Me, too. I find it weird that this is even a debate. A quick internet search suggests that most dictionaries show it as two syllables, while most people seem to say it as one. Very odd. I always think of it as two, just said rather quickly. One syllable sounds very weird to my ear. I work with a Joel, who is Latino, and he pronounces it as two syllables, but with a "y" sound: Yo-El.
It's often pronounced quickly but there's almost always a minor shift in the syllable before the L, even if a slight, barely aspirated W sound. People may never say Jo-ell like they do the Christmas Noel, but a flat Jole like role would sound like someone just kidding around.
At the start of the invasion I think the bbc etc officially changed all reports to include Kyiv, pronounced “keev” or sometimes “kee-iv”. But that’s probably a new thing due to more attention on Ukraine than usual, and most of these comments are from before feb22
I got almost everything... but none of the UK cities. If it's not London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, or Belfast, there's really no reason for a North American to have heard of it.
Oh please. "There's really no reason for a North American to have heard of it"? As an American, it's really ok, and dare I say useful, to learn about cities in the UK (or anywhere) other than major ones. Do you think people get an accurate understanding of the USA if all they know about are things in NYC, LA, Chicago, and Miami?
I'm American and I knew them all except Wells, even though I somehow missed seeing the last blank, so I missed York, too. Never heard of Wells,tbough. I've heard of Tunbridge Wells, but not just Wells.
Please refrain from adding Trump until he is sworn in on Jan. 20 to allow all the little snowflakes more time to seek safe places and mourn. Jeez, can't even take a trivia quiz without the wailing and whining.
Trump isn't technically president YET. I know some president quizzes have already added him, but they really shouldn't. Wait till it's officially official.
For some reason I feel it should said Bush twice. Both were often enough referred to just as "George Bush". Or "President Bush". Not sure I ever heard "President Bush Junior".
I've always pronounced it Lo - me, or low may. But I have no authority for this, maybe it is pronounced like loam?
I think you have something here. I just checked two sources that pronounce it as one syllable, like Rome. Although there is an accent over the "e", both videos pronounced it with one syllable.
Not sure what videos you're referencing, but the accent should mean it's pronounced as two syllables. Same deal with Male (capital of the Maldives). Though that didn't stop me from trying it in desperation lol.
Lome , Joel and Noel are pronounced as two syllables if pronounced correctly (non-American pronunciations). Laos is one syllable because the "s" is silent, as in Marseilles.
So it's pronounced Mar-ay then :-)? Seriously, how does the presence of an s sound influence the number of syllables - it would just make it "louse" if it weren't silent, surely?
Neither in English nor in Hebrew is JOEL pronounced as one syllable. It's two, and that several people here actually attest that their children are named Joel with one syllable is ASTOUNDING. Can you do that? Is it even possible? Crazy, crazy.
@Marvo In my experience as a speaker of English in the USA, Joel is indeed pronounced as a single syllable. I'm curious as to where you are from that you think it is such an outrageous notion.
I think the English diphthong is a major reason why people might think that Billy Joel's last name is two syllables. I'm pretty sure the bible has Jo-El, said "Joe Elle". However, Billy Joel's name has a one-syllable diphthong. That's where two vowel sounds are jammed together to make one syllable. It's like oil. You could say oil is two syllables, "oy yull", but you'd be wrong. It's a diphthong!
What about Kiev/Kyiv? Now that the impeachment proceedings in the House have popularized the common Ukrainian monosyllabic pronunciation (KEEV), as opposed to the more common Western (key-EV) (mis?)pronunciation, does it not belong?
In English, pronunciation of words and letters is far from uniform so it's always difficult to say how a word is pronounced unless you hear it; even then, pronunciations vary over time, and from place to place, and even from person to person. And there's no English equivalent of the Académie Française, so it's really just a crapshoot.
NY Times article on the controversy. Not even sure where I come down on this myself. 2-syllables seems to remain the more popular pronunciation among English-speakers.
not sure this comment section needs another debate but i would posit that ‘Sucre’ is only one syllable, at least in french pronunciation - but i’m sure someone will tell me i’m wrong, however. either way, it’s worth considering adding it
Just to add to the contested ones: Seoul is actually two syllables (it's pronounced something like "Suh-ool"). Korean is one syllable per hanja "character" (not really characters, but I don't have a better word) and there are two in Seoul.
The common English pronunciation of Seoul is the same as the word "soul". It's one syllable. Now, if we all get together and point out how stupid it is that European countries during the Colonial and Imperial Age decided to just call places whatever stupid, lazy, incorrect thing they wanted, I'm all for that. But then you'd have to argue against Finland and call it Suomi instead and a whole bunch of other things. This is like the Metric system in the US. It'd be better to change away from an arbitrarily stupid system, but the change is impossible! Impossible I say! So just say the capital of South Korea sounds like sole.
To be fair, it's not that different in Korean. Yes, it's definitely two syllables in writing, seo-ul, but in speech Koreans tend to reduce it down to a single syllable as well.
Er, sorry, Kyiv.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8kkbc2pK6M
Sounds like two syllables to me.
I think you have something here. I just checked two sources that pronounce it as one syllable, like Rome. Although there is an accent over the "e", both videos pronounced it with one syllable.
NY Times article on the controversy. Not even sure where I come down on this myself. 2-syllables seems to remain the more popular pronunciation among English-speakers.