There are many things annoying in life, yet many annoying situations could easily be avoided if people were more careful or educated.
Recently I have got annoyed by the terrible pronuciation of foreign names in TV news channels, in about any language. Be it on international channels like France24, Euronews, or national French or Belgian TV, I am appalled at the pronuciation of most French-speaking news commentators. Talking about the floods in Britain at the moment, on one channel they will say "Oxfordshire" making -shire rhyme with "tyre", while on another channel they say "sheer". How comes such news channels do not teach their staff a few basic rules of English pronuciation or recruit people who have notions of English. It's not difficult for a French speaker to say it properly; just tell them to read it like if it was spelt "cheur" in French, with a nearly silent "r".
When talking about Turkey, the same newscasters just won't learn that the name of the Prime Minster, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pronounced "Rejep Tayip Erdoan" ("c" is "j" in Turkish, and "ğ" is a silent letter). It's 4 years he has been PM, and he makes the news many times a year, but not a single newscaster manage to learn to say his name properly. What qualification do they need to be engaged as newscaster if not being able to pronounce foreign names properly ?
On French TV, some people will pronounce German names properly because they have learnt German, but many won't. They always get Dutch names completely mistaken (what irrites me most if when they pronounce the "Van" in family names like the French word "vent" when it actually sounds like "vanne"). When saying the name of the Belgian PM, Guy Verhofstadt", it always end up in some completely incomprehensible stuff like "Verschofstrat" or something like that. At least Francophone Belgian TV always get Dutch names right. Euronews also makes an effort. French channels are so pathetic in this regard.
But English channels often do not do a much better job at pronouncing foreign names. France24 in English has newscaster that can speak French, so they usually get French words perfectly right. But even the multilingual Euronews tends to mistake often.
Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong century and people are just so primitive and old-fashioned. Things are slowly getting better, but I still feel like I am a few decades too early over the world I live in for it to be as comfortable as it is for most other people in developed countries.
