# Sevilla or Seville?



## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

What do we think? Which should we use when conversing in English or posting on an English language forum?


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jimenato said:


> What do we think? Which should we use when conversing in English or posting on an English language forum?


I suppose strictly speaking you should use the English spelling if you are speaking or writing in English (unless you are talking about the football team). But I sometimes forget when I´m writing. My shopping lists often come out bilingual.

What about Catalonia / Catalunya? Andalusia / Andalucia?


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

jimenato said:


> What do we think? Which should we use when conversing in English or posting on an English language forum?


Convention is to use the usual English form, so Seville, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Prague and so on. Some place names are obsolete, such as Leghorn for Livorno, so you use the usual Italian name. Press convention seems to be to use the native form if it's part of a proper noun, such as AS Roma, FC Sevilla (but it's Bayern Munich and Slavia Prague).


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## PokAlice (Mar 8, 2011)

I'd agree - I'd use Seville if writing in English. Though I always have to make a point of doing it, as Sevilla comes more naturally these days ...


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## PokAlice (Mar 8, 2011)

That said - I just noticed I registered as Location: Sevilla in my profile


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

PokAlice said:


> That said - I just noticed I registered as Location: Sevilla in my profile


Well, living here we see it every day on road signs, in the newspapers etc - so it's not surprising.

A rather refined English lady who lives in our village talks about making marmalade from "_Sev_ille" oranges - with the accent on the first syllable. Very odd.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Then we get Pekin or Beijing?
My friends and I have noticed that the Spanish press have gone from Peking to Beijing and back to Pekin
Bombay or Mumbai?
Londres or London or even Lon DON??


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

I wish everyone would just call towns/cities/people by what the locals call them

London should be London

Madrid should be Madrid

Paris should be Paris

Sevilla should be Sevilla

Roma should be Roma

New York should be New York

& yes, I know some of those are both the local and 'foreign' versions - so why not all

are Madrid & Paris not considered important enough to have a 'foreign' version (I know we pronounce them slightly differently, but I'm talking spelling here)

what annoys me the most is when_ peoples_ names are changed

who the heck is_ la reina Isabel?_

and _el príncipe Carlos_



and I wish my home town had only one name


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Are there any other places in Spain that have an English name? I can't think of any off hand.

I don't see it as a problem. The Spanish aren't about to change from Londres, Douvres and Edimburgo. 

Pronunciation is different again. I have a relative who insists on calling Tenerife "Tenerifay" and that it is wrong to call it Tenerife. It comes over as a bit pretentious to me. No one would say "Paree" rather than Paris if conversing in English would they? You would just sound daft!


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

It's much more common than I realised and I think other languages change place names more than English does. Take a look at this little lot!

Names of European cities in different languages: A - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

jimenato said:


> Are there any other places in Spain that have an English name? I can't think of any off hand.
> 
> I don't see it as a problem. The Spanish aren't about to change from Londres, Douvres and Edimburgo.
> 
> Pronunciation is different again. I have a relative who insists on calling Tenerife "Tenerifay" and that it is wrong to call it Tenerife. It comes over as a bit pretentious to me. No one would say "Paree" rather than Paris if conversing in English would they? You would just sound daft!


That's the thing Jimenato, people always think you're showing off. The English don't like someone to show s/he speaks another language. I do find it difficult to not correct some of the English speakers pronunciation sometimes though. My parents once went to Salooooooooo, and I kept telling them that the locals called it Salou, because that's it's name basically. And once my sister in law was very adventerous and went to a small place called Oriña, and she just couldn't remember to make that ñ !!!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> That's the thing Jimenato, people always think you're showing off. The English don't like someone to show s/he speaks another language. I do find it difficult to not correct some of the English speakers pronunciation sometimes though. My parents once went to Salooooooooo, and I kept telling them that the locals called it Salou, because that's it's name basically. And once my sister in law was very adventerous and went to a small place called Oriña, and she just couldn't remember to make that ñ !!!


oops:clap2:

I must add that to my list of reasons to get the ñ right


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

xabiachica said:


> What annoys me the most is when_ peoples_ names are changed
> 
> who the heck is_ la reina Isabel?_
> 
> ...


Cristobal Colon used to confuse the hell out of me. But it was English-speakers who changed it to Christopher Columbus. Like they changed Catalina to Katherine of Aragon.

Funny how we do it with royals but not with footballers. Ferdinand Towers? Andrew Broom? Joe Queen?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> Cristobal Colon used to confuse the hell out of me. But it was English-speakers who changed it to Christopher Columbus. Like they changed Catalina to Katherine of Aragon.
> 
> Funny how we do it with royals but not with footballers. Ferdinand Towers? Andrew Broom? Joe Queen?


yes the Cristobal Colon thing confused me at first too

& yes you're right - it does mainly seem to be for royals that we do it - although I don't think I ever heard Juan Carlos called John Charles in the UK


It really is a pet hate of mine - this changing of names

one of my students refers to himself as Gray-Ham - because that is what a Spanish neighbour once called him - WHY!!!

his name is Graham with a silent H - the H is silent in Spanish so why on earth would the Spanish guy have said that in the first place - & if he did why not just correct him!???

worse though is when they insist on actually using the Spanish version of their name - Ralph becomes Rafael, Mary becomes María, John becomes Juan etc.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Oh dear!

