name pronunciation

[tsukikage]

So, as most of you know, my name's Nastassja, and I live in the United States. As such, I get a lot of people who look at my name and ask me how to pronounce it. Unfortunately I have a bit of a speech impediment (from a cleft lip and palate), so usually just saying my name doesn't really help people pronounce it correctly. Lately I've tried telling people to just turn the j into a y, but still many people don't know how to deal with the name. So my question is, how would you pronounce "Nastassya"?

Also, if you happen to know how to pronounce this name, how would you recommend I tell others how to pronounce it without relying on my own ability to say my name clearly?

As a bonus, does anyone have a name that they feel is pretty easy for those in their country of residence to pronounce, but somehow is always mispronounced?

(Why is it "pronounce" but "pronunciation" anyway?)

Comments

[hitokiridirk.livejournal.com]

Honestly? To break it down, I'd go with; Na-stah-see-yah

Most people in the U.S. don't know how to cope with odd Y's, it's a dialect thing. Tell people to think of your name as Swedish, and they should get it.

Also? I LOVE to watch people mangle both my first and last name. Dirk doesn't get it as much, but my last name, Ykema is mispronounced more often than people get it right. I can understand to an extent, but really? It's not that difficult, at least it shouldn't be.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

If I remember right, Ykema is "eye-keh-mah"?
How do people tend to pronounce it? "Ick-eh-mah"? "Yick-eh-mah"?

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

It is true, Americans are usually quite bad at pronouncing "sya"; it usually either gets palatalized into "sha", or if an effort is being made to preserve the "s", split into two syllables, "see-ya".

You'll never succeed in getting the majority of American English speakers to consistently pronounce "sya" correctly, so your best option really depends on whether you're more attached to the non-palatalized consonant or to the syllable count.

[tsukikage85.livejournal.com]

See, I wouldn't mind see-ya as much. I mean, truth be told, it's a bit of a diphthong, I think - even I don't get it into EXACTLY three syllables. It's all the OTHER pronunciations that bother me, mainly the palatalization. Sometimes I get "Nahstahzhah" (too lazy to pull out IPA - that little things that looks like ろ) or "Nahstayzhah" too. And strangely a lot of people mess up on the "st" part, too, giving me stuff like "Nahtahssyah". The best part is when they drop the first s AND mess up the end - "Nahtahzhah" or whatever.

[akaneko.livejournal.com]

Well, stuff like "Nahtahssyah" is probably from Americans being more familiar with the name Natasha, and not processing the consonants correctly because they're trying to match them to it.