u/Dapple_Dawn

Misleading title but I'll explain.

My family is Colombian and I've noticed a lot of them struggle to pronounce names like "Jan," for example. It sometimes comes out like "yahn," with a [ʎ] sound.

I understand why, I think. The closest they have in Colombian Spanish is ⟨ll⟩ and it can sound similar to [j] or [ʒ] in different regions, so to them it probably sounds interchangeable. (Is that correct?)

Here's my confusion: whenever they talk about Medellin, they always use [ʒ]. (Or if it isn't [ʒ] it's something similar, idk.)

So if they can intentionally pronounce "Medellin" differently from the ⟨ll⟩ in "pollo," why don't they just do the same thing with English "J" names?