Who pronounces foreign words like PASTA right? 🇺🇸 or 🇬🇧?

A discussion of the different ways American and British English pronounce loanwords from other languages.
Thanks to @Teverell for Vigo, Kent, another Spanish placename in the UK. Various commenters pointed out Gibraltar.
In my haste I grabbed a logo with Ukrainian Гаррі, not Russian Гарри. Ой.
Yes, I did measure Australian 'pasta' too, with its fronter 'father' vowel, but I ran out time to include the data in this video. More at AusE in future!
Vietnamese from forvo.com/
Mahler bust, photo by Johann Jaritz, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Spanish America map by Nagihuin, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Every time Spock said ‘fascinating’
• Spock - Fascinating!

[@TerezatheTeacher]

Similarly to the commenter below, I appreciate how descriptive you are as opposed to prescriptive. For example, when you discuss uptalk and creaky voice in English after RP as existing phenomena typical of certain demographics and which can be perceived a certain way by other native speakers, not as a "wrong" way of speaking. Very refreshing.

[@Indowaindowa]

I second this

[@Slothface]

it do be like that

[@jaystone4816]

Any serious student of language should be descriptive, because different groups of people speak the same language in different ways. That's what is, not what 'should be.' From a serious study point of view there is no "right" or "wrong" way to speak a language. However every society has differences in level of education, social class, race and ethnicity, and those differences influence the ways in which that language is spoken. When you open your mouth and speak, you communicate more than just the content of your speech. Conscious and not-so-conscious meanings and characteristics are attributed to you that have an impact on how you are perceived and sometimes treated. So many people confuse linguistic neutrality to mean any way they speak or write (or spell) is up for grabs and "rules" don't apply. That's fine if that's what you believe, but realize all kinds of meanings and associations about you are being communicated as well, consciously and unconsciously. Whether you like that or not is besides the point.

[@novicemorris]

@@jaystone4816 As can be seen throughout Pygmalion/My Fair Lady 😀

[@0cer0]

It’s called science.

[@rhus36]

As an American, I think there’s a fairly conscious effort to pronounce loan words “correctly” without seeming pretentious. For instance, many non-Hispanic Americans learn at least some Spanish in school and could pronounce Spanish words much closer to their Spanish pronunciation but don’t because they think that slipping into a Spanish accent mid sentence is pompous. The closer you pronounce a word to its true indigenous pronunciation, the more intelligence and culture you’re implying that you have. This sometimes even affects how bilingual speakers pronounce loanwords. I have friends who speak Spanish natively but who choose to pronounce Spanish words in an anglicized way when speaking English as a form of code switching. I also think that much of how English speakers pronounce (or mispronounce) words and names that are originally written in a different script has to do with how they are transcribed into our alphabet. Transcriptions like “Xi Jinping” in which every “i” is approximating a different vowel sound and “x” is used in a way completely unfamiliar to English speakers do very little to help English speakers pronounce the actual name.

[@jimjjewett]

Linguists often underestimate the importance of spelling, because of an almost religious belief that spoken language is primary -- but there are plenty of words that I have never heard pronounced aloud, and this is certainly likely for foreign words. In America, particularly for older generations, it was pretty unusual to travel outside the US. For me, getting even to "neighboring" Mexico is a longer trip than London to Moscow. Canada is closer, but ... the nearby part speaks English. We do have lots of immigrants *somewhere* in the country, but they tend to cluster in large cities and/or near Universities. They also tend to cluster in a few of the largest states, so folks in even a large-ish state like mine goggle at the diversity of names in movie credits.

[@evanzinner6589]

You’ve hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to come off pretentious when pronouncing croissant, charcuterie, or Hawaii.

[@katyweaver7689]

As an American now in the UK I agree with your take. Also I noticed he didn't go into when British speakers purposefully try hard not to nativize a word, but then will go out of their way to nativize others to the extent that anyone who isn't British has difficulty figuring out what they're talking about. Like the difference with croissant and paella. Pretty sure you could do a comedy skit about Brits wandering outside of touristy Spain trying to order some paella and no one understanding what they want. I think the melting pot effect of the US means many try to approach the right way to say something within their abilities particularly when interacting with others of those cultures (such as ordering food at a restaurant, how to say someone's name) but I feel a lot of British feel like they don't need to try to do this, even when traveling. Also very very much agree with you about written words. As an avid and early reader I have multiple memories of mispronouncing words I had only read before. Often exposure to a novel word is written communication that we have to decode, vs picking it up from spoken communication.

[@FredQuimby1000]

"and “x” is used in a way completely unfamiliar to English speakers" - Xerxes the Great, was the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, ruling from 486 to 465 BC

[@---iv5gj]

No, Xi JinPing in Mandarin has the exact same "i" in all three vowels, but english people chose to freestyle it all.

[@IsisNiko]

genuinely shocked to learn that the stereotypical way that old 'nam war vets pronounce vietnam ISN'T really as much of a mispronunciation as i initially thought. the 'nam' really DOES sound similar to 'am'. learned something new today!

[@urphakeandgey6308]

It's astonishing as well because it really shows that, for better or worse, they really were a part of that region of the world. It only makes sense they picked it up from the natives.

[@Millenimorphose]

It also speaks to the controversy of the war and how poorly many Vietnam Vets were treated when they returned to America. All of the people who skipped the draft because they were able to go to college got to use their educated status to be “cultured,” whereas the returning veterans were largely from poor, less educated, and less connected families. Obviously, the veterans who had spent time in the country couldn’t have known what they were talking about, so the de-nativized pronunciation lost out due to a perception of ignorance.

[@browncoat697]

​@@MillenimorphoseI want to point out this is largely a myth. Vietnam war vets were not mistreated by anyone but the government that sent them there. Anti war protesters were not a majority. The only Vietnam vets to get bad treatment were those who were loudly anti war. The big speech at the end of First Blood about how the anti war people hated the veterans coming back? Total baloney.

[@Millenimorphose]

@@browncoat697 That’s fair. However, I would point out that (a) the people in government largely fall into the educated group I was talking about, and have outsized influence on public discourse, and (b) even if anti-war protesters were a minority, if the last few years of American politics have taught me anything, a vocal minority can still cause significant disruptions in public discourse, especially if they are targeting another group.

[@dant5349]

I don’t know how true this is, but I’ve heard something interesting related to this about how Americans from southern states pronounce ‘Vietnam’ differently to how the word is pronounced in northern states: People from the South are more likely to use the (more accurate) flat ‘a’ pronunciation in ‘Vietnam’ - which to Nothern USA people can make them sound like uneducated hicks - because the southern states have a higher proportion of Vietnam War veterans than the North, who have influenced the pronunciation of the word in the South. Because veterans served in Vietnam, they are more likely, as you mentioned, to pronounce the word more like it is pronounced in Vietnamese. Again I don’t know how true this is.

[@JSu-here]

I'd love to find this "jalapeno" video with them saying "j" as in "jar," I got a really good laugh out of that one! It's easy to forget that a lot of the Spanish words that are part of daily life in the US are not widely known in English-speaking lands outside the US. Being asked "what's an enchilada" when I mention one to a non-American causes a momentary brain freeze.

[@cggc9510]

I made enchiladas yesterday and my English friend throught they were tacos while my Australian house mates had no clue. I turned around and made epenadas and tostadas to update their knowledge and taste buds. I am still working on the j and ñ for jalapeños.

[@Triquetra15]

I find enchilada to be funny because it’s kind of like jaguar where we only half pronounce it right. When I’m ordering, I want to say “encheelada”, but still say “enchilada” because it is the American way.

[@happmacdonald]

This is where I would normally post a youtube clip to a comedy sketch saying as much given that I've seen several of them, but I cannot locate them easily just at the moment. But a majority of Mexican cuisine that Americans are most familiar with all amount to the exact same ingredients in a tortilla just with the tortilla folded in different configurations. 😋

[@georgezee5173]

@@cggc9510 I used to work in a Spanish restaurant in London and for some weird reason most of my customers, after reading the menu, would say "empaÑadas" instead of "empanadas", when the latter it's not written with a foreign letter for them. It's like they were overdoingit to sound more Spanish LOL

[@premanadi]

One of my Kiwi friends and I always have a good laugh at her struggle with "quesadilla." It always comes out "kwess-uh-dill-uh."

[@ballisstrife]

As a young(-ish) American, I (and I believe many others) have two pronunciations of the word "homage." The H is pronounced when used in the phrase "pay homage (to)," but it's pronounced in the more "de-nativized" way in all other cases. So, C-3PO and R2-D2 are an ō-ˈmäzh to the two peasants in The Hidden Fortress, but their inclusion was a way for George Lucas to pay 'hä-mij to Akira Kurosawa. The two uses have slightly different meanings, which I suspect contributes to the consistency of this split in pronunciation.

[@acfreeman]

(also young American) I use two pronunciations like that, but never pronounce the H. So it's like "aw-mij" and "oh-maj"

[@henryseawright5082]

Yes! Exactly this!

[@sylv256]

You're pronouncing it wrong. You don't pronounce the H at all, ever, like in "heir."

[@ballisstrife]

@@sylv256 ok, thanks for the feedback

[@Trea-pl4xr]

@@sylv256 That person is NOT pronouncing it wrong. You do pronounce the H. Either works though.

[@edwardfaulkner1094]

I always enjoy how good you are at suddenly dropping an American pronunciation into your speech. It makes me hear my own dialect in a way I otherwise don’t notice.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Thanks, that's a relief!

[@NachoMas]

I mean even his Spanish sounds pretty convincing to a native to be honest.

[@FransLebin]

It always sounds like he's doing an exaggerated cowboy drawl, but then I say the word myself and it's not that far off

[@headbuttsforphaticcommunio3731]

@@DrGeoffLindsey I thought I was the only one who said Americans speak Spanish. Have you read Kevin MacDonald's The Critique of Culture? America has not been a 'melting' pot and is no more of a Melting pot than London which is minority English. Most of the influence in USA English of late is to do with what Kevin MacDonald talks about.

[@runstarhomer2754]

@@FransLebin That's exactly what I thought. "Come on, I don't sound like that." Then I say the word out loud. "Oh, I guess I do sound like that." I think it's just that it sounds somewhat jarring in contrast to his own natural accent.

[@giahuy98]

Dear Dr. Lindsey. As a Vietnamese native speaker, I would like to explain a bit about the sound /a:/ in "Việt Nam". You pronounced it almost perfectly as a native speaker in the Northern Vietnamese accent, even with the /a:/ sound for "Nam". The problem with this /a:/ sound is that 5 over 6 sample recordings that you used were in Southern Vietnamese accent, where it tends to sound like /æ/ in "plastic". When it comes to serious or formal speech, southerners may pronounce it perfectly as /na:m/. But normally it would sound rather like /næm/ in southern accent. In addition, the southern Vietnamese, especially southwesterners, usually pronounce the consonant V in "Việt" as /j/ in young, or even pronounce the ending /t/ as /k/. It's a long long long story. Anyway, thank you for this stimulating view.

[@louisparry-mills9132]

Fascinating, I was about to revise my pronunciation of Vietna:m to Vietnæm but I'm glad I can let myself keep saying it. Hmm, unless I want to try Yieknæm, which sounds pretty cool.

[@---iv5gj]

strange how the southwestern accent sounds closer to cantonese chinese than the north which is the actual neighbour

[@notwithouttext]

even still, the "trAp" vowel in ssb is very close to /a/. on the other hand, the "fAther" vowel is long, just like /a:/

[@DoodiePunk]

Yeknam, then. 🤓

[@giahuy98]

@@---iv5gj Exactly. I believe it is due to the presence of a large Chinese community in the south from 18th until 1975. Today they are still the largest minority group will almost 1 mil people, concentrated mostly in the south.

[@vinniezcenzo]

I think a big piece of the puzzle is the increasing amounts Spanish speakers in the US, and the loaning of Spanish sounds and words in American English. Most Americans take Spanish in school and have frequent contact with Spanish speakers (myself included).

[@Ezullof]

I'm not sure it's such an important factor. Most kids learn spanish at school in France too, but the words we borrow from spanish still tend to be "nativized" heavily. It seems more to be a cultural attitude to me. For example, québécois tends to nativize english a lot less than metropolitan french, but also a lot less than french nativizes basically any other language. Meanwhile, most african varieties of french tend to align on metropolitan french for nativization, a tendency also found in Haitian kriyol for example.

[@poppinc8145]

Should be further pointed out that Latin American Spanish has a different pronunciation than Iberian Spanish for some of the same letters. Paraguay also has a uniquely different pronunciation. Another thing worth pointing out (especially being relevant to Mexico) is that the letter *X* in Spanish went from the _Sh_ of the past to just another _H_ sound. Mehiko is actually meant to be Meshiko derived from the native Meshika.

