cheek-old

The beginning and end are not problems. Tschi is pronounced like chi in ’chicken’, and ’old’ as normal. The middle ’ch’ in ’Tschichold’ is, however, a problem for English speakers. It is properly pronounced like the ’ch’ in ’J.S. Bach’. This is the gutteral h, a sound not normal in English. I have heard English use the English ’sh’ sound instead.

So if you can manage to say the composer ’Bach’ correctly, then you can go for: ’chi-CHold’, with the ’CH’ the german gutteral h. Or if you want to Anglicise it it—which is perfectly OK, I think—it is ’Chi-shold’.

edit: I guess the natural way to Americanize it is ’chickold’, but I think ’chishold’ is a bit nicer and closer to the German.

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I would also add:
How do you pronounce:
- Gerrit Noordzij
(As a frenchmen It’s a bit hard. I pronounce “Nort-tzaï”)
- Bram de Does
- Peter Bil’ak
(Seems easy (is it?), but I’m not sure if it’s not “Bil-atch”, as in Licko > Litch-ko

i think, that end of the word should be pronounced like «ol’d». with soft l, as you pronounce it in glitter, but not like in light.

Peter Biľak is pronounced the same way it is written. All the letters are read, no one stays silent.

pɛtɛr bɪlʲak

Peter (as the English word “pet”, then again the sound “e” from the word “pet” and finally rolled “r”*)
Biľak (“bi” as in “bitter”, “lak” is pronounced as “luck” in English, but “ľ” should be softer, palatalized**)

The stress is alway on the first syllable.

From Wikipedia:
* “rolled r” like in Italian, Scottish, Bavarian
** ľ is pronounced nowadays by many speakers, esp. from western Slovakia, as a non-palatalized l, esp. in li and le where the caron is not written. The officially correct pronunciation of li and le as palatalized is already frequently perceived as marked (either as a trait of middle and eastern dialect, or as a feature of language zealots). (A similar tendency occurs in yeista Spanish, where however the palatal ll is pronounced like English j instead of λ.)

Thanks for the hints!