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If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique

If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do, nor are they expected to. Just pronounce it the way it's spelled, and if you're speaking English, that is the correct way. Join me in my militant quest to aggressively redefine what it means to "correctly" pronounce foreign words in English: go ahead and proudly say "g'nock-chi" for gnocchi and "buy frost" when you mean the Bifrost Bridge. If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. "When I speak Japanese, I will say Kyoto with only two syllables, even accent on each. When I speak English, I shall proudly, without shame, pronounce it KEE-oh-toe. When I speak Dutch, I will pronounce Van Gogh with a soft consonant at the end. While speaking English, it shall remain van go."

ithinkso 5y ago
Celebrating incorrectness, eh? Nothing wrong with being wrong, but not willing to learn... I don't know. > If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique It's not unique, you think is unique because you are English-language speaker. Anyone speaking X natively will correct others learning X if they ask, but they will not mention it or pay attention to it if they are just talking, only encourage it. The proper 'correctness' will come much later when you really want to learn the language but at that point you will ask for the correcting yourself And if you mean the names of people/places/movies/etc. how can you not be corrected? It's literally the name you are trying to say
- rendall 5y ago
  > you think is unique because you are English-language speaker I am a native English-language speaker, but I speak other languages as well. In all languages, there is exactly zero expectation that speakers will pronounce English words like English-speakers do. Because in all languages, foreign words are remade into native words. As it had been in English until the mid 20th century. >And if you mean the names of people/places/movies/etc. how can you not be corrected? Not sure what language you speak natively, but no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland, nor Spaniards for saying "Nueva York", nor the French for saying "Angleterre".
  - ithinkso 5y ago
    You are being downvoted, as should you, but I still want to answer your questions. > Not sure what language you speak natively Polish >but no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland, nor Spaniards for saying "Nueva York", nor the French for saying "Angleterre". It's literally the second thing people learn when learning a second language. The first is how to say your name, the second is where are you from. And then you pretend to be from somewhere else and do to the above. After the first lesson of any language the only thing you know is your name and names of other countries lol so I'm not sure what are you talking about
    - rendall 5y ago
      > You are being downvoted I am not being downvoted > as should you Downvotes are for "contravenes guidelines" not "holds opinions with which I disagree" > lol so I'm not sure what are you talking about With sincere respect, I think you should take the time to understand my argument instead of assuming it is invalid.
  - throwaway02824 5y ago
    > no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland This is a strawman. Italian here. I would never dream of using the word "Germania" with someone that does not speak Italian expecting them to understand that it's the Italian way to pronounce Deutschland.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rendall 5y ago
      Great. > I would never dream of using the word "Germania" with someone that does not speak Italian... That's the strawman. In the example, we're talking about Italians, speaking Italian, not being corrected for speaking non-Italian words like Italians do. So, when speaking Italian, if a German insisted that you pronounce his homeland as Deutschland not Germania you would think he was a nut. So, when speaking English, why would you insist that someone saying "brusheta" is wrong? Help me understand.
bloak 5y ago
"Just pronounce it the way it's spelled" might make sense in some languages, and it probably makes a lot of sense in Russian, say, where the person who transcribed a name from Latin letters has already decided how it should be (mis)pronounced (though the position of the stress makes a big difference in Russian), but it doesn't make sense in English because the spelling is rather inconsistent even if you're looking just at ordinary everyday words like "machine", "chemical", "bough", "cough", "put", "but", whatever.
- rendall 5y ago
  Yes. This confusion of spellings is due to English having a long history of literacy. The k in knock is silent, but once was pronounced. The pronunciation of knock changed but its spelling did not. Nevertheless, there are historical reasons for these various spellings, its not just "whatever". In any case, these are English words, not foreign words. English words follow specific conventions. This is why English speakers who read "bruschetta" will not pronounce the ch with a hard k, as Italians do. Unless they are told this pronunciation is "incorrect". If it's really important to bruschetta marketers that English speakers pronounce it the way Italians do, they should consider spelling it using English conventions, eg brusketa As you pointed out, English spelling is confusing. We don't need to add to the cognitive load by insisting that words spelled according to foreign conventions be pronounced that way too
  - SamBam 5y ago
    You have it backwards. Pronunciation in English does not follow many strict conventions -- and when it does it doesn't do so consistently -- and it's precisely because it's taken on so many loan-words and kept something close to the original pronounciation. You suggest "ch" should be pronounced as in "cheese" in English. Well, what about chemistry, christian, school, alchemy, anarchy, anchor, chaos, archeology, echo, and literally hundreds of other words in English with a hard "ch"? Yes, unless a child is told that pronouncing them with a soft "ch" is "incorrect" they will pronounce all those words incorrectly if they come across them written down. Such is the burden of the English language, the language with the least consistent spelling-to-pronunciation rules on Earth. Yes, English spelling is not regular. It's mostly from all those loanwords. It's unfortunate, and is the cause of such weirdly quirky Anglophone things such as "spelling tests" in schools, and "spelling bees" where one can win a modicum of fame and money -- they don't have this in other alphabetic languages. But's it's the way it is and refusing to pronounce words correctly isn't taking some kind of principled stand. (Or should we say, for all those, "If it's really important to schoolteachers that English speakers pronounce it the way Italians do, they should consider spelling it using English conventions, eg skool"?)