[@kentix417]

Yeah, Mexico has its own whole pronunciation thing going relative to other Spanish speaking places because of its indigenous languages and place names with X.

[@JeanBalconi-nn9lh]

Absolutely. Many of the English US pronunciations are the same as US Spanish-speakers; e.g. "pasta" and "San Pedro" The latter I've never heard pronounced like the English "pedal" before.

[@oscarquintero2209]

​@@kentix417it's simply an archaism. Back in the day the letter X made a different sound. But Mexicans still pronounce X as every other Spanish speaker (eks) in everyday, non-toponymical words like éxito

[@protossinator]

One interesting thing I've found being a US resident is that not only is Spanish a prevelant language in the Southwest, but also all over the country, regardless of proximity to Mexico. I'm currently living up north in New York state by the border of Canada, and you'd assume that French would be the go-to secondary language here, but I only know a single French speaker around me. In contrast, I know so many Spanish speakers that often we speak the language when we hang out and when we're at home.

[@gregory-of-tours]

Even in large Canadian cities outside Quebec Spanish is probably more common now than French, or at least equal. More reason for immigrants to come to English Canada from Latin America than from Quebec I guess? They do try to teach us French in school, but they don't try very hard, and most English Canadians can't say much more than "Bonjour, Je mange une pomme"

[@sluggo206]

Spanish became more common in the northern US in the past 20-30 years. I moved from California to Seattle in the early 70s and there was little Spanish here. Mexican farmworkers came for a few months a year and went back to Mexico. Then the border tightened up and they stayed year-round and had kids, and now it's at the second or third generation. Then more people from Mexico and Central America came, and now there's a Spanish radio station, TV station, neighborhoods with Spanish-predominant businesses, bilingual signs in some other businesses, etc. When I was little in Seattle, government signs they wanted everyone to understand were in English and several Asian languages. Now they're in English, Spanish, Russian, several Asian languages, and one or two African languages. In contrast, when I was in Germany the signs were in German, English, French, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, etc.

[@Great_Olaf5]

A lot of the port cities got a fairly large amount of Cuban and Puerto Rican migrants over the years, so Spanish is pretty big everywhere but some more isolated parts of the Midwest.

[@jean6872]

@Mike Orr *_Where I live in Andalucía, Spain, on road signs the only language other than Spanish is Arabic which help people from the Maghrib find their way to the ferry taking them to Morocco._*

[@Soitisisit]

To be fair, there is a cultural push against French as a language that is much more acceptable ( even if not that serious ), that would be unimaginable for Spanish. You can make fun of French and Francophones and especially Francophones speaking English in a way that just wouldn't land for doing the same with Spanish and Spanish-speakers. It'd get slight confusion at best and outright offense at worst. And I'm saying this as someone from Louisiana, where you think making fun of things being French would be least acceptable. In reality, it's the opposite, we have more license to make fun of it than other Americans do, but even setting aside what people do in jest, our state government offers their services in three languages so if you take those to be our official languages then we've got English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. And nobody would find it out of the ordinary enough to make fun of or comment on even as a rude person. I imagine that the general antipathy towards Quebec that radiates outward from Quebec has similar effects. We expect French people to learn English and assimilate and - speaking in a general trend - associate them with being radical and Quebecois or at least "very foreign" if they don't. In Louisiana it has added cultural baggage because the native French dialect is almost dead and stereotypically associated with being lower class while the more standard "book French" is associated with putting on airs and being pretentious or being tied to old money and lawyers. ( It's the Boudreaux vs Angelle effect. ) None of these factors apply to Spanish-speakers who are diffused throughout the country and very much catered to nationally. Although speaking historically in terms of what I know of who migrated where, I wouldn't expect French as a third language almost anywhere in the USA.

[@toddbevan]

Britain: "We're doing it our way, but you'll get it" America: "Allow me to pour this vowel sauce over everything"

[@royfearn4345]

BRILLIANT observation!

[@14caz68]

😂 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@chocoholic832]

That is so true 😂

[@imanimyles7332]

VOWEL SAUCE??? Haaaaaaaaaa so dead right now.

[@nutmegz9534]

🤣 🤣 🤣

[@tparadox88]

I've noticed a little bit that we in America tend to push the vowels of loanwords into the direction that sounds the most comfortably foreign on the assumption that's more correct without having to check with a native speaker of the source language, but I'm a bit astonished and humbled to learn about the native pronunciation of Viet Nam. I always assumed all those war veterans said "Veet--Naehm" because they didn't care about saying it correctly and were over-nativizing it into their American drawl.

[@subg8858]

That’s what happens when you assume others are dumber than you are

[@sluggo206]

You can hear the difference between the American pseudo-Spanish "Guatemala" with t -> d and dark l, and a recent trend among Spanish-English speakers, who put a slight pause around the word and switch to the Spanish pronunciation, with exact vowels, voiceless t, and light l. To me that's too pedantic. On the other hand it drives me up the wall to hear a fully nativized (Englishized) "San Francisco" or "San Jose" (emphasizing a short a and short i, and "sanozay").

[@JohnDlugosz]

In Chinese, Vietnam sounds almost exactly like Yunnan (the province).

[@somercet1]

It's true. We heard them pronounce it and thought, "well, that's a hill billy saying it, so the original sounds less hill billy. Viet Nahm." Turns out So, VN is a lot more hillbilly than we previously thought...

[@sluggo206]

@@somercet1 Still, that's one case out of thousands that go the other way. Most Americans have never heard the Vietnamese pronunciation of Viet Nam (I never have) and don't have a native speaker to ask. I still think it's better to assume /a/ rather than /æ/. Because English went really weird that way and other languages didn't.

[@sluggo206]

In Washington state there's a joke about a Japanese town in the rural middle of the state, "yack-EE-ma", spelled Yakima. It could equally be a Spanish town spelled "yaquima". It's actually a Native American name, pronounced "YACK-i-ma" (and spelled Yakima).

[@akaJughead]

What's interesting, is that most of the Vietnam veterans I met in my life pronounced it closer to the native way. I never really understood why until now.

[@mikedaniel1771]

The 5-vowel Spanish method works for approximating pretty much all Romance languages, plus Japanese, so rather than having to memorize native pronunciation for dozens of other languages, Americans just use the Spanish vowels for unknown foreign words

[@mikedaniel1771]

@@tommykidder3891 Well, since Latin America is also "American" I think we're both right 😉As for oiseaux, I had French in high school so I'd say "wazo" but I'm pretty sure the average American would have no idea.

[@shutapp9958]

@@tommykidder3891Yeah, you’re somewhat nitpicking though you’re correct. I can see his system working 100% for Italian, Greek, and Japanese words, but even in a similar language such as Portuguese, it would work but not that well because of vowel reduction, which can be voiceless sometimes, and distinction of their quality, unlike in Spanish which only has stress. “José” is pronounced completely differently and might as well not be considered related although etymologically they are the same thing, for instance (PT: ʒ(ʊ ~ u ~o)zɛ X SP: χose, Anglicized version: hoʊˈzeɪ, English-based phonemes: ʤoʊ’zei. So sometimes it’s 50/50 when it comes to languages with a lot of vowels, like French, Portuguese, Dutch, and German, and I’d rather English speakers say things their own way than sound oddly off because of hypercorrection. That’s not only a vowel thing. J is universally pronounced differently throughout the European languages, and Spanish is odd at that, while everyone pronounces it either as /ʒ/ (Portuguese, French, Romanian, in which the pronunciation is the g in “genre”), /ʤ/ like in English, or /j/ like in the word Hallelujah. So it’s always hit or miss. In my opinion, a /a-ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i-ɪ/, /o-ɔ/, /u/ system, with a lot of schwas ə or ɐ for ending letters is perfect.

[@mikedaniel1771]

@@shutapp9958 Because of the strong Spanish influence here, most Americans would get the J, LL, and Ñ sounds right, even if they know zero Spanish, whereas I think (without any evidence) that Brits would guess French words much better than we would. Not as many opportunities in modern times, whereas Spanish words are pervasive

[@CaliMeatWagon]

@@mikedaniel1771 Except in Louisiana, huge French influence there.

[@shutapp9958]

@@mikedaniel1771 And that often leads to macabre hypercorrections when reading something that’s not Spanish. But I guess it’s better than nothing.

[@Kingramze]

My American high school English teacher required us to learn the international phonetic alphabet and to pronounce and enunciate words "correctly" - so, I love that you have a different perspective on the variety of options from accents and regions around the world. Fascinating what some consider to be "normal" yet others "plain wrong" lol.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

What a relief to get a comment that isn't about grating, griping, appalling, horrifying etc.

[@arielshatz6876]

@@DrGeoffLindsey Just remember that although the bad ones will stick in your head more, the positive comments outnumber them a hundredfold.

[@Carewolf]

That sound really unhelpful! :D

[@scintillam_dei]

My US American high school English instructor told girls to smear shit on themselves to not get raped.

[@scintillam_dei]

@@arielshatz6876 Depends. Under videos of a channel like Infopedia, most people in the comments are absolutely disgusting selfish idiots. Their positivity is just celebrating their ignorant superficial opinions. So that's actually negative.

[@beybladetunada5697]

It's wild trying to understand those differences between American and British English while being a native portuguese speaker. The British sounds are usually easier to replicate to me

[@tj-co9go]

I just usually have a weird "in-between accent" with features from both accents

[@smokennel]

@@tj-co9goso do I

[@bhami]

@@tj-co9go That sounds like you're describing the "mid-Atlantic accent" that Hollywood movies promoted back in the 1930s.

[@tj-co9go]

@@bhami that's possible

[@RedElm747]

@@tj-co9go Most L2 English speakers do unless they live in an English speaking environment for a extended period of time.

[@PasCorrect]

I live in Ontario and have a French last name. I used to keep the French pronunciation when introducing myself. In university, I gave my name to a British professor, and he asked "Oh, you don't anglicize it?" I was mildly offended at the time but I've since given up on using the completely French pronunciation in English, and instead use a compromised version that's easy to say but still puts the stress on the last syllable and doesn't voice any silent consonants. Good enough!

[@sylv256]

Words should always be as denativized as possible.

[@dinkster1729]

@@sylv256 Yeah, right! Tell that to the English-speakers of Kingston Ontario. My last name ends in -eau which is pronounced "-0" (long O) in French. However people just look at my name in confusion and can't pronounce it when they have to call it out in a hospital waiting room, for example. It's too syllables like "Trud eau". We have had 2 Prime Ministers with the last name "Trudeau" and the average Kingstonian can't pronounce it? That totally amazes me. Everybody is required to take Core French in Ontario from grade 4 to grade 8 with one grade 9 credit. How successful has this programme been, though, if the average person still doesn't recognize automatically that "-eau" is pronounced in "O" (long O) in French? I do put the stress on the first syllable though, not the second, although my twin brother puts the stress on the 2nd syllable. And my relatives around Bathurst pronounce the name as if it were "Gagné", not "Goneau". In the 1911 census, the last name is written as "Gagnier". I guess the census taker was French-Canadian and francophonized the name for these poor Anglo Canadians with the French name who couldn't pronounce it. My twin brother ran into a construction worker years ago in Eastern Ontario who was from northern New Brunswick who said to him that he knew a family with that last name, Goneau, but that family pronounced the name as "Gagné. My brother raised in Ontario told the man he was related. LOLOL! That's the only guy who has ever pronounced Goneau as Gagné.

[@johng4093]

Some immigrant names are deliberately changed in spelling to conform closer to English pronunciation of letters while staying as close to the original sound as possible.

[@englishmuffinpizzas]

I think you nailed the US perspective. The “5 vowel strategy” is definitely real. It probably does come from Spanish which is by far the most common foreign language we are exposed to here. But it works ok for languages like Japanese and Italian also. I think you’re right that pronouncing things “correctly” is seen as important here - both as a sign of respect and education. At least in my experience (big East Coast cities) people will try quite hard to learn to pronounce names, foods, and other foreign words.

[@natekite7532]

Yeah, really interesting to hear this discussed from an outside perspective. Made me think about how some educated people will make fun of uneducated people by putting on a thick southern accent and butchering Spanish words. ("Do you want any of those juh-LAH-pih-nos in the KWAY-so?") I'd never really thought about the importance we put on "correct" pronunciation of foreign words. I know that if I'm ever, say, out to eat at a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese friend, I'm probably going to ask them how to pronounce whatever I'm ordering. I know I'm gonna butcher it, but I feel like I gotta give a good faith effort. Is this really unique to America? Or is it just extra important here?

