The butchering of foreign words

firefly08

val en theee a that's my best attempt

That's more of it. Why use the Spanish pronunciation for "c" but the English for "v" (which is pronounced like our "b")?

Hammer Archer

phasers wrote: »

Also nobody proniunces the j in fajitas. Nobody.

Oh I beg to differ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWFHOOfs20

dominiquecruz

Atari Jaguar, etc.

firefly08 wrote: »

Indeed there is. The French don't pronounce the letter "d" the same way we do in English. It's closer to how we would pronounce "th" but in there is no precise phonetic equivalent I can use to explain it.

That's quite the load of crap. I speak French and I rarely hear anyone mispronouncing deja-vu, or baguette, for that matter. Unless you're referring to really subtle differences in accent, but it would be a bit ridiculous to expect every joe soap to have a wonderful french/hungarian/zulu accent.

Liam Byrne

Not annoying

Given the way we (and indeed the English themselves) butcher the English language, are you surprised ?

firefly08

That's quite the load of crap. I speak French and I rarely hear anyone mispronouncing deja-vu, or baguette, for that matter. Unless you're referring to really subtle differences in accent, but it would be a bit ridiculous to expect every joe soap to have a wonderful french/hungarian/zulu accent.

Yes I am, and yes it would.

dominiquecruz

Atari Jaguar, etc.

OK. I do think your examples are a bit different from the OP though, where theres blatant mispronunciation going on.

Frank Black

Once in a restaurant, the waitress corrected my pronunciation of 'Pinot grigio'.




She didn't get a massive tip.

Killer Wench

RonMexico wrote: »

I remember one time over in the states I mispronounced something on the menu at Taco Bell and the Mexican guy working there asked me where I was from. When I said Ireland he replied - "You speak good American."

Then he gave me free fries with my order :pac:

You got fries at a Taco Bell?

Morricone

Not annoying

mikemac1 wrote: »

Here's one OP though I don't know how I'd type it

Valencia or Barcelona

Some commentators realy emphasize the C.
Ah you've heard but I don't know how to put it across from my keyboard

val en theee a that's my best attempt

So what am I supposed to do?

Mike, the C in Castillian Spanish is pronounced almost like th when followed by an E or I as far as I know. The Z is also pronounced like a th in mainland Spain. So it cecomes bar-the(soft e)-lona and bal-en-thi-a.

You'll notice that in Atletico Madrid the c is pronounced as English speakers would be familiar with.

In Latin America the C and Z are pronounced without the th effects.

So cerveza, the Spanish for beer, is pronounced like ther-be-tha in Spain whereas in Argentina it would be pronounced ser-be-za.

Hope that helps.

LordSutch

Not annoying

I have actually heard Pizza pronounced as Pizz-a (in Dublin)

A very common mispronunciation in Ireland is Thailand which usually comes out as 'Thigh-land' for some obscure reason, the land of Thighs? Thai food also ends up as THigh food, THigh people, THigh holidays, its always Thailand with a hard TH in Ireland, and yet somehow, the rest of the world know that the H is silent.

RenaulT :cool:

mikemac1

Atari Jaguar, etc.

I've love a burger from the eye-talian chipper down the road

Barna77

Morricone wrote: »

So cerveza, the Spanish for beer, is pronounced like ther-be-tha in Spain whereas in Argentina it would be pronounced ser-be-za.

As long as it's not San Miguel :eek: call it what you want

Doc Ruby

I had my hosts in France laughing constantly at my Irish accent when I spoke French, apparently I sounded like "a man who had never left his farm".

ceegee

Atari Jaguar, etc.

Dont think our attempts at foreign words are any worse than other nationalities pronunciations of english, ze germans vith zer v's & w's mixed up, the italians witha the waya they talka lika this, and the french who make every word sound smug and pompous

Capt'n Midnight

Not annoying

Always fun to listen to an English person trying to pronounce stuff like Tallaght

Actually it's laughable that so many English people don't have syllabant 'S' or Frictive 'F'. Or have problems with 'H'.

And they think 'R' is 'are' when it should obviously be 'or'


It's good that Hiberno English has more sounds , makes it far easier for us to pronounce foreign words than it is for the denizens of London to pronounce their own words

nice_very

grassy-ass for the thread

mikemac1

Atari Jaguar, etc.