jpxw 5y ago
Agreed. Changing pronunciation mid-sentence to a language you don’t even speak is very difficult, and in any case comes off as pretentious. Non-native speakers will be used to the English pronunciation, even if it’s wrong. If you try and pronounce the name “correctly”, the chances are you’ll mess it up and cause even more confusion.
- rendall 5y ago
  q.v.: The guy who over pronounces foreign words https://youtu.be/fKGoVefhtMQ https://youtu.be/fKGoVefhtMQ
throwaway02824 5y ago
> No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do [citation desperately needed] I'm a mothertongue Italian speaker. Never in my life I heard someone pronouncing "Bill Gates" or even "Google" with the Italian grammar/pronunciation rules. People would routinely ask how to pronounce foods in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant. Or thank the waiter/waitress for correcting them. > If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. This is incredibly arrogant.
- SamBam 5y ago
  I absolutely agree, parent comment is completely incorrect. Growing up as an American in Italy, people would frequently try to pronounce my family's names correctly. They wouldn't simply say the word as if it were an Italian word. Same for any other name. They pronounce president Biden as Americans would, they don't say "Bee-den" as they would of the word were Italian. Ditto for non-English foreigners coming to Italy. Does GP really think that the Spanish and the French say "guh-nocci" for gnocchi? They don't have the "gn" digraph any more than English does, yet they all pronounce it correctly. The word is the same world-round. Just because it's uncommon enough that each language hasn't bothered to give it is own spelling (ñoci in Spanish, maybe, nhoci in Portuguese, nioki in English) doesn't suddenly mean the word changes in other languages.
- rendall 5y ago
  > Never in my life I heard someone pronouncing "Bill Gates" or even "Google" with the Italian grammar/pronunciation rules. But if you native Italian speakers did happen to pronounce it "gah-tes" or "googleh" or whatever while speaking Italian, Americans would not insist that Italians are pronouncing it wrong. They would just say that's how Italians pronounce it. By contrast, if a native English speaker pronounces an Italian word according to how it's spelled according to English conventions (we're using "bruschetta" as the example, so, as BREW-shet-uh), while speaking English an Italian will insist that this pronunciation is wrong. >> If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. > This is incredibly arrogant. I was making a joke. Probably didn't land well with those who disagree with me. It might be a cultural difference, but it strikes me as incredibly arrogant to tell people who are speaking their own native language that they are pronouncing a word wrong simply because it originated in your native language and they don't pronounce it like you do. e.g https://youtu.be/rHBFt11zz7U https://youtu.be/rHBFt11zz7U
nautilius 5y ago
>If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do, nor are they expected to. Oh boy, generalize much? If I had a dime every time an American explained to me how to properly pronounce Porsche, Adidas, Bach, etc....
- rendall 5y ago
  Americans drive this too. If you read carefully I didn't say we don't.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    You wrote "Despite the stereotype, it's not Americans running around telling foreigners how to pronounce English words in their native tongue." Sure, technically 'Americans running around telling foreigners how to pronounce their own words in their native tongue.' is different, but it seems an even lower threshold.
    - rendall 5y ago
      If you'd like to address the original point, I'm happy to discuss. No, Americans generally do not tell people how to pronounce English words in their own native language. Not really sure the point you're making here.
      - nautilius 5y ago
        I'm glad that you have full control over every American all of the time, but my experience is quite different.
        rendall 5y ago
        You're telling us all that you have, on a regular basis, seen Americans telling non-English speakers how to pronounce English words while speaking the foreign tongue?
scaryclam 5y ago
> If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. It's really not. The entire point of language is to be understood by others. If you're unwilling to take any time to find out how to be understood, then you're really just failing at basic communication. It's not up to others to interpret your misunderstanding of how to correctly say something, it's up to you to put some effort into being understood. And if you're smirking at people instead of taking the opportuinity to learn, well, I wish you all the best in your small minded world.
- rendall 5y ago
  > "The entire point of language is to be understood by others. If you're unwilling to take any time to find out how to be understood, then you're really just failing at basic communication. It's not up to others to interpret your misunderstanding of how to correctly say something, it's up to you to put some effort into being understood." These are all true statements. They are also non-sequiturs: true statements that have no bearing on the argument. The question here is: Who gets to decide the correct pronunciation of a foreign word? Who gets to say brew-SKET-ta is correct and BREW-shet-uh is wrong? Italians? Native English speakers? If you think "Well, clearly, Italians, because they invented bruschetta" then where is the line? Why would you not then pronounce "prosciutto" pro-SHOOT-toh? And the "Bifrost Bridge" BEEF-roast? And "sauna" SOW-na? Who gets to decide that Hausa people must pronounce "New York" as Americans do, and that Japanese must no longer add a vowel onto the end of foreign words like "Disney Land"? I'd love your principled answers to those questions.

