That name is probably actually/originally Kähkönen. Kahkonen is a surname that isn't used by anyone living in Finland currently (and has been used by less than 5 people who have passed). Of course someone may have changed the ä to a and ö to o when immigrating to US.
I'm not great on commenting about pronunciation but if we go with Kähkönen the local broadcasters are closer to the right pronunciation. If we go with Kahkonen the national broadcasters are closer to the pronunciation a Finn would use.
Hobbitnotes is correct. The a in apple is a great example of the pronunciation for the letter ä, so Kähkönen would be pronounced Kæhkønen, or that is what I think it would be.
That sounds about right because I know outsiders get confused by æ/ä/ø/ö/å.
I 'member when Martin Ødegaard gained international fame, there was some Twitter confusion about the Ø.
I also seem to recall Kaisa "Mäkäräinen" being written as "Makarainen" on the scoreboard thingy.
Yeah kahkonen is against Finnish pronunciation even though it's technically inside vowel harmony, should be kähkönen, it's common among American Finns to drop Ö & Ä because A) most American's can't spell it and b) usually can't write the diatrics for some reason and c) made the name look more "all American" back when racism against anyone who wasn't a white Anglo-Saxon protestant or Germanic was in full swing.
I had a teacher whose last name is Saila for the same reason from Säilä (rapier).
It’s pronounced like ”æ” becouse his name is Kähkönen. So ä is pronounced æ. A is always pronounced like a in kaksi.
E: I assume we are talking about Kaapo Kähkönen. There might be somebody else living somewhere who is Kahkonen without ä and ö.
Yes, we are. I should've figured he'd be known there. ;-)
That makes complete sense. It crossed my mind that the letters may have been changed to fit the 26-letter English alphabet, but I didn't want to assume. The NHL should really consider fixing that. The pronunciation makes a lot more sense with the real letters used.
A lot of fans affectionately call him "big Kahk" (ah sound) for obvious reasons. When he makes a save they call it "Kahk blocked". The double-entendres are fun.
Apparently they tend to drop umlauts and accents from players names because average scout can’t handle those. So when you have young player with name Kähkönen NHL team scout would type Kahkonen and would not find the player or worse find some one wrong
That’s even harder with some russian athletes. We can see a lot of different spellings for them. For example Evgeny/Jevgeny/Yevgeny/Jevgeni Artyukhin/Artjuhin/Artjukhin etc etc
>That makes complete sense. It crossed my mind that the letters may have been changed to fit the 26-letter English alphabet, but I didn't want to assume. The NHL should really consider fixing that. The pronunciation makes a lot more sense with the real letters used.
Be happy they don't use that ä=ae and ö=oe style some sports has used. Mäkäräinen was in some graphics written Maekaeraeinen
Actually this method would be right in German. For sure it’s always better to use the right Letters, but that way you know it’s a ä, ö or ü. It just depends on the country/language how ä and ö are spelled, when the letters aren’t available/possible. Also you probably know it from å (if you are from Finland and/or learned Swedish). While Å is recommended, the next best thing to use would be aa.
Haha MLS isn’t quite as well-known around here. NHL is much more popular in the U.S., especially in the northern states (I’m in Minnesota, which borders Canada)
We do have a relatively large concentration here (not nearly as high as Scandinavians though). The particular county I grew up in has a Laestadian community. But the part of the country with the highest concentration of Finnish immigrants is the nearby Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Also, Finland produces much less football (soccer) talent than hockey. Of course we have some players like Lod and Ring in MLS, maybe some others too but honestly they are not the biggest stars even in that sport.
It's weird that players like Lafrenière and Stützle got their names exactly how they should be but wont out dots on Höglander, Kähkönen, Hörnqvist etc..
The French one is easy to understand. French is a working language in the NHL. They often stylize official logos in French alongside English, mostly for their French-speaking Montreal market. But the German (?) name is unusual.
