How do you pronounce it?

[Tanuki]

I sometimes encounter a word from another language and am not sure how to pronounce it. Also, when traveling outside the country even for a brief trip I like to know at least a few words or phrases of the language. I recently discovered this website that features native speakers pronouncing words in their own language:

http://www.forvo.com/languages/

[ellaydubya]

1. Thank you!!

I have bookmarked it already- it will come in very handy on a day to day basis.

[dipsydoodle]

2. For starters

its aluminium.

[krispos42]

6. Aluminium has a distinctive odour and colour

[CatWoman]

3. thank you very much for this

[SidDithers]

4. There's a great YouTube channel called Pronunciation Manual...

Funny stuff.

Sid

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Words Americans can't pronounce:

Baroque (which is French and pronounced more like "ba-rock" than "burr-oak&quot
Van Gogh (which is "Van Guff" or "Van Goch" and not "Van Go" because it's Dutch)
Iraq (it's "ee-rock", not "eye-rack&quot
Iran ("ee-rahn", not "eye-ran&quot

there are probably a lot of others I can't think of at the moment...

[krispos42]

8. Italian

Some parts of the country pronounce it "Eye-talian". In Minnesota, for example.


When they do, I ask them if they have any German (with a hard "g", as in "grrrrrr", instead of a soft "g", as in "Jerman&quot blood in them.

[a la izquierda]

13. As a woman from the Mediterranean...

with relatives from Italy, I hate the incorrect pronunciation of Italian. Eye-talian. What the hell is that?
I encountered that a lot in the South. Pissed me right off.

[Jim Lane]

10. I'd say, instead, that English pronunciation doesn't always track the language being borrowed.

Just because they're spelled the same doesn't mean they're the same word. The capital of France is spelled P-A-R-I-S in French and English, but pronounced pa-REE and PAR-iss, respectively.

Sometimes the spelling is the same and sometimes it isn't. If you go to that city where Chamberlain met with Hitler, the signs will say München. That doesn't mean that "MYOO-nik" is a correct pronunciation (of "Munich&quot but "PAR-iss" is incorrect.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. Bad example

the English pronunciation of "Paris" is very old. It dates to the medieval era at least and is probably close to the original French pronunciation before various linguistic changes in French. See for instance the following 15th century citations from the OED:

   1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. v. xxxi. in Ashm. (1652) 155 Ther Pauteners be stuffed wyth *Parrys balls.    

   1401 in Frost Notices rel. Hull (1827) App. 3 Pro x dus[enis] *paris crisp.

   1479 Paston Lett. III. 270, iiij *Parys cuppis with a cover.


   1434 in E.E. Wills (1882) 101, 1 towell of *parys werk.


The examples I cited are all much more recent--"baroque" dates to the 17th century in English; Iraq as such was a creation of the early 20th century, Iran was Persia until 1948, and Van Gogh died in 1890. And they're all pronounced "correctly" in every international English dialect outside of North America.

[Jim Lane]

18. There are numerous examples

I don't think the age of the usage matters -- if your criterion for pronouncing something "correctly" is its pronunciation in the language where it originated, it's clear how "Paris" is pronounced today in Paris.

If you don't like that example, though, consider how many can be found in Spanish. Do you consider "MECKS-i-ko" to be the incorrect pronunciation in the English language because it's not pronounced that way in the country itself? In English we pronounce the second syllable of "Barcelona" like our word "sell", instead of using the Spanish pronunciation of the "c" (a pronunciation that, to our ears, sounds somewhat like a lisp).

Of course, loan words go both ways. Our word "hamburger" is used in French, Portuguese, and Turkish, but in each case with its own pronunciation (at least according to this entry in Wiktionary). I don't think those pronunciations are incorrect and I wouldn't list "hamburger" as a word that French, Portuguese, and Turks can't pronounce. They say it their way, we say it ours. Vive la différence.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. We're not talking about words that are pronounced differently *IN ENGLISH* though.

We are talking about words that are mispronounced, in the English-speaking world, only by North Americans. There is a difference.

[Jim Lane]

20. You seem to assume that there's only one correct English pronunciation of a word.

Different national varieties of English have different correct spellings and different correct pronunciations (as well as, sometimes, different meanings). Some UK speakers accent "controversy" on the second syllable, though others accent the first, which is the only correct US pronunciation.

What if a word is pronounced one way everywhere in the English-speaking world except in the US, and another way here? Does that mean our most common pronunciation is incorrect? No, it's just an idiosyncrasy of American English.

Of course, even within American English, there can be more than one correct pronunciation. For example, the first vowel sound in "envelope" can be "en" or "ahn". There was just a funny bit someone posted of a whole bunch of TV stations using the same language to report on a Conan O'Brien show featuring a same-sex wedding that would "push the envelope" -- the only difference was in how the newscaster pronounced that word. I wouldn't say any of them were incorrect in their pronunciation.

If an American talks about a CV as a "REE-zoom", that's incorrect. Correct is "REH-zoo-may", which is closer to the French. If the speaker goes the whole distance and pronounces the "r" as in French, using a sound that is not part of English, then it would sound affected to most listeners, and I'd consider it INcorrect as an English pronunciation.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. That's a great resource.

Thank you for sharing it.

[frogmarch]

9. Here's the site I use

the most:

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal

[Erose999]

11. I know how to pronounce it... I ordered fuckin' Gelappannow

[pinboy3niner]

12. Thanks to SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy, I know how NOT to pronounce 'therapists'

[AtomicKitten]

15. Squidbillies stole that.

[AtomicKitten]

14. I could really use that for my work.

Last edited Wed Aug 15, 2012, 07:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Thanks.

[gkhouston]

17. Bookmarked; thanks!

[Care Acutely]

21. That's awesome! THANKS!