@Dindlee- I realize this, but “lay” is the closest approximation to the Spanish “e” that I could come up with. There really isn’t an English equivalent, because the sound isn’t quite “eh” either, and certainly not Ellen-uh. I’ve had trouble explaining it in the past- perhaps you have a better way to write it out or explain the sound.
That said, I stand behind my point- more people in my area are familiar with the Spanish pronunciation and I have far more often heard the accented version of that than Ellen-uh.
EDIT: just realized the “elephant” thing- I think in my accent, that trick doesn’t work, but I can see how it would. Thanks!
@daisy451- sorry. I spend all day teaching kids to speak Spanish… Sometimes it crosses over into my non-professional life. Elephant, egg, enter… That short e sound is the closest approximation to the Spanish e.
Sorry east93 didn’t mean to take over your thread. My own name seems pretty straight forward, and I still have to spell it/ correct it for people. I think that these days, with all the kre8tiv spellings out there, correcting people on spelling and pronunciation is going to become unavoidable. [name]Elena[/name] is a beautiful name no matter how you say it.
I would say Eh-lay-nuh unless instructed otherwise. I know the other pronunciations are legitimate but I have never encountered them [name]IRL[/name]. So I would always say Eh-[name]Lay[/name]-nuh first.
@dindlee LOL, no problem! I think it may also be the accent I have in English- I say the vowel in “set” very different from the one in “sé.” I put a harsh stop at the end of my English “e” and it’s lower in the mouth/throat, but with Spanish the ending is a lot smoother with a lifted soft palate. I think we probably say it the same, but write it differently. Sometimes I wish Nameberry had an audio component.
Actually, I speak Spanish and Italian - the second syllable of [name]Elena[/name] is not pronounced [name]LAY[/name] in any of those languages. It uses the [é] vowel that doesn’t exist in English but it’s much closer to a short [eh] than [ay], which is the butchered English pronunciation for it.
Being a native Portuguese speaker, I also know [name]Elena[/name] is not a Portuguese name at all - we use [name]Helena[/name] but the pronunciation is (once again) [é-LÉ-na].
See past conversation- I had difficulty expressing that é sound in writing, and approximated it to a long a. I say the name the same way that the recordings other users have listed on this thread say it. (http://www.forvo.com/search/Elena/es/ is the one dindlee gave me.) In my English accent, that pronunciation is closer to the long a than the short e- I suppose I say my short e’s wrong.
I don’t know Portuguese, I had a friend tell me that, so thanks for informing me about that!