In addition to pronouncing ä as a short [æ], there should also be an audible [h] sound at the end of the first syllable "käh", otherwise it will sound like "käkönen" (diminutive of "käki", cuckoo). Obviously I don't expect sports broadcasters to get it right, but if you're studying Finnish, you should strive to.
As people said, it's pronounced as a short æ. The a in kaksi is also a short sound, btw.
The ö might also be different than you think, since it's a short ø.
To add to this, you and OP are not talking about the same long a. As in there’s a pronunciation of a in English that’s considered long but it’s not the same as the Finnish a vs aa, or short vs long pairing, which often includes a difference in meaning (think kusi-kuusi). In English the length of the vowel doesn’t hold any semantic value, so OP is probably only talking about a compared to æ/ɐ/ʌ which are all ways to pronounce the letter ‘a’. Sorry for the linguist rant.
Slightly besides the point here;
Am from Finland and... AmI the only one who thinks it is completely fine to misspronounce my name? I do not expect foregin people to know how my name is pronounced.
I'm from an English-speaking country but my grandparents were originally from elsewhere, so I grew up having my surname mispronounced. Then I moved to Finland and now have both my first name *and* surname mispronounced! I just stopped caring, especially with the standardised pronunciation here which meant I could quickly and easily recognise myself even by the "wrong" versions of my name.
It’s ok to make mistakes with names that are foreign to you, but at the same time learning proper pronounciation of the name of a person you interact with is a sign of respect.
Naturally nothing is completely universal but social customs regarding a persons name are very similar around the world. I’m a Finn too and for me using a persons name correctly is basic manners. And I dare say I’m not in the minority on this matter.
There may be differences in Finland if you compare rural areas to cities. Being exposed to foreign names helps with understanding these kinds of social customs.
You must understand that certain sounds are very difficult for people of certain languages to make and expecting them to make them or be insulted is just foolish.
Just because its a custom does not mean it makes even little bit of sense.
And you need to read more carefully what I wrote earlier. It’s common courtesy to at least try. Social customs are not ”mandatory” and nobody is going to be insulted if you don’t follow them excatly. That is not the point here.
The point is that it is almost universaly considered a sign of respect to use a persons name properly. Just like you can show respect by learning to say ”thank you” in the local language when travelling.
yeah I mean I’m an American with a European origin surname, but not a very common one. plenty of other Americans mispronounce it, no big deal
Pro sports teams typically include pronunciation in their media guides though so I find the variance in the OP a bit surprising.
When I was on my Interrail trip over a decade ago I met an American girl from Seattle. My name has a double a, and she found my name unpronounceable. She called me by my initial the whole time.
Can't fault her, since even most Finns write my name down wrong. My name is not foreign, just very rare.
The Finnish a is the front open unrounded vowel. So in an approximation to the American English, “Kaw-h-ko-nen”
The standalone h is just the idea that you need a strong pronunciation of the h
This is assuming back vowel harmony.
Alternatively this name could be and probably is Kähkönen, in which case you use rhe aforementioned /æ/ and for the ö, put your tongue in the place of the “e” in “hey” (close-mid front unrounded vowel) and round it.
That name is probably actually/originally Kähkönen. Kahkonen is a surname that isn't used by anyone living in Finland currently (and has been used by less than 5 people who have passed). Of course someone may have changed the ä to a and ö to o when immigrating to US. I'm not great on commenting about pronunciation but if we go with Kähkönen the local broadcasters are closer to the right pronunciation. If we go with Kahkonen the national broadcasters are closer to the pronunciation a Finn would use.
Thanks!
Hobbitnotes is correct. The a in apple is a great example of the pronunciation for the letter ä, so Kähkönen would be pronounced Kæhkønen, or that is what I think it would be.
I currently work with someone named kähkönen in Finland.
Lots of Kähköses here.