[@ficus3929]

From my POV it’s important to pronounce close to correct without tipping over into being pretentious.

[@AllUpOns]

@@ficus3929 Yep, and "close to correct" really just means using Spanish vowels most of the time. Using a foreign r sound is pretty much always gonna put you in pretentious territory.

[@squodge]

Spanish vowels don't work for either Italian or Japanese. The Japanese U is not rounded (unlike U's in most languages). Italian also has 7 vowel sounds, unlike Spanish's 5 - Italian has short and long E, also short and long O (same as Ancient Greek, but not like Modern Greek which has an appalling vowel system where half the vowel sounds have become iota).

[@natekite7532]

@@squodge This is all true, but remember that we're dealing with nativizations here. Nothing is even close to perfect - it's just an attempt to pronounce the words as closely to their original pronunciation while still remaining well within comfortable English phonology. Like, the American approximation of Spanish /e/ is /eɪ/, and /o/ is /oʊ/. They're not even monopthongs. When you look at it in broad strokes, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese all have pretty similar vowels - they each have an "a, e, i, o, u" sound. And sure, Italian and Japanese do have phonemic vowel length, but untrained Anglophones usually can't distinguish that - same with [ɯ] vs [u], which isn't even a phonemic distinction in Japanese anyways. So each of those languages end up sounding to untrained English speakers like /a eɪ i o u/. It's not _super_ close, but it's probably good enough, especially when you consider that there are other, more important phonemes that aren't even kinda pronounced correctly, like the rhotic.

[@StfuFFS]

As a Spanish speaker who also understands Portuguese, I'm surprised that you can't hear the w in the Brazilian pronunciation of Jaguar. And if Americans were following the Spanish- centric rules you've laid out then we'd pronounce the J like it's pronounced in Spanish: "ha-GWA-ro". But we maintain the Jag like in jagged because it's very similar to the actual Brazilian pronunciation. The only real difference between US English and BR Portuguese is that American rhotic R at the end that the Brazilians turn into the typically weird silent R of Brazilian Portuguese (e.g. Royce Gracie is pronounced Hoyce Gracie and Joe Rogan is pronounced Joe Hogan). And the biggest problem i have with the British pronunciation of Jaguar is the extra syllable that y'all love to pollute the ends of words with.

[@itsROMPERS...]

Besides "jagyooar" and "jagwar", there is another American pronunciation that used to be more common, "jagwire". I remember this being common in the 60s and 70s, "your dad got a jagwire, cool!"

[@RabidHobbit]

@@itsROMPERS... I remember it in the 80s too, but the same kid who said that also pronounced "turret" as "turrent" and "nuclear" as "nukular". I don't know if there was any relation or he just was really good at picking up on incorrect pronunciations.

[@itsROMPERS...]

@@RabidHobbit I lived in a very affluent suburb, and that's how most people pronounced it, even people that pronounced "nuclear" correctly. (Most people didn't have the need to say "turret" very often, so I never heard the one you mentioned. But people to this day say "tenant" when they mean "tenet", and that drives me nuts.)

[@Moritach]

The way non swedish speakers pronounce smörgåsbord always does my head in. 😂

[@LauraTenora]

From what I know, the word jaguar comes from Kichwa "yawari", which in turn derives from "yawar" [blood]. It is from Kichwa that the term got into Spanish and Portuguese. Side note: for me it's Kichwa (I'm from Ecuador). In Perú and Bolivia, it is Quechua.

[@lennih]

I thought it was from Guarani. In any case, it didn't get to English through Kichwa or Guarani directly, but apparently from Portuguese, as stated in the video.

[@LauraTenora]

@@lennih I speak no Guaraní whatsoever. I've only studied some Kichwa, so I'm in no position of debating, but I certainly appreciate your input and I also agree on what you mention: that the term most probably entered the English language through a previous step along the way, either from Portuguese (most likely) or from Spanish.

[@fernandocenturion4829]

@@lennih I remember reading somewhere that both Guarani and Kichwa have a common ancester. In guarani jagua means dog

[@lennih]

@@fernandocenturion4829 Yes, 'jagua' means dog and 'jaguarete' means jaguar. Don't know about the common ancestor. Today they are classified as belonging to different families. Gurarni belongs to the Tupi-Guarani macro-family, whereas Kichwa belongs to the Quechua primary family.

[@thearab59]

The Argentinian rugby team (in Super Rugby) are the Jaguares, pronounced Hag-oo-are-ace, which I think they got from listening to Argentinian commentators.

[@long_dan]

Fun fact: the Spanish “jaguar”, like many words related to the flora and the fauna of the New World, is a loanword from a Native American language (Tupi) that entered Spanish through Portuguese or French (it’s unclear). I bet this term has undergone a bunch of phonetic transformations in Spanish, starting with the pronunciation of “j”, that might well make it unrecognisable for a Tupi native speaker. By the way, you nailed the Spanish pronunciation of “jersey”.

[@taududeblobber221]

after all of the people who have mentioned the origin of this word in the comments of this video, i wanna know what the original tupi word sounds like.

[@quain5063]

@@taududeblobber221 /ja.ˈwa.ɾa/

[@long_dan]

@@taududeblobber221 sorry! 😅I just browsed a few comments but didn’t come across one mentioning the origin of the word, then I thought I might be the first one to do so. No idea how a Tupi speaker would pronounce it, but according to the Spanish Academy the original word would be spelled “yaguará”.

[@rasmusdamus7154]

It's interesting that was the Portuguese who introduced the word to other languages but in Brazil we don't call the animal 'jaguar' but 'onça', a Portuguese term for lynx. Although, in some regions, the original term is used as a slang for a untrustworthy person, like 'aquele cara é um jaguara' - 'that dude is dishonest'.

[@jumantewashington8715]

@@taududeblobber221 Yag 'wara.

[@leafbelly]

You nailed most of the American pronunciations, except Renault. It may be a regional thing, but here in Appalachia, it's more like Re-Nawl(t) (like fault, but with an almost unheard "T").

[@marpheus1]

As a brazilian and since you said "jaguar" comes from portuguese, the pronunciation with W is totally fine to me. We do not pronounce it ja-gu-ar, but ja-gwar. The only thing is that The R should be soft, almost like The H in "hence" or "hidden"

[@paulthomas8262]

In Angola I remember locals pronouncing "water" gwa.teer/ gwa.ta, though they were reading it. Teaching them the Wah/War sound was a tricky. I think this might have been becuase w as a letter in portuguese is a pretty modern inclusion, and also maybe the native speaker of Kimbundu/Umbundu use the letter w but for Gwa but not sure on that.

[@wormalism]

I thought Brazilians called that cat an onça instead of a jaguar?

[@marpheus1]

@@wormalism we call it mostly Onça, the main way that I, at least, use say Jaguar is to refer to the car brand, but is indeed used sometimes to refer to the animal

[@augustobarbosab.773]

@@wormalism Yeah, we call them "onças" mostly. There is another feline that has a similar name/etymology as "jaguar" called "jaguatirica" ("ocelot", in English), though.

[@augustobarbosab.773]

@@paulthomas8262 The "w"/"gw" sound change is actually common in other Romance languages aswell, like French and Spanish.

[@fruitshuit]

Interesting point about "homage" becoming denativised among younger people. Thinking about my own ideolect (which is mostly scottish standard english), I say it with the american stress in "an homage" but with the british stress in the phrase "pay homage". As in "The film was an 'om-AHJ to 90s cartoons" or "In his speech, John paid HOM-idge to his father".

[@jayteegamble]

American here and YES! We do the same thing. A knight would go pay homage to his king but the fight scene in Tarantino's movie was an om-AHJ to kung fu movies of the 1970s.

[@tams805]

I remember first coming across there term 'homage' and saying 'hom-age' when my English teacher used it. I was quickly disabused of that and asked if that's how I would say fromage frais.

[@universal_hyssoap]

i do the same as an american

[@skaldlouiscyphre2453]

@@tams805 That's Fro-mæg Fræze, we speak English in this English class! 😁

[@thalianero1071]

Same here “HOM-age” is for respect and “ho-MAGE” is for allusion

[@JS-ih7lu]

As a bilingual native speaker of Mandarin and English, I can pronounce the “x, q, z, c” sounds from Mandarin the way they’re supposed to. However, when speaking English, I will pronounce Chinese names with Chinese consonants sounds to avoid sounding pretentious, but add English stresses and inflections so they sound natural compared to the rest of the sentence.

[@marioluigi9599]

You need to stop being scared of being pretentious. You're Chinese. Noone is going to think you're pretentious anyway. Just pronounce it the correct way and you know what, that's actually much better, because then you'll teach the rest of us how to actually pronounce it. If you just say it a fake English way, it just sounds stupid and fake and whitewashed coconut. Don't do that please. I've tried to learn those Chinese vowels once myself but they're so hard. All I remember is the X is like a smiley sh sound and the SH is an sh with your tongue on the top of your mouth or something like that lol. I don't know. Maybe you can explain it?

[@sluggo206]

To English ears, the multiple "sh" and "zh" sounds all sound the same, so listeners probably don't hear it, or just put it down to a different accent. Yes, people are more sensitive about stress than about pronunciation. I studied Russian, and it irks me when TV newscasters get the stress wrong in Russian names or words.

[@dianas.9289]

Russian does have an H sound, it's pronounced a bit differently (somewhat harder), so traditionally geographical names, personal names and surnames, words of Greek origin ("helium", for example) starting with an H are written and pronounced with a G sound instead: it has something to do with BrE/AmE H sound being closer to the glottal fricative sound used in the Ukrainian language and the Southern Russian dialect.

[@sluggo206]

That's the "kh" sound, different from English h. Older Russian seems to convert western H to Russian G, all the way up to Gitler in the 40s, but now I'm hearing Russians convert recent words from western H to Russian X (kh).

[@arctrix765]

@@sluggo206 i think it’s way better, cause гитлер is way worse than хитлер at example. It just annoys me, cause the other is like an h or something whatever sound, and the other is a completely different letter

[@sluggo206]

@@arctrix765 The reason G was chosen has to do with Slavic history, the similar-but-different status of the G/H-like sounds and letters in Ukrainian and Western Slavic languages, the less daily interaction with Western countries, and how Church Slavonic handled the issue (which I don't know). I think Russians see the G solution as obsolete, so they'll probably keep it for established words, but use the X solution for new words and ad-hoc situations. Like how they use the A solution for English schwa and short U (focus, cut). Meanwhile in English, the kh sound occurs natively only in Scottish "loch", which most speakers pronounce "lock". Words from Greek with Greek X are spelled "ch" in English and pronounced "k", but in Russian they're spelled X and pronounced "kh". Spanish J is pronounced "kh" or "h" in both Spanish and English. English uses the spelling "kh" for Russian X and similar sounds in other languages with non-Latin alphabets. But it's clearly different from English "h", even if some English speakers resort to "h" if they can't pronounce "kh".

[@d.s.5362]

@@sluggo206 Hi Mike! I live in Russia, born and raised, actually, and I've never heard anyone pronounce Hitler or similar well-known names and surnames (Hamlet, for example) with a G sound, and I'm young enough 😁. I'll keep my ears to the ground, though, maybe I will. Geographical entities are a whole other thing, they've been changing their Gs to Hs. That said, I agree that kh and h are technically different sounds, but they are close enough. English consonants aren't the gold standard, so saying that a sound doesn't exist just because it sounds different from one's mother tongue is unprofessional for a linguist, that's all.

[@d.s.5362]

Sorry, I might have repeated myself while responding to Mike: couldn't see my first message while typing 😔

[@thezeoxys9180]

As an American, I try to stay as close to the original pronunciation as I can if it's a loan word in which I am aware of its origins. As long as there is an understanding of what meaning is being conveyed, I don't see a problem with different pronunciations.

[@silh3345]

I’m Norwegian and this video made me realize how in Norway we often have a tendency to nativize the pronunciation of words if we keep the original spelling, but when we keep the original pronounciation we usually have to alter the spelling of the word in order to keep the pronounciation closer to the original. For example in words like orange we change the spelling to oransje in order to keep the sh sound because g is normally pronounced differently in Norwegian. If we didn’t change the spelling we would have ended up nativizing the pronouciation instead.

[@keithlarsen7557]

Mad props for the word sjåfør.

[@subg8858]

I didn’t know there is an sh sound in orange

[@Christian___]

Every time I meet a Norwegian (I'm from the UK) I think they're American--you guys seem to only learn American English! Must be something to do with the oil industry!

