Did Bush pronounce "Simon Bolivar" correctly? He said "SEEEE moan" with a really long "seee"

[yurbud]

[RagingInMiami]

1. In Spanish, it's See-Mohn

Not Sy-Mon

[PDittie]

2. That is the proper Spanish pronunciation eom

[Warpy]

7. Well, he overpronounced it

which is a common mistake people who have recently learned a correct pronunciation make.

Funny he should cite Bolivar. It's rather like his suddenly quoting Thomas Paine.

[PDittie]

8. Well I didn't hear him pronounce it

so I'll take your word for it.

[Warpy]

9. Yeah, he sounded like he'd just recently given up

saying SYmon BALLiver. You know, the way they wouldn't have taught him in prep school if he'd bothered to stay awake during history.

[yurbud]

13. Karl! I told ya, no more His-panic man hos! I want ma Bulldog!

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Simón Bolívar

Note the accents: see MOHN boh LEE var.

[Colobo]

5. ¡Perfecto!

[soothsayer]

20. Mmm, a Bolivar perfecto! One of my favorite cuban cigars.

[yurbud]

11. that's what I thought

it would be like a spanish speaker saying raw NULD ray GUN. Right sounds, wrong accents.

[yellowcanine]

4. It may have been proper but it is a hoot how the little emperor drops in Spanish words and names

and then thinks he is bilingual. Note that he hardly ever attempts an actual sentence in Spanish since some serious bungles in the past. His advisors must cringe everytime he starts down the bilingual road. None of them has the balls to tell him that he should just lay off the Spanish as English is quite enough for him to manage.

[WinkyDink]

6. Correct sound, but accent on the second syllable, I think.

[sammythecat]

10. A helpful guideline I always use

is:
a = ah
e = eh
i = ee
o = oh
u = oo

As far as I'm aware, and I am no expert, these rules are consistent. Unlike English, which is not much more than chaos, with seemingly more exceptions than rules.

I thank God I was born English speaking, otherwise I really don't think I could learn it. I'm impressed as hell with non-native speakers who manage to learn English. If a language could be considered ADHD, English would be it.

[yurbud]

12. I think he got sounds right but not which sylLABles to accent

[Parche]

16. pronounce

Too funny
I dont care for any pronounciations....

Its like...his last name is Smith....but its pronounced....'Jones'............:rofl:

[TlalocW]

17. You've mixed up your a and o

a = ah
o = oh

And for the most part, they are hard and fast rules. Spanish is a pretty organized language, but not overly strict. Every now and then in college classes, we would come across something weird and ask our professor why what we found didn't match all the other examples of the grammar we were studying, and he would smile and say, "Tradition."

TlalocW

[sammythecat]

18. dumb dupe

ignore

[sammythecat]

19. Thanks for the correction, I edited it

I'd be a lousy linguist and those are really the only rules of Spanish I remember. They help me from sounding like a complete dope. A dope, but not a complete one.

I should have been more careful and I hope no one took the wrong advice.

[TlalocW]

14. A really long seee is not correct

Spanish verbs (and thus syllables) tend to be short. The correct way to say it (more or less) is See-moan, but even the way most people say see is too long. If you were to say it, it should sound almost clipped.

I did know a native Mexican lady who would said gracias in a weird way - instead of grah-see-ahs, she would prolong the syllables and turn the soft a's into hard ones so that it sounded like she was saying "Grassy Ass."

TlalocW

[Beelzebud]

15. Don't worry. It's just the booze talking.