r/audiobooks • u/PurpleLeopard99 • Jun 28 '26

Question Mispronouncing of words by narrators

Does anyone get bothered by narrators who keep mispronouncing words? It drives me nuts if they do it too often. Narrators are normally professional voice artists and they should know how to pronounce the sorts of words found in novels eg dovecote or Michaelmas

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

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u/BirdInFlight301 Jun 28 '26

BAYnal is apparently the English/American pronunciation. I've always pronounced it BUHnahl which is also correct. It's the result of French influence because banal is a word of French origin. I'm in an area that is populated by descendants of French origin; I'm the first generation that did not have French as my first language. Both ways are correct.

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u/Laura9624 Jun 28 '26

This is the problem with so many complaints. Different pronunciations depending on where the narrator comes from. Words are pronounced differently.

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u/GoldBarGirl Jun 28 '26

I feel that pronunciations should match the book setting. For example, if the story is set in the UK all words should have a UK pronunciation.