MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

haertig · 01-12-2019, 04:14 PM

I have found that I do not like listening to audiobooks for novels that I have already read.

For example, I really like the Sigma Force series by James Rollins. One of the narrators of the books pronounces his name Role'-ins, not Rawl'-ins (like everybody else, including other narrators, has pronounced it). That drives me crazy, but is not a deal breaker since you don't have to listen to the authors name in the text of many books.

But when they mispronounce one of the main characters names, NOOO! That really drives me batty. They don't even have to mispronounce it - they just have to pronounce it differently than my mind pronounces it when I'm reading (even if it is my mind that is in error!)

There is character named Seichan. In my mind, I pronounce this Say'-chin (right or wrong). The narrator says it Say-Shawn' (like it's French). Yeuch! It's hard for me to argue which is correct - the character is supposed to be of unknown but possibly Asian descent, although my mind visualizes her (probably erroneously) as Slavic (I think because Rollins is a pen name for James Paul Czajkowski, which definitely sounds Slavic even thought he's American). But which pronunciation is correct doesn't matter to me. When you hear a name pronounced wildly different than you imaged it when you first read the book, it is disturbing. For me anyway. There is another character name Monk who is voiced as what sounds to me like a gravel-voiced troll/dwarf. Not exactly the way I imaging him when reading...

Why this annoys me so much, I can't say. But I should probably just stick to audiobooks for novels that I have not read yet. Oddly enough, it didn't bother me in the slightest to find that Kono from the original Hawaii Five-0 TV series had magically morphed from male to female in the remake of the series.

01-12-2019, 04:14 PM	#2414
haertig Wizard Posts: 1,899 Karma: 31522252 Join Date: Sep 2017 Device: PW3, Fire HD8 Gen7, Moto G7, Sansa Clip v2, Ruizu X26	I have found that I do not like listening to audiobooks for novels that I have already read. For example, I really like the Sigma Force series by James Rollins. One of the narrators of the books pronounces his name Role'-ins, not Rawl'-ins (like everybody else, including other narrators, has pronounced it). That drives me crazy, but is not a deal breaker since you don't have to listen to the authors name in the text of many books. But when they mispronounce one of the main characters names, NOOO! That really drives me batty. They don't even have to mispronounce it - they just have to pronounce it differently than my mind pronounces it when I'm reading (even if it is my mind that is in error!) There is character named Seichan. In my mind, I pronounce this Say'-chin (right or wrong). The narrator says it Say-Shawn' (like it's French). Yeuch! It's hard for me to argue which is correct - the character is supposed to be of unknown but possibly Asian descent, although my mind visualizes her (probably erroneously) as Slavic (I think because Rollins is a pen name for James Paul Czajkowski, which definitely sounds Slavic even thought he's American). But which pronunciation is correct doesn't matter to me. When you hear a name pronounced wildly different than you imaged it when you first read the book, it is disturbing. For me anyway. There is another character name Monk who is voiced as what sounds to me like a gravel-voiced troll/dwarf. Not exactly the way I imaging him when reading... Why this annoys me so much, I can't say. But I should probably just stick to audiobooks for novels that I have not read yet. Oddly enough, it didn't bother me in the slightest to find that Kono from the original Hawaii Five-0 TV series had magically morphed from male to female in the remake of the series.