I can make a go for most Spanish, French and Italian words, like if I read something and then say it

German can be tough

Welsh, not a chance

dark crystal

It's even worse when foreigners butcher their own words....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DrAp5gzdqc

Katgurl

Lukasz is a really common name among our polish friends, I seem to have worked with a ton of them over the last few years. Their 'L' is pronounced like a 'W' which isn't exactly tricky. It really strikes me as the height of rudeness that allday everyday colleagues can't be bothered to pronounce name correctly and revert back to Lukash

LH Pathe

can I have shank of Lucasz pls

Capt'n Midnight

Not annoying

http://bible.cc/judges/12-6.htm

they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth.'" If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

:eek:

firefly08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SskKMbX6qmk

J. Marston

Morricone wrote: »

Jalapeño is another one, I've heard it pronounced wrongly with a hard J and with the ñ mispronounced. It should be pronounced as if there is a y behind the n, i.e Jalapenyo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0iqxzCAKWo

policarp

Where's My Lliga.?

Liam Byrne

Not annoying

Katgurl wrote: »

Lukasz is a really common name among our polish friends, I seem to have worked with a ton of them over the last few years. Their 'L' is pronounced like a 'W' which isn't exactly tricky. It really strikes me as the height of rudeness that allday everyday colleagues can't be bothered to pronounce name correctly and revert back to Lukash

Strictly speaking, that letter isn't an "L" at the start - it's a "Ł"

Cú Giobach

Couldn't really give a shit about people pronouncing foreign words incorrectly, but one thing does get to me. Why the fuck do Americans insist on pronouncing the name Joseph Goebbels as "Gurbels" . Hearing who should be well educated military historians regularly doing this makes me cringe.

mikemac1

Atari Jaguar, etc.

So am I going on holidays to Rome or to Roma?

I'll upset the OP if I give the wrong answer

Pdfile

Morricone wrote: »

NI;dr

When in doubt just shout Kurwa. Works every time...

LordSutch

Not annoying

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And they think 'R' is 'are' when it should obviously be 'or'

Thats interesting, because I find the 'or' sound to be the exception to the rule here in Ireland, Paul Reynolds the RTE (OrTE) Crime corerespondent is the perfect example of somebody who uses the exaggerated 'or' sound, I would say R=are is the norm in Ireland, & the english speaking world.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's good that Hiberno English has more sounds, makes it far easier for us to pronounce foreign words than it is for the denizens of London to pronounce their own words

London has its own fair share of odd pronunciations/ grammatical errors, that's for sure.

Its becoz we isnt fick like wot you know what I mean like, innit ) ...

Cú Giobach

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Always fun to listen to an English person trying to pronounce stuff like Tallaght [..........]
And they think 'R' is 'are' when it should obviously be 'or'

Down here, the only people who pronounce the letter "R" as "or" are those on their way to "Crosser" for an afternoon's sailing.

EdenHazard

cant buthcher a language some people have this view that in countries like france their all mad posh and stuff, go to the ghettos in paris and speak with 'good' french, you be getting carried out of the place in an ambulance

Nulty

What about names? In sport and culture its common to find instances of foreign names

Johnny Giles - "Terry Henry was excellent today"

Horse Racing has loads of French names and the Brits always have trouble pronouncing the French and especially the Irish names. They pronounce "Tine Anseo" as "Tyne Anzio"

mongdesade

Atari Jaguar, etc.

Morricone wrote: »

It really grinds my gears when I hear words from different languages being mispronounced and butchered by speakers of the English language. Its annoying to hear words being pronounced completely incorrectly especially after being corrected.

Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me?

No...I just smile at the uneducated 'oikes' in a smug manner knowing that my linguistic skills are clearly superior to there's :rolleyes:

Sarcasm, from the Greek word σαρκασμός (sarkasmos)

pickarooney

dominiquecruz wrote: »

That's quite the load of crap. I speak French and I rarely hear anyone mispronouncing deja-vu, or baguette, for that matter. Unless you're referring to really subtle differences in accent, but it would be a bit ridiculous to expect every joe soap to have a wonderful french/hungarian/zulu accent.

Or maybe the completely different vowel at the end that makes it another word entirely and thus incomprehensible to a French speaker?

LordSutch

Not annoying

Nulty wrote: »

Horse Racing has loads of French names and the Brits always have trouble pronouncing the French and especially the Irish names. They pronounce "Tine Anseo" as "Tyne Anzio"

Or what about Irish people butchering the French word (car manufacturer) Peugeot )

Wibbs

Atari Jaguar, etc.

mongdesade wrote: »

No...I just smile at the uneducated 'oikes' in a smug manner knowing that my linguistic skills are clearly superior to there's :rolleyes:

Eeee you'll be pounced on for that M.

