Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 May 7

= May 7 =

IPA pronunciation of Thuc Doan Nguyen
Does anybody know the IPA pronunciation of the Vietnamese name "Thuc Doan Nguyen"? What would be the correct way add this to the article: IPA-en or IPAc-en? Do IPA pronunciations of names require a citation from a reliable source? Thanks in advance. - Marchjuly (talk) 01:15, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean the IPA transcription of the Vietnamese pronunciation. For the most accurate answer we would need the name written in Vietnamese script (i.e. including the diacritics). I will try to look for that and get back to you here shortly.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 01:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears to be Thục Đoàn Nguyễn, which would be /tʰùkp doʷàn ŋʷĩəŋ/. This would be the Southern pronunciation (Northern and Central pronunciations would be different). The "/kp/" represents a single final consonant with simultaneous velar and labial closure, the proper way to show it in IPA escapes me at the moment. Less common possible alternatives would be "Thúc" and "Doãn" which would change the pronunciation. I wouldn't include it in the article until you nail down how she spells her name in Vietnamese and which regional pronunciation her family uses.  And the appropriate way to show Vietnamese pronunciation in IPA would be IPA-vi.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 02:17, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all that WilliamThweat. Isn't the IPA pronunciation for English also needed if the name is pronounced differently in English? I am only going by the examples found at WP:PRON, but I am not sure. According to Nguyen, at least the surname, may be pronounced slightly different in English than in Vietnamese. Anyway, I am only asking about this because of made to the article which seemed more OR than policy. - Marchjuly (talk) 02:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You are quite welcome! And yes, I like to include the IPA transcription of an English pronunciation when it differs significantly from a native pronunciation or when it isn't obvious from the spelling itself. In this case, though, that might prove difficult as you would need a source describing how she pronounces her name in English. There are no rules governing how a Vietnamese name is pronounced in English, it varies from person to person according to their personal preference. For example some people named "Nguyễn" prefer to be called "NEW yen" in English while others pronounce it "nwen". In fact, I once knew a man named Nguyễn Nguyễn whose first and last names would be pronounced identically in Vietnamese, but when he gave his name in English, he pronounced it as "NEW-yen Nwen". "Đoàn" also has many possible English renderings. Some prefer /doːn/, some /dwan/, and still others /doʊ æn/ (like "Doe Anne").--William Thweatt TalkContribs 08:06, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Very interesting stuff WilliamTheweatt. Thanks again for all your help. - Marchjuly (talk) 10:12, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Saying sorry after bumping into someone?
In situations where you accidentally bump into someone, you would say "sorry". However, I am afraid that there is a time limit between saying the "sorry" and the bump. What happens if you say it too late? Would you be perceived as being rude? Should saying the sorry occur spontaneously and immediately after bumping someone? Or is there a grace period, allowing you to think ahead of time before saying the sorry? 164.107.182.34 (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The OP already answered his own question. In situations where you accidentally bump into someone, you would say "sorry".. If you say it too late, they won't hear you (they've probably got an iPod on anyway). You wouldn't be perceived as anything, in reality, as they would just continue with their daily business and forget you ever existed. However, if you are talking about actually banging into someone, and knocking their scholarly papers all over the place, then you should apologize immediately and offer to help them pick them up. They may refuse, and be polite and say "It's OK" but they will forget you anyway, so there is no need to worry. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 19:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Meta-discussion moved to the talk page . No such user (talk) 07:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * bWe do have an article on apology. This is an area where people do serious research in the realm of social psychology and sociolinguistics. Here's a few relevant journal articles I found   . The last one in particular focuses on timing of the apology, and one of them is a 2007 review article, covering the state-of-the-art in apology research. SemanticMantis (talk) 12:52, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * We Londoners used to have the reputation of apologising if another person stood on our foot in the Tube. Manners are not what they were however. Alansplodge (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Here is a reference for that. Alansplodge (talk) 22:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll defer to Kage Tora about this of course, but I recall from living in Japan that nobody apologises for jostling and bumping against each other and so on when you get on the subways of Tokyo: it simply wouldn't practical - no-one would be able to get anywhere at all. (When I was there I was the average height for a Japanese man my age, but weighed 25 kg more, and was pretty fit, averaging about 1 000 km by bicycle per month. I accidentally laid a "hip and shoulder" on some young salaryman one evening, and knocked the poor fellow completely over. I was mortified, not just that I'd knocked someone over, but also that didn't know whether to aplogise (and thus be all gaijinppoi) or not.) --Shirt58 (talk) 05:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * @User:Shirt58, I would have apologized and helped the guy up. They'd do the same if it were you. When I was cycling in Japan once, I got hit by a car. I wasn't injured at all (the car bearly clipped my rear wheel), and even though it was my fault (I ignored the 'Stop' sign written on the road), the guy got out of his car to make sure I was alright while I was climbing out of the gutter with the bike still on top of me, then offered to pay any medical bills I might incur - even though it was my fault. I declined (as I was not injured), then he went back to his car and came back to me with a present of a loaf of quality bread. It always helps to be polite. The Tokyo underground is a different matter entirely. It's basically accepted that when you are in the carriage, your face will be practically touching other people's faces. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 11:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You are right: I was wrong. I should have done the decent thing, and helped the guy to back up to his feet, and apologised in both English and Japanese, and then patiently waited for the next Tokyo Metro car to take me from Shibuya to where ever it was I was going to. Jiro Tanaka or Taro Watanabe or whoever I knocked over, if you are reading this, I apologise, and not in just the formal way I was taught in Nihongo 201. :-( --Shirt58 (talk) 11:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

What Arabic text corresponds to the name of the AEFE
This page has the Arabic name of the Agency for French Education Abroad or AEFE. Is the name "وكالة التعليم الفرنسي في الخارج"? Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. Omidinist (talk) 03:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) WhisperToMe (talk) 07:20, 8 May 2015 (UTC)