That’s exactly what I tell students about the need to learn to pronounce my last name. “Nobody passes the course without pronouncing it correctly. On the first try,” I say.
I do it to gauge their level of language competence. If they laugh at the joke, I know their Spanish is good. Obviously, I don’t really care how they pronounce it as long as nobody tries addressing me by my first name. If they do, I stare at them morosely until they desist from this strange endeavor. Usually, they settle on “profe”, and that’s perfectly fine.
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