Very good tutorial, that one.

<"Pal" has an accent over the "a" and it is two vowel sounds put together-

So something like "Paal".>

Pál - yes, it's a double-length vowel. Now <that's> what we call a "long vowel"! Not a diphthong.

I also spent time with a Dutch tutorial.

You know I'm going to go with proper pronunciation of place names too, except where it would obscure the meaning to an English speaker.

So, no "Varshava", but no BEAVER WICK either.

The actual pronunciation of Beverwijk is very mellifluous, and beautiful I might add. It also sounds so different from BEAVER WICK that no self-respecting Dutchwoman would ever understand what you meant if you said that.

I would have had Richard say BEAVER WICK.

But thanks to the website <Niels> gave me, I don't have to do that now.

You have a mellifluous voice as well, which brings out the already existing mellifluososity in Hungarian and Czech.

This apparently came from chessbase.

Well I can actually speak French and I can tell you that the name Bacrot does not- in any conceivable way- sound anything like BACK ROW.

Not even close. No closer than saying ZEEBLEBROX.

Doesn't look as if I'm needed for anything. :) <brankat> is our resident expert on srpskohrvatskian names, and a big fan of Gligorić to boot.

<heavily edited brankat, on "č" and "ć": [...] (more or less) the equivalent of an English "CH" (Church, Branch, Crunch etc). [...] the first "C" [i.e. č] is a "harder" "ch", the second one a "softer" one.>

Well, just for company then. ;) Ackshly you found a way to make yourself useful, as usual - thanks for that quote. "Ch" was my guess as well (although I only know one "ch" sound), but it's good to have it confirmed. :)

<Jess: <Oh no- are you and <Dom> going to construct a secret language using chess piece icons?

As if I didn't already have a hard enough time making sense of that man's writing.>>

Hmmm - making sense of his writing isn't usually the main problem for me... it's making sense of his <not> writing that I find a bit more baffling. ;s

Oh, and that's just a way of saying "good night" while contradicting each other for fun. ;p

Natural progression from "G'♘", then we tried to determine <where> exactly that ♘ would be "good", so it was "♘e5" for a while, then I decided that it should be "♘g4" in honor of the World game, and currently we seem to have moved on to disagreeing about openings. :)

<You know I'm going to go with proper pronunciation of place names too, except where it would obscure the meaning to an English speaker.>

Very good - that's ideal IMO.

Seriously- we could enlist other native speakers such as <Mr. Owls>, <brankat>, <Neils>, and <A Russkie to be named later>.

Absolutely agree on you, <Mr. Owls>- You seem incapable of making an irrelevant post. Unlike many others.

Well Ok me, mainly.

They seem to be permanently busy- not to mention "behind" on everything, but I'm sure they are up for really good new ideas.

At least in theory. The "official CG Book Page" was to be launched a year ago.

It sounds beautiful- and close to perfect.

The main improvement- the last syllable in "Bacrot" has to be stressed- strongly- and the first syllable is so short as to almost be non existent.

Other improvements- for these, you should take them with an <Owlesque> grain of salt, because my aural experience is with Quebec jouel, rather than Parisian French.

In Montreal, the second "e" in "Etienne" would not be the same as in "pet," for example.

It would have an "ah" sound, particularly in front of the letter "N"

So something more like "ahn."

Also, the "tienne" is almost one syllable- and it should be STRESSED hard and it should linger. The first syllable, again, very very short and unstressed.

One more- the "cr" has to have the "French roll"- which is a guttural sound made in the very rear of the palate- but not in the throat, as "Pach" in Pachmann.

In Montreal, the guttural rolling "r" is much, much more pronounced than in Paris.

However, even in posh Parisian, they still make the "cr" sound back in the upper palate- and it still requires an "expulsion of breath".

What's the name for syllables that require expulsion of breath?

"Expellos"?

It could be as simple as Tryfon giving you administrative powers.

Yep- just do it.

If they don't, the site will continue to be bogged under increasing use and demand for services, which is crazy, since the solution really is that simple.

