All right, I've had enough. I know that Americans routinely mispronounce all sorts of stuff, even supposedly educated folks, like news anchors ("eKcetera", really?). But how to speak of ESU decoders? Is it "Lock"Sound or "Loke"Sound (with a long "o", as in "spoke")? I'm guessing the former but most of the guys in the Club do the latter. Having never spoken to an ESU rep, I'm still on the fence. Perhaps Ulrich will settle the issue with the way Germans say it.
Of couse, someone here will also bring up Kato (long or short "a"?) and probably something else, as well . . .
Be nice, guys.
John
I vote loke The ESU Youtube channel calls it loke.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I think its supposed to be loke. But Americans call it lock.
- Douglas
In German, "Lok" is the abbreviated form for "Lokomotive" and is indeed pronounced "lock", and this is how I, as a German, would pronounce it in LokSound.
Interestingly, in "Lokomotive" the o sound is longer, but not quite like "loke", more like the Mexican "loco" (= crazy).
Hope this helps...
JW
Upon consideration, it’s pronounced “ee ess you.”
The German "Lok" is pronounced "lock", just like JW wrote. As for he company name ESU, which stands for ESU electronic solutions ulm GmbH & Co. KG, the English pronunciation is just fine!
Just a hint - when there is a letter "e" at the end of a German word, it is not a silent vowel. I find it rather irritating when people talk about a "Porsh", when they mean a Porsche, which should be pronounced "porsh-ay"
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
Hey, I've only recently found out I've been mispronunciating Kato incorrectly.
I always thought it was Kay'-toe, emphasis on the Kay syllable; as in Kato the Green Hornet's sidekick, Bruce Lee. But it isn't. It's Kaah-toe', emphasis on the toe syllable.
Apologies for the interruption. Carry on.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
It's definitely "loak"sound and "kaa"to" (seriously).
And "nucular" (not so seriously).
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
peahrensAnd "nucular" (not so seriously).
Careful that doesn't blow up on you!
My favorite mispronunciation is when people say "youze" as the plural for "you". Happens a lot here in Canada. You can tell they never made it past 5th grade.
I have always pronounced Loksound as 'locksound'. So what? It's my accent eh!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
peahrens And "nucular" (not so seriously).
AttuvianAnd there's another half dozen that are frequent enough that I just rool my eyes (or ears?) and move on. John
Hmmm....And all this time I've been pronouncing it "roll"...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
peahrensIt's definitely "loak"sound
loak like in oak? No, Sir!
I’ve always produced it ”Loak”, but have heard Lock a lot. As Ulrich is German as is ESU all assume it’s the later. Now I got to change my habits...
I always though Kato was pronouced like the later part of avocado, but I’m not sure if that is correct...
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
Issac Isaac,
It is pronouned Kah-to. And the word you want is "latter" rather than "later"...and not to be confused with the similar sounding word "ladder". Aren't languages fun?
tstageAren't languages fun?
They are, indeed! I remember attending an international conference in Japan, where each participant was asked to give a short introduction of himself, the business he worked for and his job. The common languang was English, but with a great number of accents. When the only native speaker, an Englishman from Manchester, finished his intro, a friendly little chap from Malaysia stood up and asked him to repeat what was just said, as he was unable to comprehend even a single word. Accents and dialects add a lot spice to life!
tstage Issac, It is pronouned Kah-to. And the word you want is "latter" rather than "later"...and not to be confused with the similar sounding word "ladder". Aren't languages fun?
Issac,
Yes that is exactly how I pronounce it! It’s just VERY hard to get the spoken stuff in writing! And yes I also ment latter! It’s funny how much people mess up spellings in forums posts! I have honestly stopped caring if I have one or two errors!
Speaking of errors you did spell my name wrong, I spell it Isaac. No problem really, half the time people spell my name they do it that way!
Oops! Sorry, Isaac - Edited and corrected.
Two "a"s is how I usually spell your name. I'll just attribute it to being up since 3:15 AM.
I'm from the suburban Fuladelpya area, where once we had two brothers as quarterbacks for dem Iggles. Coy Detler and Ty Ditweiler. We never quite got there names right.
hon30critterMy favorite mispronunciation is when people say "youze" as the plural for "you". Happens a lot here in Canada. You can tell they never made it past 5th grade.
You should visit Pittsburgh where the proper pronunciation of youze is yinze.
Joe
tstage Oops! Sorry, Isaac - Edited and corrected. Two "a"s is how I usually spell your name. I'll just attribute it to being up since 3:15 AM.
Not a problem!
Billwiz I'm from the suburban Fuladelpya area, where once we had two brothers as quarterbacks for dem Iggles. Coy Detler and Ty Ditweiler. We never quite got there names right.
We can't say those names down the road here in Balmer either.......
As for Loksound or Kato, it matters not to me, I'm not a customer of either company........
The Balmer city government even endorses mispronunciations, northeast of Baltimore is the town of Bel Air, and a road leading to it is US1, called Bel Air Rd between Baltimore and Bel Air. Balmer people call it "Blair Rd" and in the city the street signs say "Belair Rd" not Bel Air Rd.......
