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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.




I never did quite master what the Germans do with their "n"s. I live near Washington and can never quite master their pronunciation of that, either.




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