Just to prove this wrong, did you ever actually get the chance to look at these <fawn pawn> games I posted ages ago in your forum? (jessicafischerqueen chessforum)

Anyhow, I don't make very many relevant posts either. Especially during my <thirty-post allegorical story> phases. That's when I absolutely refuse to post anything except 30-post allegorical stories. And since I'm way too lazy to actually complete any 30-post allegorical stories, I post nothing.

Hmm... starring Jack the lumberjack in late 19th century Minnesota. Jack is slower and less productive than the other lumberjacks and Thomas, the gorilla of a woodchopper in charge of the camp, eventually threatens to fire him. Jack asks for one last attempt to prove his worth and finally manages to match the other lumberjacks. Thomas doubts that Jack can keep up this new pace and fires him anyway. Disgusted, Jack goes to drink with his cousin Andy, who tells him someone from Albany has just invented the chainsaw.

OK I just typed that out "manually."

I'm hoping you will tell me HOW ON EARTH YOU COULD POSSIBLY KNOW that I copied and pasted it twice?

I did, you know. But how could...

I'm sorry yes I did miss that post but I've just now added them to the collection.

Game Collection: Fawn Pawns

Thanks!

Ironically, I spent a lot of time with this entry yesterday because it's important to <Rossolimo's> legacy:

Rossolimo vs I Romanenko, 1948

I even thought "hey I should put this in the FAWN PAWN collection" but then promptly forgot about it.

The collection's in a shocking state and so's my MATCH CHAROUSEK collection which needs me to submit ten or so more games to complete, and then write a proper introduction for it.

Luckily I have a lot of time on my hands right now.

Finally, if you click on that game link I left and look at the bottom where it lists games collections, you may well be horrified to learn that OWLS is now a hyperlinked term at this website.

<Jess> first thing, I just sent you a "take two" on Bacrot. I just find it irresistibly hilarious, trying to sound as if I knew French! :D

Well, yes, the site does need more admins. But it's not really a simple matter...

Tryfon is a friend, he knows me well, and he knows he can trust me. And trust really is the fundamental issue here - and a vicious circle, one I have seen at other sites too, in that the bigger and busier a site gets, the less time its admins have, to just browse around their own site and get to know their own members. So the more the site grows, the less its admins know about <whom they can trust>, and the more they rely on... well, something akin to nepotism; the recommendations of the first echelon of moderators, and then the recommendations of this second echelon, and... these might be good people, but they are not necessarily all good judges of character as well. Something as "innocuous" as a few good people being a little too susceptible to flattery, has proven enough to destroy a community by allowing the wrong sort of moderator a foot in the door - from there on, things go wrong fast.

It is considerably better than I can do, and I speak the bloody language.

You've rendered it in Parisian style, with a little "hint of Quebec" in the second syllable of "Etienne."

You know it's weird because I can "hear" French a great deal better than I can speak it, which is the precise opposite to "my Korean."

Although I was forced to study French for my entire schoolgirl career, and though I spent three years in Montreal, there's a good chance a French person would not understand my pronunciation of <Bacrot>.

Any French person would absolutely understand your version though, and probably try to adopt you as well.

If you had any occasion to add French to your arsenal, I doubt it would take long.

Thanks for that TOP SECRET information about the admins plans. I'm glad of that and I wish them every success, let's be optimistic about it eh?

<late EMUs>

LOL my last one was two months late!

You'll never hear me complaining about late EMUs, I'm a terrible correspondent.

I'd be very happy to hear your versions of these names, time/inclination permitting, since they are part of the new video-

Wolfgang Unzicker
Klaus Darga

Hans Berliner
Arthur Bisguier

The latter two were Americans, which brings in the added issue of how they themselves would have pronounced their own names.

However, I've already realized that anything you come up with is bound to be better than my own inclination.

I'm pretty OK on pronouncing Canadian, French, Spanish, and probably ok on Russian.

But my "Russian" is based mainly on Boris and Natascha from "Bullwinkle" cartoons so who knows.

So how would *you* say

The latter two were Americans, which brings in the added issue of how they themselves would have pronounced their own names.>

I knew someone who knew both and my friend used straightforward versions:

Berlin-(like the city)-er
Bis-guy-er