As a player, one of the "pet peeves" I have is that foreign words tend
to trip up a lot of otherwise competent moderators--and that I often
spend as much time trying to figure out "what was that word?" instead
of what the answer should be. Also, the attempts at pronunciation
guides tend to vary in quality--some are so far from the mark as to
sound like words other than the one intended.
It's been suggested by people at MIT that I try to create a written
"how-to" guide for pronunciation of commonly appearing foreign
languages (which in quizbowl would include French, German, Italian,
Latin, and Spanish). My idea is to basically do a short introduction
to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and use that as a basis
for a text-based phoneticization scheme for the different languages.
Before I go through the effort, I'd like to know if there's sufficient
interest for such a document on the circuit as a whole. So, please let
me know (aei at mit.edu) if you'd be willing to be a "test pronouncer"
for such a guide.
Thanks,
--AEI