being that it doesn’t distinguish between “ж” and “ш”. “Zharov” would be the standard *English*-language transcription.
In German, you can write “sh” for “ж” to differentiate it from “sch” for “ш”, but I don’t know if that would make much difference: people still wouldn’t necessarily know how it’s supposed to be pronounced.
> Some western Slavic people just use their own diacritics like Žarow.
This is an international system of transliteration known as “System A”, also ISO 9, DIN 1460 or GOST 7.79. According to this system, “Жаров” would be transliterated “Žarov”. However, again, most people probably don’t know how “ž” should be pronounced, and wouldn’t even be able to type it.
Sorry, there simply isn’t any way of writing it in a way that would help people to pronounce it. I do sympathize — I spent four months having my first name, Andrew, being butchered into “Эндрю” — but it’s just one of those things you have to live with.
I know people who have the same issue with their name. Long story short: Germans can not read either Ž or Zh because they are not used to it. Furthermore, the sound that it describes isn’t in the standard German sound inventory – it came in by loanwords from English and French. So people assume that ZH, as they aren’t used to the sound or the writing, is just pronounced /ts/ , the diacritic sign doesn’t really help much because with these most people are even more lost.
Hell, I wouldn’t know about that if I wouldn’t look into learning some Russian words from time to time.
Scharov would be the closest you would get a German speaker to pronounce your name on the first try without help. Not perfect, but closer to Zharov, I guess.