I nearly always call myself "seeMON" because they just don't get "SYmon". If they do call me SYmon they spell it Saimon.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

jimenato said:


> Oh dear!
> 
> I nearly always call myself "seeMON" because they just don't get "SYmon". If they do call me SYmon they spell it Saimon.


Yep, same here - Clara is a lot easier for them to get their tongues round than Claire, which tends to come out as _Cla-ee-ray_.


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## JuiceGirl (Dec 7, 2011)

xabiachica said:


> I wish everyone would just call towns/cities/people by what the locals call them
> 
> London should be London
> 
> ...


LOL! My real name and my nickname are two TOTALLY different languages! On the first day of school I always knew when the teacher came to my name on the attendance list... she would stare at the paper and I KNEW it was ME!


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## James3214 (Jun 25, 2009)

Take Liege in Belgium. In french it is of course Liege but due to the language laws in Belgium you could find yourself driving either to Liege, Luik or Luttich depending on which language part of the country you are in. I am sure it has confused a few drivers on the E40 east of Brussels. Köln/Koeln/Cologne and Keulen or even Colonia in spanish is another of course!


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

Pesky Wesky said:


> That's the thing Jimenato, people always think you're showing off. The English don't like someone to show s/he speaks another language. I do find it difficult to not correct some of the English speakers pronunciation sometimes though. My parents once went to Salooooooooo, and I kept telling them that the locals called it Salou, because that's it's name basically. And once my sister in law was very adventerous and went to a small place called Oriña, and she just couldn't remember to make that ñ !!!




Yes they do.. and of course it is worse when you go back to the UK.. I tend to say thank you etc in Arabic apologies and then say it in English, I go out of the shop embarrassed and thinking.. bet they think I am showing off because I can speak Arabic, strangely I now say please and thank you in Spanish when I am shopping here in Cairo


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## Cazzy (Nov 23, 2008)

The Spanish can''t say Caz, they call me Cath which I hate, so they call me by my real name of Caroline only they say Carolina. The OH is just called Jose, his real name being Austin. 

As for Sevilla..... I always say Sevilla, maybe as living in Sevilla province it is habit!!


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## tobyo (Jul 16, 2011)

sorry, I can't "do" Seville. It's always been Sevilla to me.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

MaidenScotland said:


> Yes they do.. and of course it is worse when you go back to the UK.. I tend to say thank you etc in Arabic apologies and then say it in English, I go out of the shop embarrassed and thinking.. bet they think I am showing off because I can speak Arabic, strangely I now say please and thank you in Spanish when I am shopping here in Cairo


but the Spanish very rarely say Please and Thank you!


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Our neighbour is called Meri and she assumes my name is spelled (spellt?) like hers - the pronunciation is the same.

I'm having trouble with spelling basic English words, never mind pronouncing foreign placenames...

When in Spain I tend to use Spanish names, maybe because everyone else does. I did the same in the CR...Prague was always 'Praha' although there was an additional problem there as Czech nouns change according to their case...so you would say 'Jidu do _Prahy_'...I'm going to Prague - whereas 'bydlim v _Praze'_..I live in Prague and '_Praha_ je piekny miesto'...Prague is a beautiful city.
The language alone was enough to drive me out of the country, let alone the awful food and dire winters.


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2012)

thank gawd for google...it knows what we meant


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

:focus:
Seville or Sevilla? I find that when I am speaking to an English speaker (more especially in UK) I will use Seville since that is the form they are more familiar with *but*, to a Spaniard or an English speaker here in Spain I will use the correct Sevilla which with Spanish pronunciation would only confuse those in UK. With those in US I will tend to use Sevilla if they speak Spanish even if I am speaking to them in English, otherwise it will probably be Seville.

Why would I make any distinctions? Because, each language has its own way of referring to places in another country for example, London is Londres in français and español; Rome is Roma in Italiano and Seville is Sevilla in español and so on... Q.E.D.


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2012)

thank you baldilocks...we prefer Sevilla because in Spanish it makes sense to me..I can't say Seville..it hurts


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

folklore said:


> thank you baldilocks...we prefer Sevilla because in Spanish it makes sense to me..I can't say Seville..it hurts


Brits are used to hearing the word "Seville" because of Seville oranges (used to make marmalade). Some of them pronounce it with stress on the first syllable, which is downright weird. But they also say Cor*DO*ba for Córdoba, presumably because they don't realise it has an accent (or don't know what the accent is for).

Valladolid is a good one. Badger-doll-EETH ... hmmm.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> but the Spanish very rarely say Please and Thank you!




I did say I use it in Cairo..


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

I say Sevilla wherever I am and no one in the UK has ever said 'where's that?'

As to being pretentious, no one in Spain understands how to pronounce our surname, so in Spain we pronounce it the Spanish way (which sounds totally different) - makes for instant recognition of how to spell it!


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

This is for you Folklore, a taste of Sevilla to get you used to _habla andalu ..._


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## Guest (Feb 26, 2012)

Alcalaina said:


> This is for you Folklore, a taste of Sevilla to get you used to _habla andalu ..._
> 
> NO NI NA - YouTube


Thank you...enjoying on the trambia Benidorme --> Denia....Altea rocks, Benidorme...lot of white flesh getting burned.


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