ithinkso 5y ago

Celebrating incorrectness, eh? Nothing wrong with being wrong, but not willing to learn... I don't know. > If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique It's not unique, you think is unique because you are English-language speaker. Anyone speaking X natively will correct others learning X if they ask, but they will not mention it or pay attention to it if they are just talking, only encourage it. The proper 'correctness' will come much later when you really want to learn the language but at that point you will ask for the correcting yourself And if you mean the names of people/places/movies/etc. how can you not be corrected? It's literally the name you are trying to say

rendall 5y ago
> you think is unique because you are English-language speaker I am a native English-language speaker, but I speak other languages as well. In all languages, there is exactly zero expectation that speakers will pronounce English words like English-speakers do. Because in all languages, foreign words are remade into native words. As it had been in English until the mid 20th century. >And if you mean the names of people/places/movies/etc. how can you not be corrected? Not sure what language you speak natively, but no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland, nor Spaniards for saying "Nueva York", nor the French for saying "Angleterre".
- ithinkso 5y ago
  You are being downvoted, as should you, but I still want to answer your questions. > Not sure what language you speak natively Polish >but no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland, nor Spaniards for saying "Nueva York", nor the French for saying "Angleterre". It's literally the second thing people learn when learning a second language. The first is how to say your name, the second is where are you from. And then you pretend to be from somewhere else and do to the above. After the first lesson of any language the only thing you know is your name and names of other countries lol so I'm not sure what are you talking about
  - rendall 5y ago
    > You are being downvoted I am not being downvoted > as should you Downvotes are for "contravenes guidelines" not "holds opinions with which I disagree" > lol so I'm not sure what are you talking about With sincere respect, I think you should take the time to understand my argument instead of assuming it is invalid.
- throwaway02824 5y ago
  > no one corrects Italians for saying "Germania" instead of Deutschland This is a strawman. Italian here. I would never dream of using the word "Germania" with someone that does not speak Italian expecting them to understand that it's the Italian way to pronounce Deutschland.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rendall 5y ago
    Great. > I would never dream of using the word "Germania" with someone that does not speak Italian... That's the strawman. In the example, we're talking about Italians, speaking Italian, not being corrected for speaking non-Italian words like Italians do. So, when speaking Italian, if a German insisted that you pronounce his homeland as Deutschland not Germania you would think he was a nut. So, when speaking English, why would you insist that someone saying "brusheta" is wrong? Help me understand.

