My [German] father's name was “Timm”, which was rendered “Cheem” by all his Brasilian in-laws.

(I do not fare much better, “Karl” becoming “Cow”.)

My father always derived great mirth when his in-laws called his wife, their daughter, by her full name, not only because my mother hates her full name – “Vera Lucia” – but because the syllable-swallowing rendered it “Vera Lus”.

Illustrating that long and short vowels are all egal, the word “team” in Portuguese (time) gets rendered the same as my father Timm's name, only for some reason syllable-conservation comes into play so that it is “cheemi”.

When my students in Brasil wanted to know the name of our cat in the States, even though I told them it was “Smoky”, they repeated back to me “Esmoak”.

Syllable-swallowing and syllable-conservation are contrasted nicely by the Brasilian pronunciations of “rock” (as in “rock 'n' roll”) and “hockey” (which, to be fair, has almost never been heard of there); “rock”, thanks to syllable-conservation becomes “hocki”, whereas “hockey” , thanks to syllable swallowing, becomes almost “rock” when they glotalize the “h”, making it sound almost “r”-like – although, really, they're much more likely to just not pronounce anything for the “h”, leaving you with “ock”.

A Smurf in Brasil is “esmuf”. An iPod becomes an “ay-podgee”, a Ford becomes a “fordgee”. Reebok, not orthographically pure to start, becomes “heebocki”. (“Nike” stays “nayki”, though I suspect if they caught on to how we pronounce it, would become “nayk”.)

“Heeboki”s, incidentally, are of a type of footwear called tenis. This is a noun, not an adjective. Similarly, when Brasilians want to hang out at the mall, they go to a shopping.

And just to really confuse you, when you hear them referring to “shoppi”, they are not syllable-conserving the word “shop”, nor are they referring to “ye olde shoppe” – they are instead referring to draft beer, a chopp.

Speaking of which, my friend Ton (yes, Ton; it's almost like he's baiting the Brasilians) tells an anecdote about the request for the "bill" resulting in the delivery of "beer": http://www.tonvanhattum.com.br/comreth.html (scroll down to "Communication and Pronunciation") -- Tirs!
(Actually, Brasilians say tin-tin! ("chiñ-chiñ") (not to be confused with Hergé's intrepid boy-reporter, who is Tintim) – saúde ("sow-OOHgee" or syllable conserved to "sow-OOHj"), a million lists purporting to translate "cheers!" into a million languages notwithstanding, is mostly used after someone sneezes.)
 

 

Dione → “Gee-on-i” → Johnny

Maicon→ “Mai-cõh” → Michael

Uochintom → “Ooh-ahsh-iñ-ton” → Washington

Raudério (from a movie) → “hau-dair-i-ooh” → “How Dare You?!”

 

“push” is not puxe, which, though pronounced the same, is “pull”

“preservatives” are not preservativos, which are contraceptives

“eventually” is not eventualmente, which indicates only a possibility or contingency

“30 degrees” is not 30 degraus, which would be 30 steps (it should be 30 graus)

"receipt" is not receita, which is "recipe"

“to advise” is not avisar, which is to warn

“to assist” is not assistir, which is to watch

“educated” is not educado, which is “polite”

“parents” while of the class parentes [relatives], are pais (not to be confused with país, which is country)

[parente → “pa-rench-i”; pais → “paiys”; país → “pa-ees”]

uma privada is not “a private”, it is instead “a toilet”

nervosa is not “nervous”, it is instead “agitated”

pretender is not “to pretend”, it is instead “to intend”

reparar is not “to repair”, it is instead “to notice” or “to watch”

preferência is not [always] “preference”, it is instead akin to patronage

decepção is not “deception”, it is instead “disappointment”

resumo is not “resume” or even “résumé”, it is instead “summary”

lanche is not exactly “lunch”, but instead more of a snack – what you get from the lanchonete, like a x-burger (the letter “x” is “shees”, so a “shees-burger” → cheese-burger)