Pronunciation of Mies

September 24, 2004 3:06 PM

How do you pronounce the German name Mies, as in Mies van der Rohe? Does it rhyme with keys?
posted by strangeleftydoublethink to Writing & Language (13 answers total)

meez.
posted by stonerose at 3:10 PM on September 24, 2004

I'd say /mees/

/s/ gets vocalized inside words, but loses it on the margin (generally).
posted by RavinDave at 3:18 PM on September 24, 2004

I've always heard it as "meese." (You know, as in the plural of "mouse.")
posted by scody at 3:26 PM on September 24, 2004

I took German for three years in high school which means my word means nothing, but I always learned that "IE" together was pronounced as a long E and "EI" together was pronounced as a long "I".

Again, could be totally wrong...
posted by lynda at 3:40 PM on September 24, 2004

Scody's "meese" is closest. 'ie' in Dutch and German is like 'ee' in English, only pronounced a bit shorter. The 's' is hard.
posted by ar0n at 3:50 PM on September 24, 2004

/mees/ = "meese" ;)
posted by RavinDave at 3:55 PM on September 24, 2004

How does one pronounce "Mies van der Rohe?"
posted by scarabic at 9:07 PM on September 24, 2004

Um. Ignore me.
posted by scarabic at 9:07 PM on September 24, 2004

I remember that one of my professors called him "meez." Of course that doesn't mean my professor was correct.

Mies was one very cool architect regardless of how you pronounce his name. One of my favorites at least.
posted by caddis at 1:27 AM on September 25, 2004

Your professor was wrong. The z sound does not exist at the end of German words (in technical terms, all final consonants are devoiced). Or, what RavinDave said.
posted by languagehat at 7:33 AM on September 25, 2004

Just out of curiosity, how do you say "Rohe"?
posted by coelecanth at 8:23 AM on September 25, 2004

Roh-weh, essentially.
posted by headspace at 9:34 AM on September 25, 2004

Well, around here Mies was a rather influential guy, and we say it "Meese" and "Roe" (like the fish eggs).
posted by borkencode at 12:50 AM on September 26, 2004