[@silh3345]

@@Christian___ it’s not because of the oil industry, but rather a mix of the fact that America has more power in the modern world and the fact that American media like movies, social media and games are in American. American English is everywhere, it’s inescapable and therefore it’s natural that we learn American English when we’re so exposed to it.

[@Christian___]

@@silh3345 Maybe... but we're neighbours with Norway and have a lot of shared history--that must count for something! You only love America because it's rich and powerful: we have Shakespeare and Milton! 😜 It seems particularly strong in Norway though; most Indian, Chinese, French and German people I've met learn British English, which is still the most common form of natively spoken English around the world... Maybe it's because the Germans and French tend to dub American movies--people from the Netherlands also tend to have strong American accents and I know that they tend to watch movies in English--is it common to dub movies into Norwegian?

[@morganmcallister2001]

I've never heard it called the 5-vowel strategy, but I've definitely done it. I was in Poland with a British friend who told me that I used Polish vowels whenever I came across a new word that I didn't know how to pronounce. There are a few more vowels than that in Polish, but it is a very vowel consistent language. Similarly, the 5-vowel strategy is aiming for vowel consistency.

[@TheFalseShepphard]

That's a lot of vowels

[@ZakhadWOW]

I would love to find out what possessed whoever to take a simple L, put a slash thru it and pronounce it like the english W sound Zloty = Zwoty? huh? LOL

[@nerysghemor5781]

@@ZakhadWOW Phonetically I can see why the "l" changed from the "bright l," then to a "dark l," and then to "w." But I actually think, as someone who speaks a little Russian, it's a very nice little piece of courtesy to leave the etymological history right there in the spelling so I can spot how it relates to a Russian word I know. :-D

[@Konyad]

L and Ł are kind of similar in polish

[@sluggo206]

@@ZakhadWOW Ł in Polish was a dark l until a century or so ago, and became w through "l vocalization", which is common across languages, like Portuguese mal -> mau. Some Polish dialects still pronounce it as dark l. English has l vocalization too, and it went even further an the l disappeared in words like talk, almond, salmon, etc. (In my American dialect.) Polish kept the old letter for the new sound, because W was already taken for the V sound.

[@CyReVolt]

Funny fun fact: The German word for tooth paste is Zahnpasta. We have both ending vowels swapped sometimes, E and A, here and there (sometimes specific to regions/dialects/varieties). Another one is German Kasse vs Austrian Kassa, meaning register/checkout.

[@Belleplainer]

The Vietnam item was interesting. Older Americans generally pronounce it more like the native speakers, probably because of the tendency of American newscasters to try to pronounce proper names like the locals pronounce them, especially when the person is "in country." And of course Vietnam was all over American newscasts in the 60s and 70s. But once Vietnam dropped off the American radar, that influence dropped off as well and younger generations were somewhat left to make their own way on pronouncing it. And the native pronunciation is associated in America with a pronunciation that would be used by less educated Americans, which probably influenced the pronunciation away from the native pronunciation.

[@StephanieAly]

I'm so glad I came across this! It makes me want to scream when people complain about how Americans tend to pronounce words like "parmesan" and "bruschetta" as if we're the only ones who nativize loanwords (in our own way, which I was fascinated to learn about!). It does feel extremely American to me that part of the challenge of deciding how to pronounce a loanword is striking a balance between sounding ignorant and sounding pretentious, because going too far in one direction or another can come off as silly or just insufferable - but I'd be interested to know if that's a phenomenon experienced in other cultures. (For example: I minored in Italian and lived in Italy for a time. I know how to pronounce bruschetta in Italian. But I code switch in English depending on the situation: "brusketta" or "brushetta").

[@jenna637]

"Striking a balance between sounding ignorant and sounding pretentious" is the best way I think American pronunciation of loan words could ever be explained. Go too far in either direction and you're bound to elicit laughter from other people at your pronunciation.

[@johanna-hypatiacybeleia2465]

The only native English "sch" word is "mischief." If English truly nativized bruschetta, it would be */bɹʌsˈtʃɛtə/, but nobody says that. Instead what happens is privileging German phonics over Italian-even though German gave us the word schizophrenia with a /k/.

[@cowbutt6]

@@johanna-hypatiacybeleia2465 Playing around with ipa-reader, it seems that I (with a British West Country accent) pronounce 'mischief' as /ˈmɪsʃɪf/ or maybe /ˈmɪʃ.t͡ʃɪf/. My "natural" pronounciation of 'bruschetta' is accordingly */bɹʌsˈʃɛtə/, which I sometimes unconfidently remember to pronounce as /bruːˈskɛtə/

[@dinkster1729]

A lot of Italians came to Toronto area after the 2nd World War. I've lived in Eastern Ontario for the last 44 years and took one Italian course 54 years ago and studied piano so I know how to pronounce words in Italian. I pronounce the name of Toronto politicians as if they were Italian when their family names are Italian. Big mistake. My sister married to an Italian for 20 years pronounces those names as if they were Toronto Italians. LOLOL! "Joe Pantalone" is "Joe Pantaloan", not "Joe Pantalone" like Al Capone, I guess. Then, there's "Lecce" our Minister of Education and he's now Stephen Lesse" (2 syllables, I think), but not a "ch" sound. I guess I should listen to the news rather than read it in a newspaper. My sister is the source of the correct pronunciation a la Toronto. LOLOL!

[@alexanderlea2293]

Isn’t the American pronunciation of “Parmesan” fairly decent? Given that the spelling of the word changed, the pronunciation seems reasonable.

[@allanrichardson9081]

A factor not mentioned is the route by which a foreign loan word first enters the borrowing language: oral only, written only, or a mix of both. For example: In Mexican Spanish, the word for “convicted” of a crime is “juzgado” (literally, “judged”), pronounced like “hoos-GAH-do,” with the “d” almost silent, and the word was also used for the place where the “judged” (or “to be judged”) person was confined. Anglo settlers in the Southwest who were not literate in Spanish, and barely literate in English, copied the Mexican word as they HEARD it, and spelled it “hoosegow.” By contrast, when old worn out autos were first sold cheaply to Mexican dealers, they were shipped to the port of Jalapa in the Mexican state of that name. Anglo dock workers who saw that name on the shipping crates, not having heard a Mexican pronounce it, pronounced the name as they SAW it, and gave the name of that port to the cars themselves, and to cars in similar condition. Hence an old worn out car which is almost ready to be sold to Jalapa would be a JALOPY. Many years later, more literate Anglos who like Mexican food already knew about the Spanish “J” and so spell the peppers grown in that state correctly, and pronounce it more or less correctly. Better than the Brits at least! This word came into English in both oral and written forms pretty much simultaneously.

[@karlpoppins]

"Hoosegow" is an interesting example of non-speakers of Spanish observing consonant lenition in Spanish. In this particular case, we have voiced plosives /b,d,g/ turn into voiced fricatives /β,ð,ɣ/, which turn into approximants and eventually just create a hiatus. I'm not really sure how far down that path after frication Spanish usually goes, but it must be really close to full if the settlers didn't even bother transcribing a consonant for juzgado.

[@allanrichardson9081]

@@karlpoppins Good point. Another is the name of Bexar County in Texas. Anglo Americans who live in Texas pronounce it just like the animal (just wondering if they have streets named Black, Brown, Grizzly, or Polar? Or a street formerly named Cave?), so it must have originally been pronounced by Mexicans as “Beh-KHAR,” then either Mexicans or Anglos slurred it into one syllable.

[@GlennSimpkins]

I was today years old when I made the connection: Jalapenos son de Jalapa, Mexico

[@karlpoppins]

@@allanrichardson9081 It was probably Mexicans themselves that first did it. Methinks that if Bexar were pronounced with a clear velar fricative /x/ by Mexicans then Americans would probably use an /h/ instead of completely omitting the consonant.

[@richardhasst]

There is not a Mexican state named Jalapa. The name of the state is Veracruz which has a big port in the gulf and one of the main cities is Xalapa. In Old Spanish and in some words the X has the sound of a J. So Mexico and Xalapa in reality should be written as Mejico / Jalapa but for some cultural reason it remains as a X instead of a J

[@Fishmorph]

Prior to my linguistics degree I was much more attentive to, and insistent upon, trying to pronounce loan words as they were in the original language. This is especially true if you like cooking or eating the myriad of imported cuisines: taco (unaspirated t), mozzarella (geminate consonants), gnocchi (leading /ŋ/ sound), and so on. Then I realized that pronouncing every word as it was originally is a futile and impossible task, because there are so damned many loanwords and we know so little about how they originally sounded thousands of years ago (eg, adobe, ebony).

[@flyingsodwai1382]

Plus it just sounds weird to switch accents mid sentence. I forget who it was but there was a comic that did a bit about news anchors switching to Spanish accent for one word. It's too noticeable and detracts from the conversation.

[@SgtLion]

I just think it makes sense to _try_ and have the same words for objects. So I just use the loanword as native speakers often say it right now.

[@awelotta]

doesn't gnocchi start with a ɲ ?

[@Fishmorph]

Per Wiktionary, you are correct. It’s a voiced palatal nasal, rather than a voiced velar nasal as I had it. I suppose it depends on how one pronounces it, but Wiktionary confirms yours.

[@kentix417]

Yeah, it's impossible for it to be systematic. There are just too many different words borrowed from too many different languages at too many different times. As the Vietnam discussion above shows, even native speakers from the original country don't always use the same pronunciation.

[@jenjibur]

I'm so glad I stumbled on to your videos. They're so fascinating! I've never thought much about the way I speak because it's just how I learned. I love hearing the differences in pronunciation that you point out.

[@bigaspidistra]

The last time I heard the "traditional" English pronunciations of Lyon and Marseille as 'Lions' and 'Mar-sales' was a French woman speaking in English. I asked her why she used them and it was simply what she had been taught to do years before.

[@johnyoung1761]

There are, or WERE, English names (spelling/pronunciation) for any decently important city, region, river, and country. Like Venice, Florence, Naples, Lisbon, Warsaw, Tuscany, Danube, and Germany. In France, only Paris has this distinction any more. Kiev used to be important enough to have its own name, like Athens, Prague, and St. Petersburg. I do not know why the Cote d'Ivoirians care what their country is called in English.

[@marmac83]

@@johnyoung1761 Kyiv used to have the faux Russian pronunciation "Kiev"

[@johnyoung1761]

@@marmac83 And MocKBN has the fake pronunciation Moscow in the states and Mosco in U.K. It's been Kiev in English for centuries. All kinds of places have odd names and pronunciations, often historically through some third party. I don't have to change my pronunciation just because of some business arrangement by that coke-head. LOL.

[@LAMarshall]

@@marmac83 When I was in Ukraine in 2015/16 they used both Kyiv and Kiev depending on which language they were using at the time (since most Ukrainians are bilingual in Russian and Ukrainian (in fact, sometimes they merge the two into something called Surzhyk)). When they spoke English, there was a kind of age divide with those under 25 tending to say "Kyiv", but most other people saying "Kiev". I wouldn't call it a "faux" Russian pronunciation, anymore than pronouncing the s in Paris is a "faux" English pronunciation. It's just what the city is called in Russian (and English, until recently).

[@jared_bowden]

@@LAMarshall I've seen people arguing whether it should be "Kiev" or "Kyiv" - what exactly is the difference that they're arguing about? To me, just going off the Latin spellings, "Kiev" and "Kyiv" look like they should be pronounced the same, [kyɛv] or maybe [kyɪv].

[@zak3744]

As a Southern English person, the pronunciation of pasta in particular is cool, because of the pasta/pastor split. I think most Brits have a TRAP vowel in "pasta" but I remember as a little kid being amused the first time I heard someone say "pastor" with a TRAP rather than my FATHER vowel. A person who was pasta! Unlike a lot of Northern Englishes where pasta and pastor are homophones, it seems that many American accents also have a pasta/pastor vowel difference, like me. Except that it's flipped: they have a FATHER vowel in pasta and a TRAP vowel in pastor. Which I thought was strange, and cool, when I first noticed it. But I suppose it makes complete sense in the context of the video: if American Englishes historically took the non-TRAP/BATH split version of pastor, and then pasta is a more recent subject of the five-vowel nativization described you end up with the opposite of Southern Englishes with a BATH-TRAP split on pastor, and then latterly importing pasta using the TRAP vowel as the closest to the Italian.

[@joegrey9807]

And some Brits overdo the latte with a very long aaaah (and a sliding ayy at the end) - to me that sounds like hypercorrection.

[@diemme568]

@@joegrey9807 oh yeah ! "luuuuuhhhhteeeeeyyy" possibly "meccieitouw" ! haha (macchiato)

[@shayelea]

Oh wow, as an American, I have quite a bit of training on RP dialect and the TRAP/BATH split, but I’d have never guessed that pastor was a BATH word! Probably because with a non-rhotic accent, it sounds far too like “pasta” to me!

