5 ms·

I really wanna make a youtube video on how to pronounce Hyundai, drives me nuts. One of the guys in the video on this link says hondye, like honda... At least i

by neom 4y ago

I really wanna make a youtube video on how to pronounce Hyundai, drives me nuts. One of the guys in the video on this link says hondye, like honda... At least if people skipped the y and just say hun day it wold be closer than hon dye. Here is the CEO saying Hyundai for anyone who would like to pronounce it correctly: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvI2EKxyut8K4wUGNL8CiefOk_RPY4CVq https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvI2EKxyut8K4wUGNL8CiefOk_RPY4CV...

second_brekkie 4y ago
So in Korea it's pronounced hyun-dae. But they spelt it 'hyundai' (said hy-un-dai) for western markets to sound more Japanese so their brand was associated with the quality of Toyota and Honda.
- yongjik 4y ago
  Hmm, I don't think anyone with a passing knowledge of Japanese would look at that "hyun" and think it sounds Japanese ... It's spelled that way because it was born before Korea's industrialization, when regular transliteration of Korean was pretty far down the list of concerns. Everybody just grabbed whatever sequence of alphabets that vaguely resembled the original sound, a tradition still continuing with names of people and companies.
- zen_of_prog 4y ago
  I wonder if that's how we got the pronunciation for Chevrolet as well (: . In Korean it's 현대. Theㅕmakes a yuh sound with a short y, and projecting one writing system onto another can get tricky.
- bazmattaz 4y ago
  The radio ads here in the UK say “hy-un-dai” too so that proves that that’s the pronunciation Hyundai want perpetuates
argsv 4y ago
Didn’t they have an ad some time ago where they say “Hyundai like Sunday”?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  It isn't just "dumb American's" fault. They promote different pronunciations by region. Compare Australian commercials to Usonian. Westerners don't pronounce Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, or Nissan correctly either and nobody bats an eye.
  - yongjik 4y ago
    Going in the other direction, the official spelling of Pfizer in Korea is 화이자, which sounds a bit like why-jah. A game of telephone going through Japanese, which somehow stuck.
  - Daz1 4y ago
    A regional pronunciation that's ingrained in the culture is no more or less correct, particularly for a foreign word. And the Japanese pronunciation of western brand names is similarly incorrect (mostly due to the limitations of their language but the point stands).
  - pezezin 4y ago
    The Western world encompasses many more languages than English. My mother language is Spanish and we pronounce most Japanese names correctly. It helps that both languages have the same 5 vowels and a similar set of consonants.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      Japanese is not hard for English speakers. I bought two lots of minidiscs from Japan and was listening to them before recording over them and my wife was somewhat surprised at how singing Japanese does not sound all that foreign to her. Chinese, in the other hand, really does sound different, and personally I find the sounds of French much more difficult.
petre 4y ago
At least they pronounce Kia correctly, although I wouldn't have named my car brand with the same letters as the abbreviation to "killed in action". Btw, their Kia brand means "rising from (ki) Asia (a)".
gniv 4y ago
This is a lost cause. Similar to Seoul (it blew my mind when I heard it pronounced by locals: soh-wool, because the letters are s-eo-ou-l).
forgotusername6 4y ago
For decades in the UK they've marketed themselves as "high-un-die". Now for some reason they want us to pronounce it slightly differently. I can't help but feel this is merely a cost saving measure so they can use the same ads here as they do elsewhere. Why does it matter how a different country pronounces a foreign word?
- neom 4y ago
  I doubted you, for that I offer my apologies. https://youtu.be/n5j1UdLM2Pg https://youtu.be/n5j1UdLM2Pg Now it looks like they want you to pronounce it the Korean way? https://youtu.be/8peKcSEDFB4 https://youtu.be/8peKcSEDFB4 This ad is hilarious, why the f did they advertise it in such a weird way before?! I live in Korea and hear it pronounce the Korea way all the time. Frankly, had I known this was their marketing abroad, I'd never have complained. Thanks for sharing! :)
  - forgotusername6 4y ago
    I can only assume that originally they didn't think we could pronounce it the Korean way. Similar to how Nestlé was originally pronounced nestle (neh-sel) in the UK.
sumedh 4y ago
> I really wanna make a youtube video on how to pronounce Hyundai, drives me nuts Why? Once enough people pronounce a word in some unique that becomes the new pronunciation.
raincom 4y ago
It doesn't matter how one pronounces. Thanks to the great vowel shift, even English words are pronounced differently than they were in 14th century.
paulirish 4y ago
A recent Party Down episode made reference to the pronunciation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-nZJNg0-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-nZJNg0-A :)

by neom 4y ago

second_brekkie 4y ago

So in Korea it's pronounced hyun-dae. But they spelt it 'hyundai' (said hy-un-dai) for western markets to sound more Japanese so their brand was associated with the quality of Toyota and Honda.

