So I found this name while looking up my [name_f]Tia[/name_f], Téa delimma and there’s people put there called Teà!
[name_m]How[/name_m] would you pronounce it?
Wow. I’ve never seen an accent grave on an A in a name before. Standing alone, an à is a [name_m]French[/name_m] preposition.
If I saw the name, I’d have to ask or I guess I’d assume it was just a misspelling of Téa which is pronounced [name_f]Taya[/name_f].
Yeah, I’d say taya. [name_m]Just[/name_m] like the [name_m]French[/name_m] Léa, layuh.
I’d pronounce it “taya” if the spelling was “Téa”. In [name_m]French[/name_m], there’s no accent like “à” that would make sense in the middle of a word, so I have no idea how to pronounce “Teà”. I guess I’d put the emphasis on the last syllable, so I’d say it like “taYA”. I think I prefer [name_f]Tia[/name_f] or Téa. Or Taia?
But that’s really not how the à works. The a-grave is a preposition, as mentioned before – “à la maison”, “à six heures et demi” etc. At gunpoint, I would say tay-[name_m]AH[/name_m] (with a very strong emphasis on the à because of the accent grave). I get your point because Téa is more teh-[name_m]AH[/name_m] (with a more moderate [name_m]AH[/name_m] sound) than tay-[name_m]AH[/name_m], but I would strongly advise against using Teà, still. If you aim for the tay-[name_m]AH[/name_m] pronunciation, I think Taia could be a great alternative.
Agreed! I saw the thread title, and thought, “What in the world?!” I’ve never come across something like that, either. Strictly speaking, à isn’t pronounced any different from “a”, when they’re standalone words, so I would assume it’s said like the word [name_f]Tea[/name_f] (tee), or possibly TEE-ah/[name_u]TAY[/name_u]-ah. I really have no clue.
Honestly (and I know, this is awful of me, but Americans generally seem to really mess up [name_m]French[/name_m] accents and words!), my first impression was that someone was trying to appear [name_m]French[/name_m] and added an accent, but they didn’t know it was the wrong type of accent (and on the wrong vowel!), so they just come across as very foolish and pretentious to me. Could I be wrong? Absolutely, but that’s just my first impression. I would definitely stick to [name_f]Tia[/name_f], Téa, or even just [name_f]Tea[/name_f], if it was me.