[@joegrey9807]

@@shayelea yeah as southern English, my pasta sounds like non-rhotic US pastor, and my pastor sounds like US pasta.

[@danielvillalobos4265]

Hehe. I am a native Spanish speaker who lived for decades in the US and adopted a GenAm accent. The thought of saying pastor with a FATHER vowel sounds so weird to me! Neither of those A's sound like the Spanish vowel either

[@MelissaAtwell]

Thank you for making this video! I learned some new things, which is always nice. As a layperson language & pronunciation geek, I enjoy your videos very much!

[@jmer9126]

I enjoyed this very much. I have wondered about some of these questions for quite some time. Thank you!

[@Tony32]

In Latin America we tend to pronounce English words closer to their sound and not their spelling. We say "yersi" not jersey, or "piyamas" not "pijamas" soya not soja as they do in Spain. I'm always amazed by the ability of the Japanese to turn loan word into very Japanese sounding words lol I think is better to half nativize, respecting the main sounds but not changing accent mid sentence lol Great video as always 👍

[@unrelativistic]

The Japanese really have no choice. There are only about 127 sounds in the entire language. There are very few consonant clusters and only one terminal consonant: "n" (which can be pronounced "n" or "m" depending on the word, context, and dialect). Because almost all consonants are paired with a vowel, many vowels must be inserted into loanwords. The more interesting phenomena in Japanese are "capsule" words (shortening words--particularly loanwords, not unlike a contraction): "digikam" for digital camera, and wasei-eigo ("made in Japan English"). Wasei-eigo is really interesting...most Japanese think they are speaking English words that a foreigner would understand, but they are really words or phrases completely formed in Japan by Japanese with a meaning that is lost on a foreigner. A famous example is "baajin roudo" (virgin road), which means "wedding aisle".

[@ghostofmybrain]

I like the distinction between latin american iceberg "áisberg" and spanish "iceberg"

[@angeldude101]

Sometimes, no English pronunciation feels right and I _will_ just switch accent mid-sentence, or... at least I think.

[@apollo13oxygentank14]

I immediately scrolled down to the comments after he said that, because my experience with Latin American Spanish is exactly the same

[@sharonminsuk]

I was in Nicaragua decades ago, during the Reagan/Mondale election, and somebody asked me whether I supported "VAHL-tair Moan-DAH-lay". My immediate response was, "¿Quién?" ("Who?") I had to think for a minute to figure out what he was talking about, and then laughed when I realized. (And then I wrote it on paper for him like this: "Huálter Mándeil", which resulted in him saying it almost perfectly.)

[@UncleRoykus]

On the idea of imposing pseudo pronunciations, when I was a kid working in a chinese takeaway (in the UK), I remember a customer who would try to pronounce dishes with a French accent 🤦

[@DadgeCity]

Yes, there is definitely a tendency in Britain to pronounce foreign words with French sounds, because it's the closest foreign country and the most taught language. Pronouncing the j in Beijing/Azerbaijan as "zh" is a good example.

[@bigscarysteve]

I like the name of the opera _Turandot._ I remember it always being pronounced with the final "t" silent, as if it were a French word. In recent years, more and more people have been pronouncing the final "t." However, when you do that within the body of the opera's lyrics themselves, it destroys the rhymes.

[@DadgeCity]

Interesting, it does seem that, for whatever reason, Puccini thought of Turandot as being a French version of the name, and thus pronounced -oh. But you've reminded me of General Pinochet, whose name Brits usually pronounced as if he were French.

[@caramelldansen2204]

Roy, you can't drop that and not give examples!!

[@TarisSinclair]

@@bigscarysteve Oh I can vividly picture people pronouncing it "tyoo-ræn-dot"...

[@-CG]

Haha! Having Spock pop up here and again really got me. And then having the classic Spock and McCoy tiff at the end was brilliant. Live long and prosper, friend. 🖖🏻

[@betweenthepoles]

My refined, world-traveling American aunt always pronounced words such as place names or names of foods as they were in their native language. My mother, a second generation American who grew up in the 1930’s, had deliberately tried to be as “American” as possible to the extent that she actually forgot Polish, her first language which she had spoken at home. My mom would become extremely irritated by my aunt “putting on airs.” The average American always applies “nativism” to words like that. I used to kid my mother about it all the time. 😆

[@dinkster1729]

A fairly well-educated Engineering Prof at Queen's University originally from northern Ontario (Timmons) said to me once that he found the idea of Anglophones speaking French to be 'funny" as in "weird". He was trying to be provocative, I think. I didn't rise to his bait. Maybe, I should have. I don't get these guys who are so monolingual that they trash bilinguals. What's their problem? Speaking different languages and knowing different ways to pronounce various words is a mark of being educated in my opinion. My sister in Toronto was sending me videos expressing the right wing Israeli point of view. I told her I believed in a multi-cultural solution for the British protectorate of Palestine. A multi-cultural, bilingual or trilingual Palestine would be a great idea. Her daughter is married to a Jewish doctor from Toronto so maybe that's why she tries to push the Israeli agenda.

[@TheManWithATrilbyHat]

As an American, I'd definitely say many people generalize most foreign words' vowels as pseudo-Spanish vowels regardless of the actual vowels involved. At the very least I know I've had a tendency to do it. A lot of my older family members (my mom's age and up) are far less likely to do this and tend to nativize the same words. That said, the two very nativized loanwords that have always baffled me are "karaoke" (in Japanese [kaɾaoke], English typically /ˌkæriˈoʊki/) and "hara kiri" (in Japanese [harakiɾi], I've heard many English speakers pronounce it hærikæri). Like I understand all the vowels involved are fronted but it's still baffling to me that an "a" turned into an "i". ....Though now that I think about it I bet the answer is in that video on how some of the English phonetic symbols are wrong or the ones about intrusive "r". Time to re-watch those I suppose haha

[@saoirsedeltufo7436]

Geoff actually talked about the anglicised karaoke on his video about why vowel IPA is bad - I'd recommend it! Basically 'ee-o' is easier for English people because the sound becomes 'ee-yo' whereas 'a-o' is a lot harder

[@unrelativistic]

As an American who has studied Japanese for some time, "karaoke" has always irritated me. The English spelling is literally the Romaji representation of the sounds in Japanese, and to shift "ao" to "i" and terminal "e" to "i" is baffling in the extreme. It is wrong on so many levels. We typically do not put the "i" (long E) sound on any singular terminal e (with the notable exception of Nike). But it isn't just a nativization issue with American English, or even English generally. My wife is Vietnamese. They adopt many English words and brand names to Vietnamese, but do some equally odd things: they tend to "Frankify" things by eliminating terminal consonants (and even mid-word consonants): Facebook becomes "Fay-boo". And then they force almost all terminal "e" to be "i": Skype becomes "Sky-pee" (just like Americans pronounce Nike). Yet they pronounce "karaoke" as in Japanese. There are also regional differences in America. As a general rule, the more northern, the less Spanish. I'm from Texas and have pronounced "jalapeno" in a Spanish way all my life, but over my lifetime have seen a shift where people from the north originally fully nativized it; but now with the rise in popularity of Tex-Mex cuisine tend to at least pronounce the j as an h, though less often enunciate the enye.

[@TheManWithATrilbyHat]

@@unrelativistic 私も少し日本語を勉強します。 I didn’t know that about that tendency in Vietnamese speakers so that’s very neat and yeah definitely odd at times. Oh yeah the jalapeño thing gets me too. One of my family members is a major hot sauce/chili pepper nut and even he forgets to do the ñ. Though what he does that’s like nails on a chalkboard is sort of half-over-foreignize “habanero”. He doesn’t drop the h and pronounces the n like an ñ. Drives me nuts lol

[@TheManWithATrilbyHat]

@@saoirsedeltufo7436 yeah I had a feeling I’d heard him discuss it somewhere; it’s been a while since I’d seen that video so I definitely have to rewatch it now! Thanks for reminding me!

[@what-uc]

@@saoirsedeltufo7436 I was thinking that but it could also be done by analogy to other words, like okey-dokey and tapioca

[@Mayhamsdead]

Every single video I've watched from this channel has been informative, entertaining and generally spot on. Bit odd that I've only now come across it, but glad I did.

[@floofytown]

This video (as all your videos I've seen) is absolutely incredible. Chock full of fascinating concepts, apt examples, and brilliant observations -- and all with a charming delivery. You, my friend, are one dope-ass dude.

[@phillapple8260]

As an american, i can confirm that i consciously use tense vowels when i don’t know a loan word, because those happen to line up somewhat with spanish vowels and transliterated japanese vowel syllable parts (these countries are both foreign influences often seen here). I did not know these vowels had a name, so thank you for divulging that. edit: tense

[@squodge]

But Japanese isn't even related to Spanish lol. Many people pronounce sayonara as sa-yo-NA-ra, but it's actually sa-YO-na-ra.

[@PrincessNinja007]

Someone pointed out that Americans also tend to just assume words are french even if they're not like gouda

[@PrincessNinja007]

@@squodge Spanish again- tendency to emphasize the next to last syllable

[@phillapple8260]

@@PrincessNinja007 guilty

[@phillapple8260]

​@@squodge I'm saying the romaji transliteration of japanese lines up with spanish's pronunciation of vowels. a = "ah" e = "eh" i = "ee" and so forth. Comparing the two languages outright is a whole other ballpark (though it is weird that "pan" means "bread" in both languages)

[@theEarlofChip]

Taking German in high school (I'm from a Pennsylvania Dutch area - good luck decoding that if you're not familiar), there was one kid who always pronounced German words with a distinct Spanish accent, despite not speaking Spanish at all. This explains that phenomenon, I think!

[@david2869]

That's OK, my Spanish class in high school had a kid who pronounced Spanish with a heavy American accent.

[@scintillam_dei]

I'm Spanish, and I once lived in Pennsylvania. Allentown is ruined by drug-addict Hispanics. Well, if the US wasn't so keen on enriching the gangs of Latin America, the continental drug-related problems wouldn't be as bad as they are. My parents had left Allentown in favour of Miami to avoid the racists there. I remember seeing the twin towers before the US destroyed them as a pretext to invade Afghanistan to advance the satanic NWO, since eastern PA is close to NYC, the big rotten apple.

[@sleeperboi8701]

@@david2869 That's funny. Because this Spanish speaking kid at my school had the heaviest mexican accent in french class. It was easier for the americans to adapt.

[@emmaevans888]

i've encountered similar as well! very interesting

[@pnwtn]

When my mum speaks French she sounds like an Indian. No idea why.

[@randomname285]

Brilliant video - loved it - seen a few of your vids in my recommends but for whatever reason hadn't be tempted to click on them before - but off the back of this you've earned a subscriber and I'll be working my way through your back catalogue!

[@haley9976]

That pasta graph was so fascinating! I want to see one for every word 😯

[@flyingsodwai1382]

I'd like to see one for taco. I normally am enthralled with any accent from the UK but hearing brits say taco is ear shattering to me. Side rant: when the hell was it decided that hyphens have to always be inserted in all descriptive phrases... go to hell Grammarly!

[@jigowatt121]

@@flyingsodwai1382 The taco graph would most likely be pretty similar to the pasta graph. Tack-o vs taah-co, with the native Spanish 'a' vowel (not present in British or American English) somewhere in between. The name Mario is similar. To a Brit's ears, an Italian pronouncing the name Mario sounds like the 'a' sound in Jack. Whereas to an American's ears, the same Italian pronouncing the name Mario would sound like the long 'a' sound in Mark. So Brits saying 'tack-o' may be ear shattering to you, but to us Brits, that's closest to the 'a' vowel we hear when a Spanish person says taco.

[@azearaazymoto461]

@jigowatt121 the a in taco is pronounced the same in American English and Spanish. The o is slightly off.

[@alec4025]

​@@flyingsodwai1382the way Americans pronounce taco is not accurate at all. I don't get why you make fun of Brits for saying it "incorrectly" when neither country uses the actual Spanish pronunciation

[@alec4025]

@@azearaazymoto461 thats just not true. They are very different sounds you just probably can't tell the difference

[@shusukepanda]

I don't think it's lazy to nativize at all. It's normal to use whatever pronunciation feels most natural for the adopting language. When a borrowed word becomes part of a language, the common nativized pronunciation becomes the "correct" one. This is particularly important for languages like Korean and Japanese which are adopting foreign words (usually English) directly into their languages at a high rate. Would be very weird for them to pronounce each English loan word like they are speaking English. Mixing in native pronunciation of a borrowed word is unusual even for me as a bilingual speaker of Mandarin and English. I don't pronounce "Beijing" or "Xin Jinping" as I would in Mandarin when I am conversing with an English speaker, I pronounce them neutrally without tones. I would only pronounce them in Mandarin as part of an English sentence if I am talking to someone else that speaks both languages, and even then, I may not always do so.

