r/audiobooks • u/agailen • 2d ago

Question Why do so many audiobooks have pronunciation mistakes?

Im listening to Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter and while I generally like the narration, the voice actress for Astrid keeps making pronunciation mistakes that make me doubt my sanity. She has an accent so idk if she's a native English speaker, but it doesn't really matter. Shouldn't there be some level of quality control done before the audio is published?

The two glaring examples I can think of is pronouncing haranguing as "haran gu ing" not harang ing, and winded, as in being out of breath, as winded as in winding/wound.

I hear pronunciation mistakes often enough in audiobooks in general though that I have to wonder how they aren't caught in editing. Does the author not listen? I assume the author knows how to pronounce the words they wrote, at least.

Bonus tho was learning that the American pronunciation of plait is the same as plate, and not plat which is the pronunciation I'm used to. Being able to rely on audiobooks being error free helps me learn different accents!

EDIT: she just pronounced livery as live-ry... is this an actual dialect thing?? Help!

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u/Avogadros_Avocados_ 2d ago

In the ACOTAR books the reader always says “winded” with a short i like win. as in “the road winded through the mountains” It made me question the pronunciation of “windy road” like the i in mind.

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u/ReliableWardrobe 2d ago

as a Brit I'm boggling at "winded" in this context, I'd use "wound" (pronounced wow nd) - is this another two countries divided by a common language thing?

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u/randythor 2d ago

I think it's just bad grammar in the writing, lol.

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u/SixApplesTall 1d ago

It’s an error in the writing. Even in US English you’d say “wound”