There was an attractive couple from Germany here at our Toronto hostel. (Alright, there have been quite a few attractive German couples passing through our hostel!)
But there was one couple in particular who were here for quite a while and we had decided to interview them for possible inclusion on our wall of “Notable Guests”.
But before we could corner them for a brief interview and a photo, they found an apartment and checked out. A sadly missed opportunity.
Last Friday, we were joining some friends and staff members on our patio for a drink celebrating the arrival of spring and mild weather. Across the crowded patio the German couple was sitting with old friends having beer and wine!
We were not going to miss them again so we arranged for a photo to be taken and told them we were planning to put their pic and bios on our wall!
They wrote their names and details down; ANNE and CAN? Both hail from Hamburg and CAN is of Turkish ethnicity. CAN? (He pronounced it for me as “John”.)
Just how does he figure that? But sometimes the squirrel wakes up in the wheel! Eureka! I think I’ve figured it out!
Turkish must be a completely phonetic language of short vowel sounds!
Like:
[a] as in father
[e] as in bet
[i] as in machine
[o] as in boat
[u] as in tutu
The consonants must be pronounced in a similar manner as ours! So I looked it up and found out I was right (with a few exceptions).
Consonants were:
[ç] is pronounced ch as in China
[?] is sh as in shell
[j] is soft as in the French Jacques
[c] is a hard j as in jazz
So you can work it out yourself. C-A-N = JOHN! (The “H” in the English spelling is silent and therefore unescessary.)
I realize that I have strayed far off subject of Annie and Can. I’ll tell you all about this nice couple in a future entry. I promise!
