How is "ea" pronounced in words that are not English? The same or not?

[Bienlein]

Hello,

let's make an example: "Sea" in English is pronounced like "see" and not like "see-a" as in many other languages. How do people when they speak English pronounce this "ea" in words that are not English like f.ex "imea". Imea is completely made up, so don't look for some meaning in it ;-). Do people realize that this is not an English word and pronounce it like "imee-a" or do they just stick to their idiom and pronounce it like "imee"?

It is about knowing whether company or product names would also work in English speaking countries.

Thank you, Bienlein

 

[emsr2d2]

When I come across a non-English word, I first decide if it looks like a language I'm familiar with. If I saw "imea", my first thought would be that it looks possibly Spanish or Italian. I know how to pronounce both languages so I would give "imm-ay-ah" a try.

 

[jutfrank]

Do people realize that this is not an English word

Yes, people generally recognise whether a word belongs to their language, even if they've never seen it before. This is largely down to the way the word is formed.

and pronounce it like "imee-a" or do they just stick to their idiom and pronounce it like "imee"?

It depends on the word. In this case, the word imea might remind native English speakers of the English word 'idea', for example, as it has a similar word form. If so, they might naturally want to pronounce it as 'ai-meer'. Alternatively, imea might remind a speaker of the foreign brand name Ikea, in which case they might attempt to pronounce it correspondingly as 'ai-key-a'. It all depends.

It is about knowing whether company or product names would also work in English speaking countries.

I think you'll have to test out each particular word you come up with on native speakers.

 

[probus]

In the English-speaking parts of Canada, French words are far more likely to be given their correct French pronunciation than in the USA, and probably also than in the UK. This, of course, is because we are a bilingual country.