Does it bother you when Germans say "zis"? German has no "th" sound, so "zis" is what they start with before they practice. It's similarly grating to Germans to hear their language mispronounced by others.
And yet, English has an "f" sound. German has an extremely consistent spelling and essentially all "v"s are pronounced as "f". We share (the latin) alphabet, and English has absolutely no authority, given how inconsistent it is.
Given that, I will say the voiced "V" when speaking English and the unvoiced, as necessary, speaking German.
> It's similarly grating to Germans to hear their language mispronounced by others.
Americans are generally very tolerant and patient with non-native speakers butchering proper english. So no, it's not nearly as grating to an American to hear people mispronounce english words than it might be for Germans.
No one cares what Germans think about people abusing their language. I personally have zero issues with accents or mispronunciations here and there by non-native speakers. That smells of "fear of the other" to me and taking easy potshots at people I consider my full equal isn't cool. If I feel a little "anger" then that's a fallacy in me not in their pronunciation. As long as I can understand we're good otherwise we'll work it out someway or other.
It just bothers the historical linguistics nerd in me that all the other Germanic languages (other than Icelandic) lost the beautiful Thorn and Edh sounds consonants :-)
I've always found it interesting that the German approximation is "z" here when it could be "t" or "d", since that is what "th" sounds turned into in Old Franconian.
'bother' me? No, not at all, the sounds are close enough I get the meaning, mostly from context.
I am not sure why there should be an emotional factor here, as expecting everybody to conform to some pronunciation ideal they have no experience with is arrogant, to say the least.
Well you claimed that Americans are pronouncing it "perfectly correctly," and Germans might disagree. It's a German word which has been Americanized. The company mostly doesn't care, but there is a single correct pronunciation in their native language. Insisting you are correct mispronouncing a foreign word because the letters look a certain way is just hubris.
> there is a single correct pronunciation in their native language
But see, that's the point. We're not speaking German when we use a borrowed word in English. It's no longer a purely German word, despite its origins, just as "xylophone" isn't a mispronounced Greek word, nor "Handy" a misused and miscapitalized English word.
I would follow your logic if the english pronunciation of the word Volkswagen was actually phonetically consistent. But while "Volks" is pronounced in an english way, isn't the word "wagen" pronounced in a weird German way?
"Wagen" on its own would probably be pronounced like way-gen, if my english intuition is not fooling me. Instead it is pronounced like wuh-gen.
I don't really care about this either way but if you are bothered by something the weird mixture is.. a bit annoying.
Accent is an inevitable part of second language speakers. I've lived in US most of my life, but English is not my native language and I started learning it around the age of 5 and at the age of 25 after living here more than 20 years, I still have a distinct accent I can't get rid of. It's just the way things are, human brain seems to learn pronunciation differently when we're a child.
This same goes for English speakers too. I know how Volkswagen is supposed to be pronounced (I know some German) but that's not the way English speakers would say it.
I don't think there is anything to be bothered by any of this. This just adds to our diversity.
Vice versa, it's interesting to me why German speakers tend to approximate the pronunciation of e.g. "think" as "sink", rather than "fink" or "vink". There's even some British accents where it sounds more like "fink". English is hard :D
Sorry, but just noticed you were using an English-only term to describe the homeland of someone who doesn't live in your country. The correct term is Deutschland.
It is respectful to at least attempt to pronounce names from different cultures. In many cases, I totally understand it is difficult. In those cases, an attempt is great. In this case, the syllable F exists in Latin and I don't see why it.
I must say, I have seen many many times a lack of interest to even attempt to pronounce of even write a name properly. One example which comes to my mind is Ghandi instead of Gandhi.
To re-iterate my point, it's not about 'respect' (respect for whom, exactly and why?) it's about communication.
If I were trying to say the word 'Volkswagen' to a German speaking person, I would do my best to pronounce it in a way they would understand.
As most of the time I ever say the word 'Volkswagen' out loud it's to my fellow English speakers, pronouncing it in the expected English way seems way less pretentious and way more effective.