Meh, who gives a fcuk. I'd put good money those who do give a fcuk to the point where it makes their hair itch say Paris and not Paree, Venice instead of Venitzia, Munich instead of Muunchin and so forth(Madrid can be an odd one, the locals seem to drop the d. Madri, but non locals don't). Let's face it you would sound like a nuclear powered twat if you did go around enunciating every non English word like that. If you did it with every single foreign loan word in the English(or any other) language you'd probably sound like Jeff Chaucer after he got at the ergot. Or a twat. I'll stick with the latter as a better label.

However I will pronounce the T in Moet and deliberately so. Mainly because the majority that don't are being pseuds and oh yes, twats. Meh I prefer Bollie anyway.

mattjack

Morricone wrote: »

It really grinds my gears when I hear words from different languages being mispronounced and butchered by speakers of the English language. Its annoying to hear words being pronounced completely incorrectly especially after being corrected.

Bruschetta is one, it should be pronounced brus-ketta as the ch in Italian is pronounced as a k.

Fajitas is another with the hard J being pronounced when it should be soft. Tortilla with the double l pronounced as it is in English when as a Spanish word it should be pronounced Tort-iya.

Jalapeño is another one, I've heard it pronounced wrongly with a hard J and with the ñ mispronounced. It should be pronounced as if there is a y behind the n, i.e Jalapenyo.

I've seen Habanero written with an ñ for whatever unfathomable reason I don't know.

Have the good folk of After Hours got any more to add to the list?

Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me?

Mittens has been missing for 45 hours thus far. For the first 24 I assumed that she would return as 4 or 5 hour periods away would not be uncommon. As the hours have ticked by I've become progressively worrieder and worrieder.


Keep it up and Mitten's get's it........

Herb Powell

Not annoying

firefly08 wrote: »

OP, how do you pronounce words such as baguette, deja vu, entrepreneur etc.?

Spolier: if you pronounce them "correctly" you sound like an idiot.

Quite the opposite.

firefly08 wrote: »

Indeed there is. The French don't pronounce the letter "d" the same way we do in English. It's closer to how we would pronounce "th" but in there is no precise phonetic equivalent I can use to explain it.

WTF????? Examples please, that is pure BS.

Liam Byrne

Not annoying

Nulty wrote: »

What about names? In sport and culture its common to find instances of foreign names

Johnny Giles - "Terry Henry was excellent today"

Horse Racing has loads of French names and the Brits always have trouble pronouncing the French and especially the Irish names. They pronounce "Tine Anseo" as "Tyne Anzio"

Sky are strangly selectively horrendous for this.

Hoothey Marria Olathahbel = no bother
But give them Ken Doherty, Donnacha O'Callaghan or Tomás O'Leary and they inexplicably refuse point-blank to even make an effort.

ceegee

Atari Jaguar, etc.

dark crystal wrote: »

It's even worse when foreigners butcher their own words....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DrAp5gzdqc

could never understand when i watched that show growing up why the policeman (an undercover british spy) spoke like that. Finally copped years later that, being set in France, everyone was supposed to be speaking in French to one another, hence the brit mispronouncing everything.

Looking back, that show is more clever than I gave it credit for

Capt'n Midnight

Not annoying

mikemac1 wrote: »

So am I going on holidays to Rome or to Roma?

I'll upset the OP if I give the wrong answer

Unless you get a direct flight you'll probably have to go Dublino - Londra - Roma


Probably best to avoid Köln too.


But you have to laugh at the billion plus Chinese that don't know that their capital city is actually called Peking


And don't get me started on those people from Amsterdam, trying to tell me they weren't in Holland and they don't call themselves Dutch.

Wibbs

Atari Jaguar, etc.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Sky are strangly selectively horrendous for this.

Hoothey Marria Olathahbel = no bother
But give them Ken Doherty, Donnacha O'Callaghan or Tomás O'Leary and they inexplicably refuse point-blank to even make an effort.

A lot of that can be explained by the observation that UK english speakers don't have a that soft C/G(I think?) that Irish english/irish speakers have. They don't know how to pronounce it without really thinking about it. Kinda the way Germans have trouble with W, because it's not used the same way in their language. Or Spaniards who can have difficulty with I and E. IE(no pun:)) they'll tend to pronounce Ship as Sheep and can't discern the difference without practice. Ken Doherty as a name a good example LB. They'll pronounce the O as... well O. So will the Americans. Shannen DOerty. Or it'll end up like that footballist Tommy Docherty. Probably because originally the family used close to the original Irish spelling when writing the name, Dhochartaigh. No soft c/g so the locals made it a hard C.

TBH I wouldn't take exception to stuff like this. Like I say it can be hard to get such names right if they're not native to your ear, even with effort. I even found that in the past with non Irish girlfriends. With some of their family's names even with effort on my part and trying to impress I often got it arseways. :)

Capt'n Midnight

Not annoying

ceegee wrote: »

Looking back, that show is more clever than I gave it credit for

That only works if you give it zero credit.