yongjik 4y ago
Hmm, I don't think anyone with a passing knowledge of Japanese would look at that "hyun" and think it sounds Japanese ... It's spelled that way because it was born before Korea's industrialization, when regular transliteration of Korean was pretty far down the list of concerns. Everybody just grabbed whatever sequence of alphabets that vaguely resembled the original sound, a tradition still continuing with names of people and companies.
zen_of_prog 4y ago
I wonder if that's how we got the pronunciation for Chevrolet as well (: . In Korean it's 현대. Theㅕmakes a yuh sound with a short y, and projecting one writing system onto another can get tricky.
bazmattaz 4y ago
The radio ads here in the UK say “hy-un-dai” too so that proves that that’s the pronunciation Hyundai want perpetuates

argsv 4y ago

Didn’t they have an ad some time ago where they say “Hyundai like Sunday”?

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
It isn't just "dumb American's" fault. They promote different pronunciations by region. Compare Australian commercials to Usonian. Westerners don't pronounce Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, or Nissan correctly either and nobody bats an eye.
- yongjik 4y ago
  Going in the other direction, the official spelling of Pfizer in Korea is 화이자, which sounds a bit like why-jah. A game of telephone going through Japanese, which somehow stuck.
- Daz1 4y ago
  A regional pronunciation that's ingrained in the culture is no more or less correct, particularly for a foreign word. And the Japanese pronunciation of western brand names is similarly incorrect (mostly due to the limitations of their language but the point stands).
- pezezin 4y ago
  The Western world encompasses many more languages than English. My mother language is Spanish and we pronounce most Japanese names correctly. It helps that both languages have the same 5 vowels and a similar set of consonants.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    Japanese is not hard for English speakers. I bought two lots of minidiscs from Japan and was listening to them before recording over them and my wife was somewhat surprised at how singing Japanese does not sound all that foreign to her. Chinese, in the other hand, really does sound different, and personally I find the sounds of French much more difficult.

petre 4y ago

At least they pronounce Kia correctly, although I wouldn't have named my car brand with the same letters as the abbreviation to "killed in action". Btw, their Kia brand means "rising from (ki) Asia (a)".

gniv 4y ago

This is a lost cause. Similar to Seoul (it blew my mind when I heard it pronounced by locals: soh-wool, because the letters are s-eo-ou-l).

forgotusername6 4y ago

For decades in the UK they've marketed themselves as "high-un-die". Now for some reason they want us to pronounce it slightly differently. I can't help but feel this is merely a cost saving measure so they can use the same ads here as they do elsewhere. Why does it matter how a different country pronounces a foreign word?

neom 4y ago
I doubted you, for that I offer my apologies. https://youtu.be/n5j1UdLM2Pg https://youtu.be/n5j1UdLM2Pg Now it looks like they want you to pronounce it the Korean way? https://youtu.be/8peKcSEDFB4 https://youtu.be/8peKcSEDFB4 This ad is hilarious, why the f did they advertise it in such a weird way before?! I live in Korea and hear it pronounce the Korea way all the time. Frankly, had I known this was their marketing abroad, I'd never have complained. Thanks for sharing! :)
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  I can only assume that originally they didn't think we could pronounce it the Korean way. Similar to how Nestlé was originally pronounced nestle (neh-sel) in the UK.

sumedh 4y ago

> I really wanna make a youtube video on how to pronounce Hyundai, drives me nuts Why? Once enough people pronounce a word in some unique that becomes the new pronunciation.

raincom 4y ago

It doesn't matter how one pronounces. Thanks to the great vowel shift, even English words are pronounced differently than they were in 14th century.

paulirish 4y ago

A recent Party Down episode made reference to the pronunciation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-nZJNg0-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-nZJNg0-A :)