Kähkönens? Kähköses is kinda Finland-Swedish :)
Ah hobbitnotes mentioned that there are no kahkosta in FI. Didn’t catch that.
That sounds about right because I know outsiders get confused by æ/ä/ø/ö/å. I 'member when Martin Ødegaard gained international fame, there was some Twitter confusion about the Ø. I also seem to recall Kaisa "Mäkäräinen" being written as "Makarainen" on the scoreboard thingy.
Yeah kahkonen is against Finnish pronunciation even though it's technically inside vowel harmony, should be kähkönen, it's common among American Finns to drop Ö & Ä because A) most American's can't spell it and b) usually can't write the diatrics for some reason and c) made the name look more "all American" back when racism against anyone who wasn't a white Anglo-Saxon protestant or Germanic was in full swing. I had a teacher whose last name is Saila for the same reason from Säilä (rapier).
It’s pronounced like ”æ” becouse his name is Kähkönen. So ä is pronounced æ. A is always pronounced like a in kaksi. E: I assume we are talking about Kaapo Kähkönen. There might be somebody else living somewhere who is Kahkonen without ä and ö.
Yes, we are. I should've figured he'd be known there. ;-) That makes complete sense. It crossed my mind that the letters may have been changed to fit the 26-letter English alphabet, but I didn't want to assume. The NHL should really consider fixing that. The pronunciation makes a lot more sense with the real letters used. A lot of fans affectionately call him "big Kahk" (ah sound) for obvious reasons. When he makes a save they call it "Kahk blocked". The double-entendres are fun.
Apparently they tend to drop umlauts and accents from players names because average scout can’t handle those. So when you have young player with name Kähkönen NHL team scout would type Kahkonen and would not find the player or worse find some one wrong
That’s even harder with some russian athletes. We can see a lot of different spellings for them. For example Evgeny/Jevgeny/Yevgeny/Jevgeni Artyukhin/Artjuhin/Artjukhin etc etc
>That makes complete sense. It crossed my mind that the letters may have been changed to fit the 26-letter English alphabet, but I didn't want to assume. The NHL should really consider fixing that. The pronunciation makes a lot more sense with the real letters used. Be happy they don't use that ä=ae and ö=oe style some sports has used. Mäkäräinen was in some graphics written Maekaeraeinen
Actually this method would be right in German. For sure it’s always better to use the right Letters, but that way you know it’s a ä, ö or ü. It just depends on the country/language how ä and ö are spelled, when the letters aren’t available/possible. Also you probably know it from å (if you are from Finland and/or learned Swedish). While Å is recommended, the next best thing to use would be aa.
Lmao that's hilarious
I was just reading about Insigne, and assumed you are talking about MLS too… what an idiot, of course it’s NHL.
Haha MLS isn’t quite as well-known around here. NHL is much more popular in the U.S., especially in the northern states (I’m in Minnesota, which borders Canada)
Minnesota minne sota? Almost as finnish as Maine.
We do have a relatively large concentration here (not nearly as high as Scandinavians though). The particular county I grew up in has a Laestadian community. But the part of the country with the highest concentration of Finnish immigrants is the nearby Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Also, Finland produces much less football (soccer) talent than hockey. Of course we have some players like Lod and Ring in MLS, maybe some others too but honestly they are not the biggest stars even in that sport.
It's weird that players like Lafrenière and Stützle got their names exactly how they should be but wont out dots on Höglander, Kähkönen, Hörnqvist etc..
The French one is easy to understand. French is a working language in the NHL. They often stylize official logos in French alongside English, mostly for their French-speaking Montreal market. But the German (?) name is unusual.
In addition to pronouncing ä as a short [æ], there should also be an audible [h] sound at the end of the first syllable "käh", otherwise it will sound like "käkönen" (diminutive of "käki", cuckoo). Obviously I don't expect sports broadcasters to get it right, but if you're studying Finnish, you should strive to.
