That is interesting to know! Someday when I have the oppotunity, I’ll ask him about it. When we were anticipating his arrival, we were trained to say Yah’- meed. Oooops! We were quickly re-trained the day of his arrival to say Jah - meed’. In any case, he seems like a eally nice guy.
Ya meed is fine. The Ja is really a nuanced Y sound. I don’t have the phonetic vocab to describe it but you put your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth to pronounce the Y sound and it ends up a little like a J.