[@KravMagoo]

I have the completely opposite perspective, and for one simple reason. There are a multitude of examples where nativized pronunciations result in pronunciations that actually sound like another different word altogether. One of the more tragic examples comes from Hebrew to English. The Hebrew name for Eve is Hhawwaah (or based on a typical transliteration employing Modern Hebrew, Chavah). When Anglicized, this usually ends up getting written and pronounced as Havah. Except the Hebrew language has two different sounds that get translated by "h" in English, and one of the two is actually more of a gargle-like throat clearing sound, which is what Eve's name uses. Unless practiced, that sound is very difficult for English speakers to pronounce, so they typically just use a regular "h" sound. But...Hebrew also has a word that uses that regular "h" sound and is otherwise spelled the same. So, because they have given their daughters a Hebrew name but don't bother pronouncing it with Hebrew pronunciation, they are actually calling their daughters in Hebrew "wicked desire" and "engulfing ruin" instead of "life giver". There are many other examples where significant errors and confusions are created by choosing to forego the source language pronunciation.

[@johng4093]

I agree, best to use the commonly used pronunciation for that audience. Being understood by that audience is first priority.

[@elizabethdixon5536]

As an Australian, it’s always interesting hearing Japanese tourists trying to pronounce “Uluṟu” (Ayer’s Rock)

[@eleruces7722]

I'm trying to imagine it now with the soft l and r, I have a South African girlfriend and her trying to pronounce some older English words always makes me smile. Worcester being called Vusta was a pleasant surprise to hear first time :)

[@iris4547]

ew-roo-roo

[@userequaltoNull]

@@eleruces7722 pretty close to the right way, lol

[@eleruces7722]

@@userequaltoNull a lot better than most Americans and Canadians I've came into contact with had said it lol

[@sleeperboi8701]

There's way more japanese tourists in us than aus lol

[@that-guy-pearce]

Hearing "papier maché" from a Brit instead of the American "paper mache" was the first time I ever thought about these differences and it's so interesting to learn more

[@randomliamsquares765]

I’m not sure how much research there is out there but as an Irish person I’d love to see a video about our English dialect!

[@EC2019]

We don't really have just one dialect though. There's no equivalent of Received Pronunciation or General American here. Fraught with difficulty.

[@thesushifiend]

To be Searrr...

[@SolarLingua]

I actually just uploaded one. It's not as educational as Mr. Lindsay though... :D

[@randomliamsquares765]

@@EC2019 of course there are massive differences across Ireland (my Tyrone colleague literally couldn’t understand a word from a cork man when we were visiting) but there not being a “standard” Irish accent shouldn’t get in the way of making a video about Irish dialect should it? What % of Brits speak with RP or Americans with General American, very few I’d say but interesting to study nonetheless

[@sarban1653]

@@randomliamsquares765 Vast majority of Americans speak General American. We don't have much dialectal diversity like Britain does. It's almost impossible to tell where someone is from in America unless they use certain regionalisms (e.g. soda vs. pop).

[@gugusalpha2411]

Oh ! My hometown of Lyon pronounced by Dr. Geoff Lindsey, I wasn't expecting to hear that, haha. Very good nasal consonant, I must say ! Clearly, for my French ear, British pronunciation of French loanwords works a lot better. It must really depend on each root language, as you said. It was an incredibly fasci- I mean, interesting video !

[@VanjesKos]

Thank you for the informative video, mr.Lindsey!

[@alexweej]

So interesting, as always. Thank you!

[@TerezatheTeacher]

I was discussing your book today with my fellow English teachers at a Czech high school. One loved your Pink Panther video, which I'd sent them, and the other says she wants to re-watch it to be sure she understands everything just right. The one who was very enthusiastic about your video has just subscribed because she also liked your King's Speech video, which I'd also sent. And I had 7 minutes left at the end of English class with pretty advanced students, so I showed them your video about weak forms. One said it was fascinating and that she'd finally learnt why native speakers sound "like that". Your video about phonetics made Czech teenagers both pay attention and laugh like crazy, which is a huge achievement.

[@michael121691]

As an American in Britain I often get a kick out of my British colleagues putting in PHD levels of effort to "accurately" pronounce Ibiza as "eye-beeth-uh" but then say they can't wait to get a nice big paella (pay-ell-uh) when they get there.

[@desertrose0601]

😂😂😂

[@krinos1]

Hey, im from uk and say it like eh-beeth-ah because thats my sisters car. I think it sounds better

[@wyterabitt2149]

What are you even trying to compare? Ibiza is just pronounced as it is advertised extensively by tourist boards in the UK for many decades. Why would anyone do anything differently? There's no effort being put in by those people, or any thought about it at all. You are putting more effort into this than they ever have in their life! There's no rice board advertising this food into the UK for all of pretty much everyone's life, people will just pronounce it as they attempt to read it, and maybe compare to something similar - in many cases this will result in the different pronunciation. But the actual official British pronunciation is correct and not what you typed.

[@michael121691]

@@wyterabitt2149 relax dude, my comment is clearly meant to be humorous. The irony is that it's been justified to me because it's "how it's pronounced in spanish" and then they go and completely botch the pronunciation of a popular dish in the same sentence. Bonus points if they exclaim their desire for their payelluh to be made with chicken and "chuh-rit-so" (chorizo).

[@wyterabitt2149]

@@michael121691 It's justified because it's quite literally how it is officially pronounced in English as well, on top of the fact the only time they will have heard it was because it was a massively popular destination for Brits in the 80s and 90s. So the Island spent, and still spends, a lot of money directly advertising there. It's your focus on Ibiza that is silly, there no comparison to be made. It's how it's pronounced in English anyway, and it's a word most get direct exposure to from the place itself - of course people are going to pronounce it correctly. The fact you think it's strange that people pronounce that "correctly", but not words most won't get any exposure to at all in their life from any real source, is bizarre. I am not disagreeing it happens, I just think your position on finding it strange is odd.

[@zulkiflijamil4033]

Hello Dr Lindsay. I discovered your channel and I must say that it is an excellent one. Now, I hope to improve my English especially pronunciation and also in vocabulary department. Thanks a lot for showing us the way to learn English.

[@bruh666]

You make some of my favorite linguistics content on youtube these videos always continue to surprise me with how much interesting things there are to learn that I never thought about even though you encounter it in everyday language

[@allanrichardson9081]

The Russian name Ivan (=John) is almost always pronounced by Americans as “👁️ 🚐,” accent on the first syllable, possibly to avoid confusing that masculine name with the French feminine name Yvonne (which is closer to the Russian pronunciation).

[@no_peace]

My instinct at this point is to pronounce it as in Spanish, like EEvon, but that's because i only know Ivans pronounced that way And i would try to copy whatever the person says when they tell me their name. But I agree lol that's how we say it

[@veroniquejeangille8248]

@@no_peace Why would you transform the "a" into an "o" ^^? Ivan is "ee" "van", with the accent on the second syllable. And Yvonne is "ee" "von". I would be surprised that the Spanish would pronounce Ivan like Yvonne ^^. Then there's the issue of Spanish "mixing up" the pronunciation of "v" and "b", so their version of either word would definitely not resemble either Russian or French, lol

[@interneda98]

It’s not specifically Russian nor did it originate there, you’ll find it all around Eastern Europe. It’s literally the most common male name where I’m from (Bulgaria). It was originally a slavicised version of its Greek counterpart, which itself was a derivative from Hebrew.

[@paranoidrodent]

Yvonne (which does see use among English speakers) is the feminine form of the name Yvon, which is itself derived from Yves (pron. like Eve in English - feminized form is Yvette). They’re old names that seem to be of Breton origin (names starting in Y often are) and are still very common among Canadian French speakers. I think the English parallel masculine name would be Evan or something like that.

[@RockinEnabled]

@@interneda98 when we are discussing how one language renders the phenomena borrowed from the other, we don't need to discuss other languages. It doesn't matter where the name came from, in this case. We are talking specifically about how a name taken from a piece of text or speech in Russian is rendered in English - period.

[@jademcfaul589]

As an Australian singing teacher, it's always a curious delight watching these videos! My classical training lends me more British vowels, but my young students are growing up listening to American pop vowels. It's a strange melting pot we have down under!

[@FionaEm]

Definitely! Our pronunciations of pasta and pastor are exactly the same - unlike Americans and southern Brits. Yet we say Buddha like the Brits, and clear (kinda) like someone from Boston!

[@BlackJar72]

One think I've noticed about "popular" music is that a lot of singing incorporated vowel pronunciations based in U.S. southern dialects. While this probably is based partially regional influence on early rock-n-roll and country, it seems it may also be influenced that many vowels become easier to sing since these are usually diphthongs that become monophthongs in the southern pronunciation.

[@nono7105]

I hope you're doing your best to steer them away from American vowels. It's bad enough that the yanks use them. We don't need that catching on elsewhere too.

[@0sarah0911]

A lot of popular music language is based on African American Vernacular English because of its foundation in rock and roll and R&B

[@0sarah0911]

I meant to reply that to @blackjar72 lol

[@ReidarWasenius]

As always, a fabulously rewarding video.

[@jake6112]

Bloody hell Geoff, your videos are so fascinating. Thank you.

[@tinfoilhomer909]

Okay that's a pet peeve of mine - Pinyin "ZH" and "X" are closest to English "J" and "SH" respectively.

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

What's the difference between X and SH? Because I see both used for Chinese.

[@frosty_brandon]

X is further back in the mouth. It’s an alveolo-palatal sound. It sounds to me more like a higher pitch, whereas the sh is retroflex, meaning it’s made in the same place as Americans make the r-sound. It tends to sound a bit lower pitch

[@matej_grega]

@@shaunmckenzie5509 there are two palatal series in chinese: the alveolo-palatal - ⟨x⟩, ⟨j⟩, ⟨q⟩, pronounced /ɕ/, /t͡ɕ/, /t͡ɕʰ/ and the retroflex - ⟨sh⟩, ⟨zh⟩, ⟨ch⟩, pronounced /ʂ/, /ʈ͡ʂ/, /ʈ͡ʂʰ/

[@verfuncht]

@@frosty_brandon X is further forward, in that case.

[@Tuasmanque]

If anything, X + short i feels closer to Americanized "si" (from Spanish) in structure. In Mandarin, SH immediately moves you from "flat" to "rolled" tongue (corresponding to the two sounds @frostybrandon mentioned above). So English speakers end up inserting a lot of "H"s where none exist (I suppose that's one of my pet peeves!)

[@Zelmel]

The American strategy works really well for Japanese words as well as Spanish, as it maps pretty well to the Japanese vowel set. It makes it interesting when I watch cooking videos talking about Japanese food with American vs British presenters.

[@EC2019]

And similar to the Italian example here, the correct original Japanese will be in the middle. e.g. British TOFF-oo vs American TOE-foo for tofu.

[@kevinzhengmusic]

@@EC2019 No-one in Britain uses a short O for a Japanese long O! It's definitely always tōfū and Tōkyō.

[@timewave02012]

I think Japanese romaji was originally trying to follow Portuguese orthography, hence the closeness to Spanish.

[@nathanthom8176]

@@EC2019 in my 38 years on this planet and up and down the UK I have never heard tofu being pronounced as you state the British pronounce it. In fact the primary pronunciation I have heard is the one you state is American; I have heard different pronunciation in parts of Scotland that don't quite meet either of your examples though.

[@Satori_kun]

Interesting because I though the vowel strategy does not match the Japanese vowel set very well. When I watch videos of English speaker talking about anime they butchering names and words pretty hard and makes me sometimes not even understanding them anymore. In my native language German the vowels pretty much are the same, but what really destroys it is the native stress put on Japanese words. Similar putting Spanish stress on Japanese words will produce not a good approximation. Also Americans tends to put the stress on "u" when in Japanese the "u" is often skipped or pronounced very softly

[@solosunbeam]

I love this video. I just did a lesson about Loanwords in English yesterday.

[@georgezee5173]

I'm from Spain and when I first arrived to London my first job was as a waiter at a Spanish restaurant. One of the dishes was "empanadas", which is a type of meat pie. For some reason most of my customers, after reading that word on the menu, would mispronounce it by unnecessarily turning the N into an Ñ, making it sound like "empaNYada". I guess they were just trying too hard to sound Spanish haha Something similar happens every time my Welsh boss calls my Italian colleague, Stefano, by his name. She will always say "steFAno", when in reality it's "STEfano". I guess she must think that that way it sounds "more Italian", since in Italian words are usually stressed on the second to last syllable...