I'm going to avoid being snarky and point out this is merely the way you taught it. There is not hard and fast rule that says you have to do it this way.
Also, Vs are actually pretty consistent in English. Can't even think of a word with a V where the V doesn't sound like a V.
What's interesting here is that the exception proves the rule.
V is actually the only letter in English that is never silent.
Most other letters also have various possible renderings into pronunciation, especially the vowels—"i" for instance can end up being at least 5 different vowel sounds and also some consonant sounds.
So yes. As I pointed out, English is extremely irregular orthographically, in stark contrast to languages like German, French, or Italian, all of which have extremely reliable and simple pronunciation rules.
In practice, if a name has a common pronunciation within English, you show respect by using that pronunciation when speaking to native English speakers.
Otherwise you just cause confusion. The adapted names have their own history.
If you insist on saying København and not Copenhagen, you get to have a little pretentious discussion explaining what you meant to every person you talk to. Ditto for Folks-vagen.
> In practice, if a name has a common pronunciation within English, you show respect by using that pronunciation when speaking to native English speakers.
Here's how I read this. "We as an English speaking group will continue to not make an attempt to pronounce it right even if we can. Once we don't we will have a common pronunciation that doesn't fit the original one. Once it becomes common, we will get offended if it is not pronounced in the common way that we as a group chose to actively ignore in the first place. If the original speakers insist, we will call them pretentious."
> If the original speakers insist, we will call them pretentious."
Way to overreach way beyond what I originally said. If I was speaking to someone I knew was Dutch, of course I would (try to) say "København." Then they'd probably laugh at me and we'd agree to call it Copenhagen. :P
Or if I want to read your view in the worst possible way-- similar to how you've read mine-- "People who use the established pronunciation of a loanword or place in their native tongue are wrong. We should always seek to find where we are using words of foreign origin and correct them to be perfectly pronounced in their original tongue, even when this causes confusion and isn't helpful to people from the original place. Japanese gairaigo should be abolished and they should just say those words in the correct original English (or German or French).
And those damn Frenchmen should stop calling the place I live Californie dans les Etats Unis, which is nothing like how I say it, and should stop calling me 'Michel' which sounds a whole lot like the female version of my name"
I'd like to take a stock of how this conversation went.
1.0 (me) : "It is respectful to attempt pronunciation if
possible".
1.1 (you) : "There is a common English pronunciation. It's pretentious if you don't use the common pronunciation. Show respect to the English speaker!"
1.2 (me) : "The common pronunciation exists because of the lack of attempt in the first place. It's not pretentious. "
1.3 (you) : "It is established, we should use common pronunciation"
You turned the initial conversation about making an attempt to be kind and respectful towards non-English speakers into something else. Almost feels like victim blaming to me. Once again, to be clear - we should make an attempt. Just because there's an established pronunciation (or spelling) doesn't mean it is right. Overtime, established pronunciation can move towards the original pronunciation. The right pronunciation is what the speaker wants to have. You, me or the English society don't have any say in it. It doesn't matter if it is established or not. Going the extra mile in kindness helps; calling others pretentious because they ask you to empathise doesn't.
> you show respect by using that pronunciation when speaking TO NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS.
or
> If I was speaking to someone I knew was Dutch, of course I would (try to) say "København."
Because what you're accusing me of-- and the words you're putting in my mouth "There is a common English pronunciation. It's pretentious if you don't use the common pronunciation. Show respect to the English speaker!"-- make no sense in that context.
German is full of exonyms. All languages are full of exonyms and weird pronunciations of foreign words. It is OK.
