OT: Mandarin help sought

I have a coworker whose name it turns out I've been mispronouncing for years.

I was not the only one, mind.  His name is Yannan, and the entire
office has been pronouncing it ['ja.n@n] since day one, and he has
never corrected anyone.  But somehow someone found out that was wrong,
and asked him in a meeting, and he told us it was actually [j&'n&n].

I don't know exactly what part of China he is from, but I do know that
he grew up speaking Mandarin as his everyday language.  That struck me
as odd, since I had previously considered Mandarin to be a sort of
national second language.

So two questions:

1) Anyone familiar with the name "Yannan"?  If so, what are the tones
on the 'a's?
2) How do you say "I'm sorry I mispronounced your name" in Mandarin? :\

Xie xie.


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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