How do you pronounce "Joachim?"

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maryceleste

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Much to my embarassment, despite being Catholic for my whole life, I’ve never learned how to pronounce St. Joachim’s name. I know that the Spanish version, Joaquin, is pronounced “Wah-KEEN”… but how do we say it in English?

JOE-ah-sheem?

yoe-ah-SHEEM?

JOE-ah-keem?

joe-AH-keem?

YOE-ah-keem?

I hope some kind person can sort me out, so I won’t have to keep praying to “St. Anne and her husband!” 😉
 
The original (and therefore most correct) pronunciation would have been probably “yo-a-CHIM,” where the “ch” is a German “ch.” That would have been the Aramaic form that he would have heard when his momma was calling him in for dinner. I am guessing about the stress being on the last syllable.

In Spanish (and presumably Portuguese), it has become “ho-a-chim,” but I’m not sure where the stress goes.

Pronunciation of the English “j” as a “soft g” is a very recent development. Up until a couple hundred years ago “j” was considered a consonantal “i” (= “y”)

DaveBj
 
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maryceleste:
Much to my embarassment, despite being Catholic for my whole life, I’ve never learned how to pronounce St. Joachim’s name. I know that the Spanish version, Joaquin, is pronounced “Wah-KEEN”… but how do we say it in English?

JOE-ah-sheem?

yoe-ah-SHEEM?

JOE-ah-keem?

joe-AH-keem?

YOE-ah-keem?

I hope some kind person can sort me out, so I won’t have to keep praying to “St. Anne and her husband!” 😉
Click to expand...

The stress is on the first and third syllables, not on the second.​

Hebrew CH has the sound of English K, not the sh-sound in champagne: as in “Melki-zedek”. ##
 
I’ve always pronounced it in french Joe-wah-shin. The IM at the end does the french “in” sound… like in the word “Chien” (dog) but without the eee sound.
 
I, and everyone I’ve ever heard, pronounce it JOE - a - k’m
(JOE - as in the name ‘Joe’)
(a - like up)
(K’m - with an i not distinct like ‘it’, but a schwa)

But I’m Australian, so maybe we’re different.
(G’day mate 👍 ! [we don’t often say that, actually])
 
This was the name my brother used in high school German classes.

Also we just met our daughter’s new German doctor yesterday, first name Joachim.

In both cases, they pronounced them: yo-AHK-im

where the AHK is kind of a ACH sound. (German pronunciation)

It’s hard to separate it into syllables because the CHH and the im sound run together…

Alan
 
I went to school with a boy who was named Joachim and so was his dad and grandad, all three pronounced it “Yo- shim”, they seemingly kept the “A” silent, so go figure, I guess it’s whatever works for you…
 
The Church uses the Latin pronunciation Jo-ah-kim

The Hebrew ponunciation cannot properly be transliterated into English as we do not have the Hebrew sound for the ch. It would be a very gutteral “h”, that we do not have in English.

Have a Blessed Christmas

Br. JR, OSF :Christmastree1:
 
DaveBj said:
The original (and therefore most correct) pronunciation would have been probably “yo-a-CHIM,” where the “ch” is a German “ch.” That would have been the Aramaic form that he would have heard when his momma was calling him in for dinner. I am guessing about the stress being on the last syllable.

In Spanish (and presumably Portuguese), it has become “ho-a-chim,” but I’m not sure where the stress goes.

Pronunciation of the English “j” as a “soft g” is a very recent development. Up until a couple hundred years ago “j” was considered a consonantal “i” (= “y”)

DaveBj
Click to expand...
Actually the original poster has a good idea of how it’s pronounced in Spanish & it’s not pronounced like that in Portuguese, because the J in Spanish is actually kind of like our H’s or even a silent letter. I’m Portuguese-American & to me the Portuguese version sounds like a lot of other versions, such as the way I’ve seen people say it in English or whatever language they use in an English language mass.
 
Carlan said:
yep Rose Marie, I once lived in a valley in California, Wah-kim, close to the Spanish pronunciation.🤷:)Carlan
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OK Maybe that’s what I heard at the English masses. In Spanish it’s spelled Joaquin & in Portuguese it’s pronounced almost the same as Spanish, but the J is like silent in Spanish when in Portuguese the J is a lot like the English J.
 
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