About Dr. Franz Lang

Hello! I am Dr. Franz Lang, the founder and lead voice behind the YouPronounce.it project.

From the Streets of Kowloon to the World

My obsession with the mechanics of speech started early, rooted in the polyglot chaos of Hong Kong. Being half-Hong Kongese on my mother’s side, I spent my childhood summers immersed in the heat and noise of Kowloon. I remember the constant mental friction of trying to navigate three worlds at once: the sharp tones of Cantonese at home, the Mandarin in the markets, and the lingering British English in the business districts. I rarely understood the grammar, but I became hyper-aware of the rhythms and the tiny shifts in mouth shapes that changed a word’s entire meaning.

Survival Linguistics

At seventeen, I decided to take this fascination on the road. I left with a backpack and almost zero preparation. Those early road trips across various continents were, quite frankly, a disaster. I found myself stranded in rural bus stations and remote villages where my school-learned English was useless.

I survived by listening. I spent hours in local cafes and train platforms, mimicking the cadences of the people around me just to ask for a plate of food or a place to sleep. This "survival linguistics" taught me that communication is an embodied skill. You don't learn a language in a book; you learn it by absorbing the vibrations of the people who speak it every day.

Serial Language Beginner

I am now fully quadrilingual, speaking French, German, Cantonese and English fluently. Over the years, I've also developed a deep conversational understanding of Spanish, Arabic, Yiddish, and Russian.

I must confess a terrible habit, though: I am a serial language beginner. I often buy a grammar book, passionately learn the alphabet and basic phonetics, only to get distracted by a completely new language before I ever reach fluency! While it makes me a terrible polyglot, this obsession with the "sounds" and "mechanics" of languages has made me a meticulous phonetician.

Why I Created YouPronounce

The internet is currently flooded with robotic, algorithmic voices. When medical professionals need to know how to pronounce a rare disease, or when an actor needs to say a specific foreign name, a robot voice guessing the pronunciation based on algorithms is generally unhelpful, and often completely wrong.

I created this platform to solve that. Drawing from years of independent linguistic research, dialect coaching, and analyzing native speakers, I wanted to build a dictionary that is human, accurate, and deeply contextual.

I believe that pronouncing someone's name, their hometown, or their culture's food correctly is the ultimate sign of respect.

My Mission

My goal is simple: to help you speak with absolute confidence. Whether you are an ESL student, a news anchor, or just settling a bet with a friend, I hope my audio guides and phonetic transcriptions serve you well.

Happy pronouncing!
— Dr. Franz Lang