You should watch the Phil Silvers Show sometime,
or Monty Python
or QI
or Duck Soup

dxhound2005

The only thing that annoys me sometimes is when people who should know their subject like sports reporters come up with weird versions of foreign names. OK, I wouldn't expect everyone to use the sibilant S sound in Portougese or the lisped Z sound in Spanish but I would expect them to pronounce the Jose in Mourinho not like the Spanish Hose A. Roberto Martinez usually gets the stress on the A instead of the Teenez sound which is correct. Even worse is Juan Martin del Potro who I have heard a few times given a mixture of Spanish and French pronunciations Juan Martaa. If you know it is a Spanish name and you know it is not Jew Ann then you should know it is Marteen.

Anyway like I say that is directed at people who should know better and I don't overly worry about foreign pronunciations otherwise. And yes I do know there should be accents on some letters in this post.

born2bwild

I like mistakes.

I used to go mental, though, a few years ago when I was learning Italian and I heard people buying and selling "paninis". Still, I never went into O'Brien's and asked for a 'panino' as I'm sure they'd've been scratching their heads.

The day I saw a sign selling "panini's" was the day I got over it.

I remember living in Italy and trying to buy a hamburger. They hadn't a clue what I was on about. You have to say 'amBURger or you go hungry. How dare they mispronounce our words (The Germans' words?)

dominiquecruz

Atari Jaguar, etc.

pickarooney wrote: »

Or maybe the completely different vowel at the end that makes it another word entirely and thus incomprehensible to a French speaker?

? Sorry, you've lost me.

Liam Byrne

Not annoying

Wibbs wrote: »

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Sky are strangly selectively horrendous for this.

Hoothey Marria Olathahbel = no bother
But give them Ken Doherty, Donnacha O'Callaghan or Tomás O'Leary and they inexplicably refuse point-blank to even make an effort.

A lot of that can be explained by the observation that UK english speakers don't have a that soft C/G(I think?) that Irish english/irish speakers have. They don't know how to pronounce it without really thinking about it. Kinda the way Germans have trouble with W, because it's not used the same way in their language. Or Spaniards who can have difficulty with I and E. IE(no pun:)) they'll tend to pronounce Ship as Sheep and can't discern the difference without practice. Ken Doherty as a name a good example LB. They'll pronounce the O as... well O. So will the Americans. Shannen DOerty. Or it'll end up like that footballist Tommy Docherty. Probably because originally the family used close to the original Irish spelling when writing the name, Dhochartaigh. No soft c/g so the locals made it a hard C.

TBH I wouldn't take exception to stuff like this. Like I say it can be hard to get such names right if they're not native to your ear, even with effort. I even found that in the past with non Irish girlfriends. With some of their family's names even with effort on my part and trying to impress I often got it arseways. :)

I wouldn't be offended if they didn't say Docker-T while getting the Spaniard's name spot-on......that's what makes it disrespectful, because neither are native but they make the effort for all of the other countries.

cloptrop

Atari Jaguar, etc.

Id say the Op is a really cool guy with lots of friends.
Maybe you should translate jalepeno , or tortilla to English for us. If we had English words for these things we wouldnt need to attempt a foreign language.

"In Italy the ch is pronounced like a k"

The last time I checked this was Ireland and here we pronounce our ch like a ch , if they want it to sound like a k here call it brusketta. Jog back to Italy and peddle your linguistics there.

Ellis Dee

Morricone wrote: »

It really grinds my gears when I hear words from different languages being mispronounced and butchered by speakers of the English language. Its annoying to hear words being pronounced completely incorrectly especially after being corrected.

---

Have the good folk of After Hours got any more to add to the list?

Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me?

I wonder how you would pronounce "sauna"? Saw- nah, most likely, but I pronounce it "sow-nah", because I am a fluent Finnish speaker. In Sweden I would pronounce it "bas-tyou".:)

What a pity things like that annoy you. It doesn't annoy me at all, because the pronunciation of loan words often changes when they are transposed into a new language and phonetic system.:D

I suppose you've heard the story about the English guy that scores a French girl and takes her up to his room. He looks her passionately in the eyes and says: "Je t'adore!" To which she replies, "Shut the fcuking door yourself, you fcuking lazy English cnut!":):)

Nulty

LordSutch wrote: »

Or what about Irish people butchering the French word (car manufacturer) Peugeot )

Do you mean Pewzho and Perzho? I don't know which is right, or even if either are right. Any one know?