I'm not sure if this is a joke I don't get but speaking about weird cultural mix-ups: Copenhagen is not related to the Netherlands. I'm actually glad that people are getting EU states all mixed up but we're not there yet, guys ;)
I know persons who are doing this in times. A example is a person I am knowing who say "Mexico" with Spanish accent. A first problem is this person is not a speaker of Spanish and so it is bothering on me for bad pronounsing and no interests in improvement and not in learning more Spanish. A second problem is it disruptes conversation when a person is slipping into different accent without reasoning. A third problem is it takes persons I am knowing who are not speaker of Spanish extra time for to process these remarks. I am not seeing any good reason. There exists also a difference between nation name, is fixed, and brand, for which the job is make friendly for a consumer.
Yah. It can also sometimes be difficult to distinguish between an attempt to use the native pronunciation out of respect vs. mockery. I know people that if I heard them saying "Me-hi-co" it would almost certainly be to exaggerate foreignness and to be racist.
> In many cases, it is unnecessary and only makes the speaker look foolish.
Comedic skits touch on this [1][2] and though a caricature, I think they capture the gist of how it's perceived when attempted.
I think it stems from a desire for "cultural wokeness" which is a good thing and has its place, but as you say when communication is the goal, speak the language of the receiver.
I found a YT video saying it's "wo er wo". Which suggests they have a hard time pronouncing it, which shouldn't come as a surprise given how different their phonemes are.
Approximating it, because you can't pronounce it is one thing. Not giving a shit, even though you do have the same word (i.e. folk) is another one.
But for a brand definitely not. It's the job of the brand creators to make sure that the name can be read and pronounced in the various target markets.
This is an unreasonable expectation. People should try but if they don't, there is no malice here.
There are many languages around the world and it is impossible to remember every nuance of how to pronounce things. Ghandi is common pronounciation even in Germany. The Japanese might pronounce it something else.
> Ghandi is common pronounciation even in Germany.
I don't think it is an unreasonable expectation to write the word "Gandhi" as "Gandhi". That's how he wrote the name, that's how he signed it and that's the actual spelling. I can understand the difficulty in pronunciation but getting the name right while typing it out is unforgivable in this century.
Also, learning to forgive is a rare virtue these days. Entitlement and expection creates conflict. Learn to forgive others and you'll have a better time with everyone else. No one who even spells it as Ghandi means any malice or offense. So, it is a matter of technicality. Let go.
I agree - learning to forgive is rare virtue. For example, I think we should also "learn to forgive" to people who point out that Gandhi is the right spelling. It's not meant as many malice of offence. So, it is a matter of technicality. Let go.
The worst part of English orthography is adopting the writing conventions of literally every other language in the world and then expecting people to pronounce the words "correctly." If you want English speakers to pronounce something a certain way, it should be written use our spelling system. There's no point in shaming people for not knowing literally every language. But that's basically the system we have now.
That "correctly" needs an extra pair of scare quotes. The spelling bee competition is, essentially, the "guess the mispronounced foreign word" competition. Pejerrey? "Pay-ray". Lol.
This is an interesting observation. As a non-native speaker I was surprised by how many German expressions are used in English (with the correct German spelling). Even when there is a perfect (or near perfect) English equivalent.
However, this is pretty different as VW is a brand name so you don't have much liberty in how you write it.
Toyota was toyoda in Japanese, but they changed the spelling to look better in English. It can be done. And why not? They change the names of cars all the time. Why not the brands too?
Because brands have a value. And probably VW doesn't really care that much if some people call them wolkswagen instead of folkswagen (even if they could pronounce the latter).
Also, I don't think FW would look better than VW ;). And well, Toyota didn't change their name to look better in English (or rather, written with the Latin alphabet). At least not according to wikipedia. Quite the contrary, it was about how it was written in Japanse:
"Vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda" (トヨダ), from the family name of the company's founder, Kiichirō Toyoda.
[...]
In September 1936, the company ran a public competition to design a new logo. Of 27,000 entries, the winning entry was the three Japanese katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle. However, Rizaburo Toyoda, who had married into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" (トヨタ) because it took eight brush strokes (a lucky number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off the diacritic at the end), and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced consonants are considered to have a "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to voiceless consonants, which are "clear").
