By the way, everybody here finds it extremely easy to pronounce Klara’s name. Including my 6-year-old niece Klubnikis who is an English-speaker.
As I suspected, the problem resided entirely in the typical Midwestern tendency to engage in churlish resistance to anything even slightly unfamiliar.
I’m very puzzled by people’s inability to pronounce Klara. Isn’t it claah-raah? Or is it something else?
LikeLike
Based on how it is written, I can’t tell if it’s Clair-uh or Clah-ruh or Clah-rah. But none of those are difficult to pronounce, and only maybe difficult to distinguish the first time upon hearing.
LikeLike
I’m very puzzled by people’s inability to pronounce Klara. Isn’t it claah-raah
It’s two syllables and not very difficult ones for English speakers. It shouldn’t throw people after hearing it once or twice. I found this:
LikeLike
These are the same people who think I have an incomprehensible accent in English, so you get the idea…
LikeLike
It’s more of that othering bullshit by the people terrified of anything that comes outside their microscopic comfort zone. They cannot get over that fact that you are not from around there and don’t belong there, and just keep reinforcing this belief of theirs over and over and over (“I can’t understand her! And her kid has this weird incomprehensible name! Why can’t these people learn to speak English?!”).
LikeLike
Exactly. And it’s starting to get to me, to be honest.
LikeLike
The later seasons of Doctor Who have a character named Clara which is pronounced similarly (except maybe less rolling of the R). So it’s clearly not even that unusual in the English speaking world.
LikeLike
Laziness rather than churlishness?
LikeLike
So do you trill the “R” when you pronounce Klara’s name?
LikeLike
In Russian, I do. She loves it when I trill because I can go for 5-7 minutes without stopping.
LikeLike
IME extreme monolingual people (who don’t come across much language variety in their day to day lives) really do have problems understanding accents and new words and it’s not an act.
It can be hard to understand for people here (none of whom are monolingual AFAICT) but the less variety people are exposed to the less they can deal with variety.
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment