Cultural misperception #238

Lao people can't pronounce my name. Whenever I introduce myself, they say back to me, "Lor-en." I try to correct them, but they just say Lor-en again, like I'm some exile from Krypton. I'd thought that the 's' sound was simply not in their language, or else they just couldn't hear it. But in my Lao class the other day, I learned something that made me re-evaluate. In fact, the 's' sound shows up in plenty of places in the language, but it's never, ever seen at the end of a word. So when the Lao say my name back as Lor-en, they're not mispronouncing, nor are they mis-hearing me. They are, very simply, correcting me.