Since toyoda literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also prevented the company from being associated with old-fashioned farming. The newly formed word was trademarked and the company was registered in August 1937 as the Toyota Motor Company.[31][32][33]"
Ei sink ju wud bi surpreist if Ei wud tok to ju leik sis.
(I think you would be surprised, if I would talk to you like this.)
German pronounced English. :)
"ju" would be pronounced the same as "you" when speaking.
And "Ei" would be just the same as "I".
"wud" = would
"leik" = like
"tok" = talk
"bi" = be
All of the above would sound exactly the same when spoken.
Nope. It's not about using similar phonemes instead of the actual ones a German would use. It's trying to pronounce the wrong word/name. The name doesn't start with a V but with an F. It's just written with a V. It's nothing Americans can't pronounce.
If you argued that you can't pronounce 'Wagen' as the Germans do ("'vaːɡn̩", according to Wikipedia), that would be a different thing. But we're not talking about that.
Indeed, the word, i.e. folk, you are not willing to pronounce happen to exist in English as well and can mean the same (or very similar) thing. "Volk" (i.e. "wolk") OTOH doesn't mean anything in either languages. (It does mean wolf in Russian, though ;) )
People's car or you could say "Folk's Wagon" (or maybe "Folks' Wagon"). Yeah, weird choice of words and won't exactly sound like it was German but close enough, kind of meaningful and nothing you couldn't pronounce. Just remember to write is as VolksWagen.
Pronunciation doesn't go like that but that is a big discussion for its own thread
Funny remark though while watching the F1 Netflix show, Schumacher said his name like SchumaKer , hence the Engish Pronunciation which goes to show that he adapted to the audience.
> Pronunciation doesn't go like that but that is a big discussion for its own thread
Honestly it kinda does. I wince every time I hear emoji pronounced like いmoji (where the e rhymes with tea) instead of えmoji (where the e rhymes with meh), or pluralize Japanese nouns (“emojis” “sushis”). That said, this is a me problem. People are going to pronounce words in whatever way makes sense to them, where the emphasis goes, how it is pronounced, which vowels get emphasized or contracted together will change over time. There is a reason we don’t all sound like Elizabethan-era Englishmen when we speak English.
Even proper nouns such as names get adapted. How many different variations and pronunciations are there for the name “John” in Europe?
Mate, that’s why I stated forthright that this is a me problem and made no bones about it.
The “e” is from 「絵」and “moji” from 「文字」, transliterated as 「えもじ」, “e” + “moji” gets you “picture message”. It was a stroke of luck that it was similar enough to emoticon to neatly fit into our existing lexicon and be understood at a glance by an English speaker, at least the gist of it. A picture message is a little bit different than an emote icon if you think about it because there’s many more pictures which are not emotes per se, but can be used within a message alongside the emoting emoji. :)
The odd thing I notice is how English speakers always want to put a stress in the middle of Japanese names (naRUto). Japanese pitch accent is different in different dialects but the standard one is always at the start.
If I were trying to say the word 'Volkswagen' to a German person, I would do my best to pronounce it in a way they would understand.
As most of the time I ever say the word 'Volkswagen' out loud it's to my fellow English speakers, pronouncing it in the expected English way seems way less pretentious and effective.
This is an issue I face from time to time when I'm (native German) in international calls and am talking about a German colleague ... I could pronounce properly German (while it's not too easy always for my mind to switch) or adapt to the way most others do (which often is English with an attempt to Germanize)
Luckily due to video conferencing software printing my name on my image, I don't have to do that for my name, as I had to do in phone conference times.
It has been adopted to a degree. Just like you don't need to say Paris as "Pari" in an imitation of the French pronunciation (which would probably sound rather affected and twee in English if you did)
Anyway, let's hope they make reliable electric vehicles (as their combustion engine cars have traditionally been) otherwise people may render it as Faultswagen
Typically the capital city has an English name, which is often not just pronounced differently but also spelt differently from the local name. But for almost every other town English speakers use the same spelling, or a transcription of it, and aim for something like the local pronunciation. So for France, there's "Paris" and "Strasbourg" and that's about it. For Germany, there's "Berlin" and "Munich" and that's about it. But for some reason loads of Italian towns have their own English name: Venice, Milan, Naples, Florence, Turin, ...
