Have You Been Mispronouncing the Brand Name of Your Car?

I found this when I was researching a new car a couple of years ago and was looking at Youtube reviews of the Hyundai Ionic

Brits say Hi-un-eye
Koreans say Hyun (1 syllable)-day
Americans/Canadians say Hun-day

I pronounce it Porsch-ah because doing German at school taught me to pronounce the 'e' at the end of words.

What is the correct way to say BMW
 
TvatVargen?
 
Should "Jaguar" be pronounced the English way or the Spanish? I reckon that the cat should (possibly) be the Spanish (is the Portuguese the same?) but the car English.
 
I've always been a bit of an amateur linguist and different languages have always fascinated me. As a result I always try to find out the 'true' pronunciations of any new words I come across.

It's not just the names of cars that are mispronounced by most native English speakers, so are many other 'foreign' words are too.

When I was younger it used to bother me a lot. Not so much the ignorance, but the arrogance; 'Well I don't care - I'll pronounce it the English way.' :facepalm:

Now I've just come to accept that a high percentage of the UK population are not interested in improving their knowledge, but are happy to stay with what they learned at school - not a lot.

Anyway, it doesn't matter after all; every Englishman knows the only way to make a foreigner understand is to just shout LOUDER. :banghead:

From a photography perspective, I get annoyed when people don't say Nikon correctly. The Americans say Nykon, the English say Nikkon, but it should be pronounced Neekon.
 
Last edited:
Nod said:
Should "Jaguar" be pronounced the English way or the Spanish? I reckon that the cat should (possibly) be the Spanish (is the Portuguese the same?) but the car English.
Click to expand...
I understand that the UK is the only English speaking country that pronounces the word 'Jag-u-r, as opposed to 'Jag-wah in the rest of the world! (Australia may be an exception, I’m not sure :))
 
Sky said:
I've always been a bit of an amateur linguist and different languages have always fascinated me. As a result I always try to find out the 'true' pronunciations of any new words I come across.

It's not just the names of cars that are mispronounced by most native English speakers, so are many other 'foreign' words are too.

When I was younger it used to bother me a lot. Not so much the ignorance, but the arrogance; 'Well I don't care - I'll pronounce it the English way.' :facepalm:

Now I've just come to accept that a high percentage of the UK population are not interested in improving their knowledge, but are happy to stay with what they learned at school - not a lot.

Anyway, it doesn't matter after all; every Englishman knows the only way to make a foreigner understand is to just shout LOUDER. :banghead:

From a photography perspective, I get annoyed when people don't say Nikon correctly. The Americans say Nykon, the English say Nikkon, but it should be pronounced Neekon.
Click to expand...

Don’t get me started on the word chorizo!
 
Eaasey!
Chore ease oooh!


Shoot me :)
 
No but did feel a bit of a tit when I called a company to ask where my Th-ule parts were and the lady said my To-lay parts were being sent next day.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Sky
TCR4x4 said:
In German, BMV, as they pronounce W as V. But no one in this country, even BMW employees say BMV.
Click to expand...

They'd probably look daft if they did, same as if they pronounced VW as Folks Vagen

I don't think we should expect British people to pronounce German words in the same way that Germans do, just as we shouldn't expect Germans to pronounce English words in the same way we do.
 
When the Chinese bought Rover, they re-named it Roewe. Was that so that one way or another somebody might pronounce it correctly? It didn't work, so they now just use MG!
 
Marc said:
I don't think we should expect British people to pronounce German words in the same way that Germans do, just as we shouldn't expect Germans to pronounce English words in the same way we do.
Click to expand...

What? Like this? ;)

Thankfully, we're out of the EU now, but it could have happened . . .

The European Union is scheduled to adopt English as the standard language for all future EU communications. Slightly modified English is to be specified which removes some of the idiosyncratic spelling found in standard English. The schedule for conversion is detailed below:

The European Union has announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for future European communications. As part of the overall agreement the United Kingdom Government have conceded some minute changes to Standard English spelling to improve understanding for all Europeans.