So being from the Baltimore area, youse folks in Phily talk just fine. I live just an hour south of Phily in Havre de Grace - our town gets called some interesting things by those with no background in French.....
Sheldon
Western PA has a few French named towns, but they rarely say it properly. My GF who is from out that way looked at me funny the first time I said it correctly - as the French would saw it - because no one there says that. And she studied French.
Other languages differ by region just like English does in the US. Being of German backround, it was natural that I picked German in school. Of course, textbook German isn't anything at all like what my PA Dutch relatives speak, or even what shows up in the Moravian church that i was raised in. Textbook German teaches a fairly easy language to learn, actually - there's none of that silly "I before E, except.." stuff that's in English, because English is a huge mutt of a language. And of course spelling words in English - doesn't help that all those silly Commonwealth people insist on adding extra letters which serve no purpose - there's already enough silent letters in English, no need to add more like color vs colour.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Sheldon, I didn't know you live in Hav-Rey-Dee-Grace. That is one of our favorite places to visit. We go down often, just to walk around. A few weeks ago we went and were fantasizing about buying a house for sale across the street from the park. Been to the Duck Decoy Museum many times!
And although I think it is LOKE (as in locomotive) Sound, my head always says lock-sound (just to refer to the originial post, although I think our diversions are fun).
Billwiz Sheldon, I didn't know you live in Hav-Rey-Dee-Grace. That is one of our favorite places to visit. We go down often, just to walk around. A few weeks ago we went and were fantasizing about buying a house for sale across the street from the park. Been to the Duck Decoy Museum many times! And although I think it is LOKE (as in locomotive) Sound, my head always says lock-sound (just to refer to the originial post, although I think our diversions are fun).
We live in Webster Village, just outside the town proper. Two of our adult children live in town.
I restore houses for a living and just a few years ago restored the gray house directly across from the gazebo at the park. And I am very familiar with the ones for sale.
Previously we lived down the road a bit in Forest Hill, north of Bel Air. I restored that house 24 years ago.
Pittsburgh newscasters count one, two, tree. They also go troo the tunnel.
Tinplate ToddlerThe German "Lok" is pronounced "lock", just like JW wrote.
So in German it's "lock-o-motive"?? Odd, but I suppose there are plenty of examples of words being changed in translation.
Tinplate ToddlerJust a hint - when there is a letter "e" at the end of a German word, it is not a silent vowel. I find it rather irritating when people talk about a "Porsh", when they mean a Porsche, which should be pronounced "porsh-ay"
My maternal grandmother's family were from a rural part of Norway - so far back up in the hills that they hadn't started using family names, still just added "son" or "dottir" to the father's first name...Jonson, Kristopherson, etc. When they got to America, they decided to use the name Skyrud ("Ski-rude") from the area they were from, but soon shortened it to just Rude. One uncle complained about the silent e deal, to the point where he and his kids and grandkids pronounce their name like "Rudy" where all the other family members say "Rude"...like "rude behavior".
BTW Ray and Dave Davies of the Kinks rock band prounounce their last name like "Davis" not like "Day-vees". Descendents of mathematician Edmund Halley (of Halley's Comet fame) pronounce their name "Hall-lee" with the first syllable sounding like 'hall' in 'hallway', not "Hay-lee" or "Hal (like Hal Carstens) - lee".
DrW In German, "Lok" is the abbreviated form for "Lokomotive" and is indeed pronounced "lock", and this is how I, as a German, would pronounce it in LokSound. Interestingly, in "Lokomotive" the o sound is longer, but not quite like "loke", more like the Mexican "loco" (= crazy). Hope this helps... JW
In Deutsch, the engine of a train is pronounced "lockomotive"? I never knew that.
Of course, German isn't pronounced the same everywhere it's spoken. Max Kepler, the MN Twins right fielder, was born, raised, and still lives in the off-season in Berlin. When he was a kid, he won a scholarship to Steffi Graf's tennis academy in Bavaria. He said he had a terrible time there because the Bavarian accent was so different from his that most of the time he couldn't tell what people were saying. It was basically like a foreign language to him.
wjstixHe said he had a terrible time there because the Bavarian accent was so different from his that most of the time he couldn't tell what people were saying. It was basically like a foreign language to him.
I was not aware that Bavaria is a part of Germany IU always thought Bavaria to be a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
On the serious side, there are vast differences in the way German is spoken. I live in northern Germany, where people are said to speak a rather clean German, without a trace of a strong dialect. I have a hard time to understand people from Bavaria or Switzerland. Sometimes, you get subtitles on TV ...
The townspeople where I was raised were mainly German descendents who came to America in the later 19th Century to homestead farmland.
There were two German social organizations in town, The Liederkranz, and The Platt Deutsch Club.
One was called the High German language club, and the other was the Low German language club.
I never knew what the difference was, but they definitely had different pronunciations for some of the German language. Many people belonged to both clubs.
These social clubs are each over 140 years old and still going strong.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."