[@DaAcoustikChicken]

"...or is it just imposing pseudo-Spanish on everyone?" This reminded me of an issue I had while living in the USA as a Spanish speaker. They have Spanish loan words, but the meaning isn't exactly retained. Examples of this could be "queso" (which to me is just cheese, but they've decided it's a particular way to serve cheese) or "salsa" (which to me is just sauce, but they've decided it's a particular kind of sauce). I've also heard "paseo, cerveza, etc, which are words that already had perfectly good English translations, but for some reason they've decided, not only to adopt the foreign version of the word, but to also twist its meaning beyond comprehension by actual Spanish speakers. I recently heard someone talk about how "cacao" is healthier than "cocoa", although it's the same word, only in different languages. And it goes beyond Spanish. I noticed, for example, they use the word "Hibachi" in a way that has nothing to do with the Japanese word, or how "biscotti" refers only to the cantucci, even though in Italian, "biscotti" just means cookie.

[@DrGeoffLindsey]

Llevaba un smoking/esmoquin. Confuses hell out of English speakers.

[@seileach67]

Is it possible that maybe when they said "cacao" they meant "carob"? because I remember when carob was supposed to be THE go-to chocolate substitute. Or maybe they have fallen prey to marketing, as "cacao" is often used for the "less-processed" form of the bean.

[@JacksonBockus]

Narrowing of meaning when borrowing words is really interesting to me. Japanese borrowed animation from English and shortened it to anime, which English borrowed back to refer specifically to Japanese cartoons. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream, but in English it represents a specific low-fat high-air variety of ice cream.

[@monicas2461]

Teriyaki is not a sauce here in Japan. Well, it is now because of McDonald’s, I guess… But that happens everywhere. We have a “Spanish” dish called ajillo here in Japan. Seafood or chicken cooked in olive oil and garlic. I love it and when I was talking about it to my friend who lived in Spain, she was confused…

[@corbanbausch9049]

About Queso and Salsa: when we (I’m an American with a decent-ish understanding of Spanish) we are naming it such because we see it as a Mexican dish and so use a Mexican word. It’s like we are saying “Mexican Cheese”, but just call it by the Spanish word for cheese instead. Same with Salsa. Those items also don’t have words in English beyond just “sauce” or “cheese”

[@Raiment57]

I've always enjoyed the contrast between my southern British way of saying Santana using three different sounds for 'a' and the American one 'a' fits all. Probably helped spark an interest in linguistics all those years ago.

[@jayteegamble]

Nah there's 2 different a sounds in American Santana. The first two 'a's are the same and the last one is an 'uh'

[@PlatinumAltaria]

@@jayteegamble There's two in British too, at least I'm assuming that people aren't saying "Santaana" because that's dumb.

[@dammitesme4547]

And Spanish pronunciation has just the one. :)

[@jonathanfinan722]

@@jayteegamble it’s there are not there is

[@awezumify]

@@jonathanfinan722 both "there are" and "there's" are commonly used in that position, at least in general american english. it's not wrong and nobody would consider it as such

[@LisaKokx]

Such an interesting video! I was constantly comparing these pronunciations, not only to each other, but also to the dutch one. ps. I was surprised seeing Jack & Finn in that video fragment, I haven't heard of them in years!

[@danjbundrick]

I am THOROUGHLY fascinated by your discussions. And it's really jarring when you break into a perfect American accent. 😂

[@bald_and_spicy]

4:34 As a native french speaker, i actually think nativized words sound more accurate to my ears. Fascinating :)

[@joevdb9232]

I think the gap between British English and French vowels is much smaller than the gap between American English and French. So I do not think the difference is because they nativise the words to different amounts.

[@thecosplaycrafter8017]

As someone who studied French for six years, one of my biggest pet peeves in musicals set in France is when characters pronounce "messieurs" as mei-syerz. Like, mate, that S on the end is silent...

[@Coccinelf]

That's because the American pronounciation has all these long vowels at the end. At least, that's what I hear.

[@anonymoususer2756]

Neither of them are more accurate than the other I think because French doesn’t differentiate syllables by stress like English.

[@dondunkel1802]

An interesting side note is that a nativization in the consonants can cooccur with both dialectal variants. For instance the word 'chipotle' is a loan ultimately derived from Nahuatl, an Aztecan language. In Nahuatl, the is pronounced as an affricate of t and the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ] (the sound written as double L in Welsh). My guess would be that it got nativized in Spanish and then made its way into English.

[@Somnogenesis]

Oh now that is fascinating! It's lovely to think that (as someone living in Wales who can pronounce Welsh even if I can't speak it well) I could in theory pronounce _chipotle_ as it were spelled 'chi-po-tlle' and be reasonably historically correct. Now of course I'm wondering about the _first_ syllable there - which, if Welsh, would be pronounced with the same "ch" as in German 'Bach' or Scots 'loch'. (I believe that's the voiceless uvular fricative, [X].) How close would that be to the original, compared with the English "ch"?

[@smert_ditto]

A few other examples of words in English deriving from Nahuatl include tomato (tomatl) avocado (aguacatl) and axolotl (written the same)

[@smert_ditto]

@@Somnogenesis I'm not 100% sure if this is what you're asking about, but the ch in chipotle is pronounced more similarly to an English ch

[@Somnogenesis]

@@smert_ditto That was what I was wondering about, thanks!

[@smert_ditto]

@@horacesheffield7367 ?

[@shanehiggs1779]

Bilingual American here - English & Italian. I hadn't really noticed it, but I tend to pronounce Italian words in an American colloquial pronunciation (with some exceptions) when I'm speaking English; but switch to original/intended pronunciation when speaking Italian. For example, "Rome" is "Rome" in English; but "Roma" in Italian: "Trevi" rhymes with Chevy in my English, but sounds more like "Trayvi" when I'm in Italian mode. The exception in my English is the Italian "gli" sound: where many Americans tend to pronounce it phonetically, as in "glee," I still pronounce it with the rolling "lyi" in English. Another one is "bruschetta" - drives me crazy when American restaurant workers say "brusheta" - I still use the original, hard "sk" sound and emphasize the doubled "t," i.e. "bru-sket-ta." Won't order "brusheta" BTW....if they can't pronounce it, they probably don't make it correctly (jk). Although i dont speak Spanish fluently at all, I do try to avoid gringo pronunciations. However, I catch myself every now and then mispronouncing the double L, as in "pollo." It's pronounced with the stressed "L" sound in Italian, rather than the "y" sound, so it trips me up occasionally.

[@fabricehaubois2442]

Well done, very informative indeed

[@CrateSauce]

I think the 5 vowel system was developed because of how many languages have it. All latin languages are based around it, as well as many Asian languages like Japanese have it. It almost seems like a natural development.

[@J7Handle]

You say that, but English has many more vowels sounds than 5. Deck, dock, dick, duke, duck, pack, peek, pork, that’s eight, plus diphthongs in puke, pike, poke, rake are represented with one letter (and each of those diphthongs also sounds the like letter itself, a, i, o, u). A lot of dictionaries seem to indicate that both dick and duck use the schwa sound, but… no.

[@divxxx]

The only Latin language with only 5 vowel sounds is Spanish. Italian has 7, Romanian has 7, Portuguese has 9 + 5 nasal vowels, french has 12 + 4 nasal. I don't know where this idea that Latin languages have all 5 vowels comes from.

[@CrateSauce]

@@J7Handle yes thats true, but we only have 5 written vowels, and so do all the western european languages (even though many add symbols for different sounds, the base letter is the same as others)

[@J7Handle]

@@divxxx Excuse me, yes, I was thinking more latin itself had 5, but the descendant languages extended the 5 vowels either in speech alone or with diacritics in writing. But the most important thing is that romanized foreign words practically never include diacritics, since all the romance languages use diacritics differently, there's no standard for romanizing with diacritics, so they are excluded. Even Vietnamese, which now uses the Latin alphabet with diacritics, loses the diacritics when it loans words. Although I can only think of Vietnam and pho as loan words right now.

[@erikjohansson2703]

Korean has ㅏㅓㅗ ㅜ ㅡㅣㅔand the diphthong 의

[@spencerdevlinhoward]

Having grown up in Southern California, I can see a deliberate and conscious shift in pushing the pronunciation of some Hispanic place names closer to an original pronunciation. Your example of San Pedro coming out as PEE-dro is sounding more like PAY-dro or the even more accurate PE-dro (like 'get') every day. Los Angeles isn't likely to sound like "Loce Ahng-hayl-ais" (as the LA Times tried to get its readers to pronounce it in the 1920s) anytime soon, but the shift to sound, as I perceive it, more authentic and inclusive in a largely bicultural region is occurring. I dig it!

[@cloflomonster]

i've noticed this happening, too!

[@kelcben]

Although Jamacha (near San Diego) is still Hamma-shaw, and Los Robles is still Lowss Robe-ulls.

[@azureprophet]

@@kelcben Yeah and San Rafael pronounced "San Rah Fell" is another weird one.

[@thecodewarrior7925]

Growing up in LA, the idea of pronouncing San Pedro as anything other than PE-dro is baffling to me.

[@spencerdevlinhoward]

@@thecodewarrior7925 Isn't it strange? A friend of mine who grew up in San Peeeedro had her own miniature culture shock when she learned people who live other places try to pronounce it, you know, like a Spanish name.

[@thebigdawg61]

Brand names are always interesting. Americans and Brits both pronounce brand names the way we hear them in advertisements. What makes companies choose different pronunciations within English speaking markets. Nissan, Hyundai and Mazda are very good examples of brands pronounced differently in the UK and US. Each of those have ads that reinforce the pronunciation differences.

[@ennisskalski719]

I can't remember if it's in the ads, but I've heard a fair amount of fellow Australians pronounce Hyundai "Hai-yun-dye" or "Hee-yun-dye". Whole extra syllable!

[@itsROMPERS...]

A long time ago I saw an ad that said it rhymes with "Sunday", so I just do that, and try not to think about it. ("Hyu", I don't want to say that if I don't have to!)

[@BigChungo420]

this was such a fun video!!

[@hkhjg1734]

As an American I grew up listening to brits narrariate audiobooks. I've often been told I pronounce words incorrectly all the time. took me a long time to realize what was going on

[@charliemayfilms1550]

I think people who learned a lot of words through reading also have the same problem. For instance I learned “ethereal” through reading, so for the longest time (like up until very recently) I pronounced it “ether-uhl”

[@dammitesme4547]

As a Spanish-speaking American who's learnt French, I tend to de-Nativize everything that I'm familiar with. I can sound pretty pretentious at times lol, specifically with French words. I definitely pronounce Spanish loan words two or three different ways, depending if I'm speaking English or Spanish or code switching between the two and who my audience is. And then there are words that I cannot ever nativize. Like Jalapeño... I will always, always say it with Spanish sounds but maybe use American stress if I'm speaking to an English only audience. I love this.. it's so complicated and so fascinating to parse through our histories in our language.

[@juanitoarcoiris2882]

In my case it's the opposite. I try to always pronounce a word with the sounds of the language I'm speaking

[@erynwald2164]

As a Brit who has studied French, Spanish, German and a bit of Italian, I find myself in a similar position. If a loan word has been assimilated into English for a long time and completely anglicised, I will pronounce it in the nativised way but if it is a more recent borrowing, I have to decide how to pronounce it depending on who I am speaking to and what sounds right. Italian ‘zz’ is an interesting one for me as everyone I know will pronounce ‘pizza’ like ‘peetsa’ but many of them pronounce less familiar words (like the restaurant chain Prezzo) with a normal English ‘z’ sound. When I’m talking to them, I sometimes pronounce it wrongly to avoid sounding pretentious to them but it grates on my ears! I find it surprising that they don’t extrapolate the pronunciation but maybe I am more likely to think about that kind of thing having studied languages.

[@ivetterodriguez1994]

When saying a Spanish word in an English sentence I tend to pronounce the vowels correctly, because they're the most brash or muddled sounding if mispronounced, but I will sometimes change the syllable stress because of rythym of Engllish. Particularly using schwas on some unstressed vowels because it messes with the cadence.

[@darrellee8194]

I didn't even realize homage and oh-Mage were the same word. The first I would use in writing "to pay homage to." While the second I would only use when talking pretentiously about art (especially film, television and music).

