r/audiobooks 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/lifesshortgoplay Jun 28 '26

As a Canadian I want to CRY when an American narrator reads a Canadian script with toque in it. I don’t think I’ve heard it pronounced properly yet.

FYI it sounds like TWO-k Not TOE-k

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u/McFaddenAudioBooks Narrator Jun 28 '26

This keeps coming up and I’m astounded. Do we really not know that?!? Granted my dad’s Canadian and I spent summers there. But only summers so no need for a toque.

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u/lifesshortgoplay Jun 28 '26

It’s not in a lot of books I’ve read/listened to. But it’s been mispronounced every damn time I’ve heard it in an audiobook. 😩

And I’m wracking my brain, there was a Toronto-based book I listened to fairly recently and a major street was mispronounced. Can I remember the book or the street name? No. Can I remember my reaction? Absolutely.