Torrentious
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Pronouncing Les Miserables?Simple question about pronunciation:
Like me, did you go a HECK of a long time not knowing that Les Miserables was pronounced "lay mizzer-ahb"?
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jackrussell
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I try to include a bit of an "L" sound on the end - "Lay Miserahbl"
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dolbinau
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I once thought it was LES-MISERABLES lol.
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Moci
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| jackrussell wrote: | | I try to include a bit of an "L" sound on the end - "Lay Miserahbl" |
Yeah, I'd say that it should be approximately [le mizeʁaːbl], although how strong the [l] would be depends on the regional accent.
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GungaDin
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actually, phonetically, it should be [i]lEy mizerabh[/i].
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Paula74
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I had no problem with it. I'd been taking French for about a year or so before I first saw the first national tour and it was one of my best subjects in school.
So it was no big deal for me to pronounce it right. But there have been times when I've pronounced it correctly and people didn't know what I was referring to...until I deliberately mispronounced it or just said Les Miz.
A few years ago, though, I was in NYC and stopped to buy one of those small, cheap framed show posters on the street. I asked for the Les Miserables one and the man selling them did a double-take when I pronounced it properly. He said, "Can you say that again?" Apparently, he'd never had anyone say it right.
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sopranodespair
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I pronounced it Less Miserables when I first saw it, but my mother corrected me as soon as I said it. So that was the one and only time I pronounced it wrongly.
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MariekeLovesEnjolras
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I pronounced it in Dutch first. As:
Le as the French "le"
Miserable with the
-- "i" as the "ea" in 'sea'
-- and the "e" as the second "e" in 'ever'
-- and the "a" as how you guys say the "a" in 'Miserables'
-- and the "e" again as in 'ever'
-- and then the "le" again
So that's the dutch way, hope you get it.
Well, then I got to talk with the (Australian) trombone player of Les Mis orchestra, so he obviously pronounced it in the English way. So that's how I learned it 
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bigR
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french speaker, here, so my problem was when I had to figure how to pronounce it the english way the first time I had to say in the middle of a conversation in english!
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Torrentious
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| MariekeLovesEnjolras wrote: | | Well, then I got to talk with the (Australian) trombone player of Les Mis orchestra, so he obviously pronounced it in the English way. So that's how I learned it |
The english way of "Lay mizzer-ahbl", or "Less Mizerables"?
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MariekeLovesEnjolras
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| Torrentious wrote: | | MariekeLovesEnjolras wrote: | | Well, then I got to talk with the (Australian) trombone player of Les Mis orchestra, so he obviously pronounced it in the English way. So that's how I learned it |
The english way of "Lay mizzer-ahbl", or "Less Mizerables"? |
He spoke about Lay Mizzer-ahb. So I copied that  And apparently it was correct 
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operafantomet
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My stepfather is French, to getting the pronounciation right was quite unavoidable.
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jdeng
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On the old official website, CMS taught people how to pronounce the title and the names of characters and places in the musical in a French way. Funny enough, on the new official site, they have dropped the title from the pronunciation list.
Presumably, there have been arguments among the officials about which way should be considered official.
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lizeponine
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| MariekeLovesEnjolras wrote: | | Well, then I got to talk with the (Australian) trombone player of Les Mis orchestra, so he obviously pronounced it in the English way. So that's how I learned it |
Is that Ben? He's really funny!
I'm only saying le mizzerahb if I'm talking English, but in Dutch I say it the way Marieke discribed.
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Rose Des Enfers
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The title, I learned pretty quickly.
The barricade boys' names? Not so much. I actually downloaded all the pronunciation clips from the official site and put them on a CD to learn them.
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MariekeLovesEnjolras
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| lizeponine wrote: | | MariekeLovesEnjolras wrote: | | Well, then I got to talk with the (Australian) trombone player of Les Mis orchestra, so he obviously pronounced it in the English way. So that's how I learned it |
Is that Ben? He's really funny!
I'm only saying le mizzerahb if I'm talking English, but in Dutch I say it the way Marieke discribed. |
Yea. I'm talking about Ben. He's pretty cool. Though beware, he sometimes reads this forum too  Actually he was the one giving me the link He also plays in Tarzan and sometimes Joseph / Ciske 
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Muscialperformer92
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Oh yeah! Like 3 years or something.. it wasn't until I met someone who knew a little bit about french, and got a musicaltheatre-obsessed teacher, that I was told "Hey! it's not Lesss Miserablessss" haha but now, knowing better, I can't stand people saying it that way haha it sounds so awful! can't believe I used to say that myself 
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Proud Dork
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I used to be totally adamant about the 'fact' that the extra non-subtle "lah" came after. I would literally refuse to believe anything else until I saw it on the official site...and even then I was unsure!  The early days of obsession are the best, aren't they?
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curlyhairedsoprano91
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Back in ... I dunno ... 1999-2000, so when I was 8 or 9 ... my cousin's best friend was on Broadway as mini-Cosette, and so when she came to visit she was wearing a Les Mis shirt. I insisted on pronouncing it "Less Mizruhbulls." But that was probably just to annoy my cousin.
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Bagnew
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I pronounce it Lay Mizzer-rahb because I'd been learning french for several years before hearing it. (PITY ME IN NEW ZEALAND, BEING UNABLE TO SEE IT LIVE D: I've only seen phantom twice, and I'm going to see cats in a month or two)
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