A five year phased implementation will be used to amend Standard English spelling to a format more understandable throughout Europe.

In the first year, ‘s’ will be used instead of the soft ‘c’. Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard ‘c’ will be replaced with ‘k’. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome ‘ph’ will be replaced by ‘f’. This will make words like ‘fotograf’ 20% shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double leters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent ‘e’s’ in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing ‘th’ by ‘z’ and ‘w’ by ‘v’.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary ‘o’ kan be dropd from vords kontaining ‘ou’, and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombination of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil have a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trbls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.
 
Pixbarmy said:
When the Chinese bought Rover, they re-named it Roewe. Was that so that one way or another somebody might pronounce it correctly? It didn't work, so they now just use MG!
Click to expand...

They didn’t buy the name Rover. It’s owned by Land Rover, which I think is owned by the Indian company Tata.
 
AgentOrange76 said:
No but did feel a bit of a tit when I called a company to ask where my Th-ule parts were and the lady said my To-lay parts were being sent next day.
Click to expand...

She's wrong. I speak fluent Swedish and lived there for half my adult life. It's pronounced "tule-e" with the last "e" being pronounced similarly to how a young child first learns to say "e" when learning the alphabet. That last "e" is also quite soft but is still there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sky
Pixbarmy said:
When the Chinese bought Rover, they re-named it Roewe. Was that so that one way or another somebody might pronounce it correctly? It didn't work, so they now just use MG!
Click to expand...
They couldn't use the Rover name as Ford had bought it to stop any confusion with Land Rover which they owned at the time. I don't know if the name was absorbed into the JLR sale to Tata.
It's still Roewe in China, MG is just the UK name.
 
Mitsubishi is easy, it's three diamonds.
 
Nod said:
Should "Jaguar" be pronounced the English way or the Spanish? I reckon that the cat should (possibly) be the Spanish (is the Portuguese the same?) but the car English.
Click to expand...


Jaguar is oldfatenf***en
 
Marc said:
I found this when I was researching a new car a couple of years ago and was looking at Youtube reviews of the Hyundai Ionic

Brits say Hi-un-eye
Koreans say Hyun (1 syllable)-day
Americans/Canadians say Hun-day
Click to expand...

When I saw my first Hyundai they had weird shaped lettering in the logo and I read it as Hi-un-dri, pronounced it that way for years just because it made me smile.
 
I always thought that the "proper" pronunciation of Hyundai was Hun Di, not Hun Day....
 
Marc said:
They'd probably look daft if they did, same as if they pronounced VW as Folks Vagen

I don't think we should expect British people to pronounce German words in the same way that Germans do, just as we shouldn't expect Germans to pronounce English words in the same way we do.
Click to expand...

I agree, it's really not all that important. I doubt if the manufacturers care how people pronounce the names of their cars, so long as they buy them...
 
No, I can say Ford easily enough. I also have two Nikon DSLRs, and not Nykons, lol.
 
No ime right every one else is wrong, ime on my third Dacia and its pronounced Daseea not Dacha
 
jonbeeza said:
No, I can say Ford easily enough.
Click to expand...
But is it Tourneeo or Tournayo? ;)
I have heard people pronounce Mondeo (Mondayoh) as Mondeeoh.
Alot of it is how the word translates into different languages and again how words are pronounced in different parts of a country.
As for BMW, do Germans call the letter W, V? Just because it is pronounced that way in a word, it doesn't necessarily follow they pronounce the letter as V.
 
nilagin said:
But is it Tourneeo or Tournayo? ;)
I have heard people pronounce Mondeo (Mondayoh) as Mondeeoh.
Alot of it is how the word translates into different languages and again how words are pronounced in different parts of a country.
As for BMW, do Germans call the letter W, V? Just because it is pronounced that way in a word, it doesn't necessarily follow they pronounce the letter as V.
Click to expand...

Ah yes of course, I missed that bit. :ROFLMAO:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top