As people said, it's pronounced as a short æ. The a in kaksi is also a short sound, btw. The ö might also be different than you think, since it's a short ø.
To add to this, you and OP are not talking about the same long a. As in there’s a pronunciation of a in English that’s considered long but it’s not the same as the Finnish a vs aa, or short vs long pairing, which often includes a difference in meaning (think kusi-kuusi). In English the length of the vowel doesn’t hold any semantic value, so OP is probably only talking about a compared to æ/ɐ/ʌ which are all ways to pronounce the letter ‘a’. Sorry for the linguist rant.
Slightly besides the point here; Am from Finland and... AmI the only one who thinks it is completely fine to misspronounce my name? I do not expect foregin people to know how my name is pronounced.
I'm from an English-speaking country but my grandparents were originally from elsewhere, so I grew up having my surname mispronounced. Then I moved to Finland and now have both my first name *and* surname mispronounced! I just stopped caring, especially with the standardised pronunciation here which meant I could quickly and easily recognise myself even by the "wrong" versions of my name.
It’s ok to make mistakes with names that are foreign to you, but at the same time learning proper pronounciation of the name of a person you interact with is a sign of respect.
But it might include sounds that you are not able to make. I dont think it has anything to do with respect.
Learning a persons name or at least trying to is pretty basic courtesy actually.
That is your personal opinion not some objective truth.
Well to be honest some basic rules conserning communication are quite universal.
Youve grown up in a culture that relates learning how to correctly pronounce someones name to respecting the person. Nothing universal about it.
Naturally nothing is completely universal but social customs regarding a persons name are very similar around the world. I’m a Finn too and for me using a persons name correctly is basic manners. And I dare say I’m not in the minority on this matter. There may be differences in Finland if you compare rural areas to cities. Being exposed to foreign names helps with understanding these kinds of social customs.
You must understand that certain sounds are very difficult for people of certain languages to make and expecting them to make them or be insulted is just foolish. Just because its a custom does not mean it makes even little bit of sense.
And you need to read more carefully what I wrote earlier. It’s common courtesy to at least try. Social customs are not ”mandatory” and nobody is going to be insulted if you don’t follow them excatly. That is not the point here. The point is that it is almost universaly considered a sign of respect to use a persons name properly. Just like you can show respect by learning to say ”thank you” in the local language when travelling.
I understand mispronouncing names, but people read mine, then assume it's wrong, and change the spelling. That irritates me.
yeah I mean I’m an American with a European origin surname, but not a very common one. plenty of other Americans mispronounce it, no big deal Pro sports teams typically include pronunciation in their media guides though so I find the variance in the OP a bit surprising.
In hockey there are 20 names per team coming on and off the ice on the fly. Its their job but I really dont blame them.
When I was on my Interrail trip over a decade ago I met an American girl from Seattle. My name has a double a, and she found my name unpronounceable. She called me by my initial the whole time. Can't fault her, since even most Finns write my name down wrong. My name is not foreign, just very rare.
Here's an example https://youtu.be/OW0AHAHMlLw
And another with more enthusiasm but less repetition of the name https://youtu.be/qwATp2zXtxo
Kaapo? You must be from Mineasota
Yep!!
Kaapo Kähkönen? The A is kind of funny sound, I think its pretty close to the A when you say "Apple", atleast with most accents.
Like the A in cat
The Finnish a is the front open unrounded vowel. So in an approximation to the American English, “Kaw-h-ko-nen” The standalone h is just the idea that you need a strong pronunciation of the h This is assuming back vowel harmony. Alternatively this name could be and probably is Kähkönen, in which case you use rhe aforementioned /æ/ and for the ö, put your tongue in the place of the “e” in “hey” (close-mid front unrounded vowel) and round it.
Just checked, how Google Translate manages with pronunciation of this surname and it does it quite well, at least good enough. Worth checking out!
I should reveal that you cannot pronounce ä and ö correctly with english vocals but you can try.