[@zacharyhall5211]

Great video! Des Moines is actually a fun example to use because it has controversial etymological origins, it was named by french trappers but it’s debated whether or not it comes from french word for monks, or de moyen (because it was in the midway of the mississippi and missouri rivers), or what i think is most likely because of french maps of the territory between 1600-1700 that Des Moines comes from the word Moingona, which was the Miami-Illinois word for the Des Moines river. So the pronunciation of des Moines would a english nativisation (?) of a french nativisation of the Myaamia word mooyiinkweena

[@dinkster1729]

I thought it was named for French explorers of the region. LeMoyne?

[@VbombzDaBomberman]

You diagnosed us perfectly. Notice that we Americans don’t usually do the word final stress, if the word ends in a vowel (unless the word is obviously French). That is probably because Spanish tends to have Penultimate stress on words ending in vowels or in s (most words in Spanish) and final stress on words ending in consonants. The pseudo Hispanic vowel system does seem to make sense for general use. The 5 vowel system is the most common system in the world. Many of our source languages have a 5 vowel system; Spanish, Japanese, Modern Greek, and many indigenous American languages use analogous 5 vowel systems. Of course, since /ow/ and /ej/ are diphthongs they are not good matches for most systems. But since we lack the lax O sound, I guess it would be a bit odd to use lax “eh” (which is much closer to Spanish’s /e/). Further the system does a better job at mapping on to Italian (even if Italian has a lax tense distinction for e and o), Polish and many other languages that Americans tend to have ancestral connections to, than nativizing.

[@fritzp9916]

I had wondered for a while already why British speakers tend to pronounce German words or names more or less correctly while American speakers tend to intuitively put the stress on the wrong syllable and lengthen vowels that are meant to be short. The idea that Americans have a single strategy for all foreign languages that is based on Spanish explains this quite well. With German and English both being Germanic, directly pronouncing a German word in English, like Brits do, often results in a pretty decent approximation of the actual German pronunciation. But of course treating German as if it were a Romance language, and reducing the vowel inventory to just five vowels, all long, really distorts it, sometimes beyond comprehension. Of course, sometimes it may also be about decency. I've heard that Americans stretch the vowel in names such as Kant and Koch on purpose to avoid being mistaken for saying something vulgar.

[@seraphina985]

There are differences still, I know while learning Dutch I still find myself doing what a lot of English people do with words starting kn my natural instinct to silence the k sometimes comes through still. That is to say I'd pronounce knaagdier more like naagdier, and it feels strange trying to transition between those two consonant sounds together. Gives one a sense of empathy for why Japanese speakers end up inserting random vowel sounds between some constantans in European words, I guess they have that same awkward feeling like the sounds don't "flow" right if that makes sense.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

That's generally how American English treats words and a lot of it has to do with the fact that American English has had at least some luck with reform thanks to Webster. British English hasn't really had much luck in terms of fixing the spelling. Many of the differences in spelling are due to a similar strategy where Americans prefer to have the words integrated into the language in a reasonable way and the Brits prefer to maintain a sense of history about where the word came from, even if it does make spelling and pronunciation a bit of a mess.

[@Ynno2]

This is somewhat true, although only very roughly. For example consider the BrE pronunciation for "Berlin". It's quite different to the native pronunciation. The American pronunciation of "ö/oe" is often eɪ in names (e.g. John Boehner). I'm not sure if this is exactly the same phenomenon as the use of the five-vowel system or maybe this pronunciation could be considered standard in German dialects which were spoken in the US. I don't think I've ever heard this pronunciation among BrE speakers.

[@fritzp9916]

@@Ynno2 Berlin is a tough one since it's a Slavic derived name that therefore has a different stress pattern than Germanic words even in German. As for oe/ö, it depends on whether it's short or long ö. Short ö tends to become short e in American names, long ö tends to become ay. So Loeffler is Leffler, but Boehner is Bayner. To a German, ö is very similar to e, and the two are considered to rhyme in poems. So short ö rhymes with short e, and long ö rhymes with long e. Short e is just English short e, and long e is often approximated as ay in English, so it works out.

[@BrapMan]

You do indeed have a very broad understanding of accents and intonations from around the world. It is a joy to hear your explanations. I'd love to see a video on your thoughts about British dialects, such as my own Scouse. You're like the modern day Professor Henry Higgins from "My Fair Lady" lol Liked, commented, and subbed ;)

[@ruthannjones5873]

Jaguar has shifted pronunciation recently due to a national radio commercial for the vehicle manufacturer that had the u sound very emphasized. I think the voice actor was Italian (maybe). Now I tend to use something like that radio commercial for the vehicle, but when pronouncing the big cat I'll use the pronunciation I grew up with. It got etomoligized like Refrigerator and Hoover. 😆

[@MrDon4343]

Company names are special - in theory they should be pronounced natively (so a Jaguar car is different to the Jacksonville Jaguars) - but if a native pronunciation gets established the company can have trouble changing it (Hyundai, IKEA, Nutella). I guess in the US, Jaguar at least has the "luxury brand - (posh) English accent" syzygy to help.

[@missharry5727]

Just call it a Jag like us Brits. It's a British car, innit.

[@ac87uk]

I would say the standard (British) anglicised Spanish for Jalapeno or Fajita is to pronounce the J as English H. If you pronounce it as J then people will call you ignorant, if you go full Spanish J you'll be called pretentious. It's a minefield!

[@rollstuhlmeister]

It's funny when people try to pronounce Portuguese J as an English H to sound "correct", but would have been closer if they hadn't bothered and had used the English J sound

[@waelisc]

I don't think I've ever heard "chorizo" said the same way by two people, either

[@skaldlouiscyphre2453]

@@waelisc I'm not sure I've said that word the same way twice. 😅

[@fnjesusfreak]

@@rollstuhlmeister Like José Carioca - even one of the official VAs got it wrong!

[@notwithouttext]

@@rollstuhlmeister or the beloved foreign-sounding /ʒ/, then it's PERFECT

[@angeldude101]

You seem to focus your brand on RP and British English, but really you have some of the best resources on English as a whole and how it behaves across accents. I really appreciate that! It can be really hard to find English resources that don't focus on just one accent, and seemingly despite claiming that you do, you really give just as much attention to other accents and even do a very good job imitating them. 👍 Heck, the RP vowel system that you have makes more sense to me as a Canadian than the main alternatives I've seen and doesn't really require that much tweaking.

[@notwithouttext]

*SSB, not RP vowel system (i think)

[@jackwhitbread4583]

No such thing as British English, Britain is not a country but a collection of countries

[@notwithouttext]

@@jackwhitbread4583 yeah i think he means the british englishes

[@kjn3350]

@@jackwhitbread4583 British English is the form spoken by the leaders of Britain, hence RP. Just because it isn't a locality doesn't mean the word can't be used for a specific population. It's just like saying an English accent to refer to RP, since they're the leaders of England, and an American accent to refer to that general big-city way of talking present in New York or California (amongst those who are 'accentless').

[@folyglot7806]

These videos are amazing. You're doing almost exactly what I envisioned my channel as lol. Sidenote, I think myself and most GenAm(ish) speakers have bother homages. Pay homage to something (generally nativized) but you do an homage (non-nativized) Also, I'll pay good money for you to do a whole vid in your American accent!

[@EPfruitbooter]

Man this is wildly interesting!

[@geoschwa]

Aussie who has spent a lot of time in the US here. I have always said that Americans fall back to Spanish for foreign words. (Interestingly, I think my native Melbournians probably fall back to Italian.) LL seems to always get the Spanish Y treatment in the US in a foreign word. My funniest moment was dealing with a booking agent trying to get me on a Qantas plane - K-AHN-TAS didn’t sound the nicest

[@keegster7167]

That is interesting!

[@geoschwa]

@@thatotherted3555 Very True. Relatedly, in my experience, your brethren struggle to use that same "lama" vowel pronunciation on the names "Lara" and "Tara". The first usually becomes "Laura", and the second becomes something like "Tear-a" (tear as in rip)

[@no_peace]

@@thatotherted3555 i think that's historical, it's not because people deduced that llama would start with an l sound. Like I started learning Spanish in middle school but I'd already heard of "lamas" lol

[@no_peace]

It's funny though if you listen to some accents, like how they say colonial Williamsburg, the L disappears there too They say weeyumsburg

[@iris4547]

@@geoschwa i was shocked to see how many americans struggle with the name lara. like even when it is clearly stated verbally such as lara croft they still end up calling her laura for some reason. and trying to decode tara from terror. for the longest time i was wondering what these so called gram crackers were that americans keep going on about, only to realise they just have no idea how to say graham.

[@katheryns1219]

Many years ago, when I was studying linguistics at the University of Oregon, I was driven crazy by Brits ordering Mexican food in the cafeteria. I could not understand why they were changing the pronunciation. Now I know that they were nativizing the words. Also, a wonderful observation about the melting pot. It's always a great guessing name as to how to say names here, and we often just have to ask the person. I understand that there is no right or wrong here, but I would make one exception: pronouncing Houston without the y-glide: Hooston instead of Hyouston. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard.. Anyway, thank you for this and your other informative videos. They make my day.

[@tams805]

Don't worry, many of us Brits find American pronunciations just as annoying.

[@KD-yu8jw]

To complicate things further, in Houston County, Georgia, and in the NYC borough of Manhattan, it's pronounced HOW-stən.

[@rogerstone3068]

So how do you pronunce the name of the actress Angelica Houston?

[@ailaG]

People often just read letters out loud the way they're used to. My first language is Hebrew and so is that of many around me, and we pronounce the N and G in gerunds (-ing) separately. Walking = wok-ee-nn--gg. As someone who tries to mimic (badly) and adapt to native accents, I try to stop and I keep catching myself doing that. It's written -ing, but in Hebrew you usually pronounce every letter separately. English letters mix them into a strange "n" that's further inside the mouth.

[@ailaG]

OR! A friend of mine likes a song with the word "debris" in its lyrics. Maybe read the lyrics once, if that. Heard it a lot. Pronounces it with the S at the end and hears it like that!

[@DROIDFARM]

Texan American here, I liked and subscribed sir!

[@Teverell]

Rewatching this, and popped back down to the comments - thanks for the shout-out, by the way! I notice you mention Gibraltar, which is nativised twice over, in fact, as it's a borrowing into Spanish from Arabic Jebel al-Tar or Jebel al-Tariq (or something like that), which is a neat Arabic description of the Rock. (Someone who speaks Arabic will no doubt correct me on the Arabic of the name! :D )

[@declanpm8578]

I love this, it's even more interesting when you throw in Scots pronunciations. Like the word "Crayon" for example, I say it very differently from English or Americans. Just looking at all these different pronunciations within the same language is amazing.

[@atinycrow]

@@gregoryford2532 one of the most common completely drops the y sound: "cran", like in cranberry. It's how I say it, and the only one I didn't hear much growing up in the Midwest was "crown".

[@Somnogenesis]

@@atinycrow This is interesting. I've noticed the same phenomenon in several American attempts at pronouncing the name "Graham", coming out more or less as "Gram" - whereas in British English accents the name has a similar "Gray-um" pronunciation to "cray-on". And to bring things back to Scots, that spelling of the name is a more 'English' variant on it, whereas the commoner Scottish form is Graeme... though as far as I know they're pronounced just the same.

[@vibaj16]

@@gregoryford2532 I've never heard anyone pronounce it as "crown"

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

@@vibaj16 I have heard of a lot on KZbin, especially in crafting videos when the word crayon is used a lot. Similarly, in the same videos, the word create, is often pronounce day is crate.

[@user-gg8tl5yt7d]

@@gregoryford2532 Nobody says 'crown. That's not a natural American English pronunciation anywhere. Maybe like "Cra'in" but nowhere in the US would "brown crayon" sound like rhyming words lol

[@jackfordon7735]

As an American, when I first went to Jordan I pronounced the capital city as "Ah-man", and inwardly scoffed at those who said it with a more nasal A at the beginning. Then I found out that in Arabic, it actually is pronounced much more like "Ä-män". The five vowels fits all strategy is definitely a thing!

[@mattt.4395]

why is your username transliterated into russian? also, i notice if you "read" the cyrillic, your first name is transliterated as "Jyek"

[@keegster7167]

@@mattt.4395 е after ж is pronounced like э

[@kelcben]

Similarly, what we call the Tozh Muhawl is properly Taadj Mehell.

[@greasher926]

@@mattt.4395 but why not just spell it as Джэк then? Or better yet why not Джак? Because Джек sounds more like Jake.

[@mattt.4395]

@@greasher926 i think Russian has specific rules/protocols for transliterating English. for some reason, the TRAP vowel is alwaya rendered as identical to the BET vowel. this is also true for many non-Russian foreign speakers of English. for example, German speakers of English pronounce short "a" and short "e" identically. Dr. Lindsay even has a video about that very topic.