bloak 5y ago

"Just pronounce it the way it's spelled" might make sense in some languages, and it probably makes a lot of sense in Russian, say, where the person who transcribed a name from Latin letters has already decided how it should be (mis)pronounced (though the position of the stress makes a big difference in Russian), but it doesn't make sense in English because the spelling is rather inconsistent even if you're looking just at ordinary everyday words like "machine", "chemical", "bough", "cough", "put", "but", whatever.

rendall 5y ago
Yes. This confusion of spellings is due to English having a long history of literacy. The k in knock is silent, but once was pronounced. The pronunciation of knock changed but its spelling did not. Nevertheless, there are historical reasons for these various spellings, its not just "whatever". In any case, these are English words, not foreign words. English words follow specific conventions. This is why English speakers who read "bruschetta" will not pronounce the ch with a hard k, as Italians do. Unless they are told this pronunciation is "incorrect". If it's really important to bruschetta marketers that English speakers pronounce it the way Italians do, they should consider spelling it using English conventions, eg brusketa As you pointed out, English spelling is confusing. We don't need to add to the cognitive load by insisting that words spelled according to foreign conventions be pronounced that way too
- SamBam 5y ago
  You have it backwards. Pronunciation in English does not follow many strict conventions -- and when it does it doesn't do so consistently -- and it's precisely because it's taken on so many loan-words and kept something close to the original pronounciation. You suggest "ch" should be pronounced as in "cheese" in English. Well, what about chemistry, christian, school, alchemy, anarchy, anchor, chaos, archeology, echo, and literally hundreds of other words in English with a hard "ch"? Yes, unless a child is told that pronouncing them with a soft "ch" is "incorrect" they will pronounce all those words incorrectly if they come across them written down. Such is the burden of the English language, the language with the least consistent spelling-to-pronunciation rules on Earth. Yes, English spelling is not regular. It's mostly from all those loanwords. It's unfortunate, and is the cause of such weirdly quirky Anglophone things such as "spelling tests" in schools, and "spelling bees" where one can win a modicum of fame and money -- they don't have this in other alphabetic languages. But's it's the way it is and refusing to pronounce words correctly isn't taking some kind of principled stand. (Or should we say, for all those, "If it's really important to schoolteachers that English speakers pronounce it the way Italians do, they should consider spelling it using English conventions, eg skool"?)

jpxw 5y ago

Agreed. Changing pronunciation mid-sentence to a language you don’t even speak is very difficult, and in any case comes off as pretentious. Non-native speakers will be used to the English pronunciation, even if it’s wrong. If you try and pronounce the name “correctly”, the chances are you’ll mess it up and cause even more confusion.

rendall 5y ago
q.v.: The guy who over pronounces foreign words https://youtu.be/fKGoVefhtMQ https://youtu.be/fKGoVefhtMQ

throwaway02824 5y ago

> No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do [citation desperately needed] I'm a mothertongue Italian speaker. Never in my life I heard someone pronouncing "Bill Gates" or even "Google" with the Italian grammar/pronunciation rules. People would routinely ask how to pronounce foods in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant. Or thank the waiter/waitress for correcting them. > If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. This is incredibly arrogant.