Whilst it's interesting to think about your points, they feel somewhat orthogonal to my point about the word being adopted into English (so it can have a pronunciation the way native speakers feel comfortable with, which can vary to a degree from the original unadopted word). Was it meant as some kind of rebuttal or merely an interesting observation? (eg with the Italian names)
Note as well that Turin and Milan are the names in the local
(regional) language.
Edit: And Munich is almost identical to Munichen which is the old form of München. Cologne could have been a better example (but it also comes directly from French, like Rome, Florence or Naples).
Standard French pronunciation of "Strasbourg" has an /r/ but no /g/. Of course it's a German name, really, but the Germans spell it a bit differently, and neither French nor Germans pronounce the second vowel in the way it is normally, I think, pronounced in English.
Good point about regional languages in Italy.
"Cologne" is a good example, though some people, including me, usually say "Köln" in English, though I wouldn't say "München", except in the name of the football team "Bayern München", which for some reason is usually called thus in English.
Do you mean then that English speakers write the name of every French city, including Paris and Strasbourg, as French speakers do and also pronounce them as French speakers would except for Paris and Strasbourg?
Edit: I had never thought about Strasbourg, really. I see now that the adoption of the French spelling in English is relatively recent and also Marseilles and Lyons used to be written differently.
Edit2: Dunkirk seems to be the main (only?) example where the French name is not used.
They most certainly did not want Americans pronouncing it in German when they came to the US after WWII. Hell, they called them Victory Wagon at first.
Some Americans have pronounced it "Voltswagen", not sure why.
I wonder if it would be less confusing to Germans if we used "Fow Vay" to pronounce the abbreviation. Instead of "Vee Double-You." I'm not being sarcastic, but I don't think a change to the correct pronunciation is likely.
Do you actually pronounce it like "double-you" (with 3 syllables) in that context?
I'm a native speaker from the US South, and hadn't realized this until I read your comment. For me, the "W" always gets shortened to "dub-you" in AWS (or "dubya" if I'm not being picky about it). Standalone, I might pronounce "W" more like "dub-a-you if I'm emphasizing it, but not usually.
Anyhow, thanks for pointing this out. I will also now forever think that "double-you" is ridiculous.
I’m a native speaker from the north and west US and it’s definitely “double-u”. A double-u S. In my experience only Southerners shorten it the way you describe.
No kidding! Do you even pronounce the "l" sound in "double" (and if so, dub-el or dub-ull or something else)?
It's always fascinating to be reminded that I'm still basically ear-blind to certain linguistic patterns (the "pen/pin" merger being one I still can't even hear as different, let alone say). For a long time, I falsely assumed that because I grew up watching the same TV shows as the rest of the country, and because I didn't speak with the same accent as my family members, that I didn't have an accent at all. Turns out I do - I just can't hear it.
Everyone I’ve been around says “dub-ull”. I moved from Michigan to Utah as an adult and pen/pin can be very close here, which I find annoying because I don’t want my kids to pick up the Utah accent... but of course they have.
I took Linguistics in college and my professor could tell where people were from in the US within a couple hundred miles by their accent. Anyone who thinks they don’t have an accent absolutely does. Except maybe Nebraskans — I read somewhere that they have the most neutral, “correct” American accent, though I don’t think it was a scientific source.
Nearly, but unless I'm speaking with family members / other people with thick southern accent, I try to keep the "u" sound present - though it's more like the French "u" than the "you" sound. So typically it sounds like 'ay-dub-yuez", with a short pause between the "yu" and "ez". It's the sound that would be in between "Suez" (like the canal) and "swez". Replacing the "yu" sound with the "ya", does indeed end up sounding like slightly elongated "yes".