SamBam 5y ago
I absolutely agree, parent comment is completely incorrect. Growing up as an American in Italy, people would frequently try to pronounce my family's names correctly. They wouldn't simply say the word as if it were an Italian word. Same for any other name. They pronounce president Biden as Americans would, they don't say "Bee-den" as they would of the word were Italian. Ditto for non-English foreigners coming to Italy. Does GP really think that the Spanish and the French say "guh-nocci" for gnocchi? They don't have the "gn" digraph any more than English does, yet they all pronounce it correctly. The word is the same world-round. Just because it's uncommon enough that each language hasn't bothered to give it is own spelling (ñoci in Spanish, maybe, nhoci in Portuguese, nioki in English) doesn't suddenly mean the word changes in other languages.
rendall 5y ago
> Never in my life I heard someone pronouncing "Bill Gates" or even "Google" with the Italian grammar/pronunciation rules. But if you native Italian speakers did happen to pronounce it "gah-tes" or "googleh" or whatever while speaking Italian, Americans would not insist that Italians are pronouncing it wrong. They would just say that's how Italians pronounce it. By contrast, if a native English speaker pronounces an Italian word according to how it's spelled according to English conventions (we're using "bruschetta" as the example, so, as BREW-shet-uh), while speaking English an Italian will insist that this pronunciation is wrong. >> If someone gives you a hard time, smirk at them for being the unsophisticated provincial they are. > This is incredibly arrogant. I was making a joke. Probably didn't land well with those who disagree with me. It might be a cultural difference, but it strikes me as incredibly arrogant to tell people who are speaking their own native language that they are pronouncing a word wrong simply because it originated in your native language and they don't pronounce it like you do. e.g https://youtu.be/rHBFt11zz7U https://youtu.be/rHBFt11zz7U

nautilius 5y ago

>If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. No speaker of any other language in the world even tries to pronounce foreign words like foreigners do, nor are they expected to. Oh boy, generalize much? If I had a dime every time an American explained to me how to properly pronounce Porsche, Adidas, Bach, etc....

rendall 5y ago
Americans drive this too. If you read carefully I didn't say we don't.
- nautilius 5y ago
  You wrote "Despite the stereotype, it's not Americans running around telling foreigners how to pronounce English words in their native tongue." Sure, technically 'Americans running around telling foreigners how to pronounce their own words in their native tongue.' is different, but it seems an even lower threshold.
  - rendall 5y ago
    If you'd like to address the original point, I'm happy to discuss. No, Americans generally do not tell people how to pronounce English words in their own native language. Not really sure the point you're making here.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      I'm glad that you have full control over every American all of the time, but my experience is quite different.
      - rendall 5y ago
        You're telling us all that you have, on a regular basis, seen Americans telling non-English speakers how to pronounce English words while speaking the foreign tongue?

scaryclam 5y ago

> If you speak any non-English language, you will know that this obsession with getting English-language speakers to pronounce foreign words "correctly" is unique. It's really not. The entire point of language is to be understood by others. If you're unwilling to take any time to find out how to be understood, then you're really just failing at basic communication. It's not up to others to interpret your misunderstanding of how to correctly say something, it's up to you to put some effort into being understood. And if you're smirking at people instead of taking the opportuinity to learn, well, I wish you all the best in your small minded world.

rendall 5y ago
> "The entire point of language is to be understood by others. If you're unwilling to take any time to find out how to be understood, then you're really just failing at basic communication. It's not up to others to interpret your misunderstanding of how to correctly say something, it's up to you to put some effort into being understood." These are all true statements. They are also non-sequiturs: true statements that have no bearing on the argument. The question here is: Who gets to decide the correct pronunciation of a foreign word? Who gets to say brew-SKET-ta is correct and BREW-shet-uh is wrong? Italians? Native English speakers? If you think "Well, clearly, Italians, because they invented bruschetta" then where is the line? Why would you not then pronounce "prosciutto" pro-SHOOT-toh? And the "Bifrost Bridge" BEEF-roast? And "sauna" SOW-na? Who gets to decide that Hausa people must pronounce "New York" as Americans do, and that Japanese must no longer add a vowel onto the end of foreign words like "Disney Land"? I'd love your principled answers to those questions.