Things that sound wrong when pronounced right.

JTT, I was talking about a personal effort to pronounce some foreign words properly. It feels good to call Italian items in a deli by their proper name or eating in a French restaurant and ordering a meal correctly.
There is nothing wrong with adding a few foreign words to one's conversation.
81% of all Swedes speak English fluently, seems like a good idea.

That's a commendable personal effort, Noinipo. But you keep calling it "correct". If you're in Italy, then it is correct, or France, then it too is correct. A French or Italian restaurant in an English speaking country, then no, it most certainly isn't correct. It might be welcomed by some of the staff, but that doesn't make it correct.


[/quote]
There is nothing wrong with adding a few foreign words to one's conversation.
81% of all Swedes speak English fluently, seems like a good idea.[/quote]

No, there is nothing at all wrong with that. What's wrong is the suggestion that these same words, having come into English, should be pronounced as they are in the original language. As I've explained, that wouldn't work, it doesn't work for any language in the world.

Speaking a second or third or fourth language fluently doesn't mean that one has to remember the origin of all the new words and switch to the pronunciation of those words when speaking in one's mother tongue.

Speaking a language fluently means that one follows the rules of the language being spoken.

You are right, of course, Americans have to be able to pronounce some words their way. When I am lucky enough to eat a bowl of egg drop soup, I call it
Stracciatella and enjoy it immensely.
A home run is a home run, no matter what the Italians call it.

My sobriquet.

Quite the contrary. Speaking a language fluently means you don't gotta follow the rules.

As a native English speaker, I am quite willing to mispronounce words, for example dropping consonant sound, because it is easier. I have adopted regionalisms I like from several different places, and I have been known to make up new portmanteau words for new situations.

I am much more pedantic about grammar rules in my second language then I am in my first.

You've followed the rules, Max. I think that you misunderstand exactly what the rules are.

For words not pronounced in any logical way:

word "yacht"

WTF with that one!

yacht is a Dutch word. In German it is spelled the same and pronounced the way it is written.

Was originally pronounce Bejar (be-har)...Bexar County was created on December 20, 1836, and encompassed almost the entire western portion of the Republic of Texas. This included the disputed areas of western New Mexico northward to Wyoming. After statehood, 128 counties were carved out of its area.

The county was named for San Antonio de Béxar, one of the 23 Mexican municipalities (administrative divisions) of Texas at the time of its independence. San Antonio de Béxar—originally Villa of San Fernando de Béxar—was the first civil government established by the Spanish in the province of Texas. Specifically, the municipality was created in 1731 when 55 Canary Islanders settled near the system of missions that had been established around the source of the San Antonio River. The new settlement was named after the Presidio San Antonio de Béjar, the Spanish military outpost that protected the missions. The presidio, located at the San Pedro Springs, was founded in 1718 and named for Viceroy Balthasar Manuel de Zúñiga y Guzmán Sotomayor y Sarmiento, second son of the Duke of Béxar (a town in Spain).

No se is NOT pronounced "no say", it pronounced "no seh"

"Well, in Spanish, the e in Cesar woud be a short e,
as in: get, bed, or bet.

For SURE, it woud not be an a.
Twisting an e into an a
is strictly an American distortion, from ignorance"

Pronunciation of "pianist" always gets me.

I have heard 'diplomatic row" to describe the homes and embassies in Washington DC. They truly are located in a row along certain streets.

A diplomatic row (how) would be a conflict concerning a diplomat, right?

Er... you're the one from Texas, right?

Your version is much closer to how they pronounce it down here.

SEH-zar t'CHA-vess (Sometimes there's a buzz to the last sound, close to a "z," but there's definitely a sibilance to it.)

Lots of anglicized pronunciations down here.

Amarillo (One would think it should be AmaREEyo)

Llano (Should be YAWN-oh)




Burnet is mispronounced a lot. It's BURNit, not bur-NET.




Lots of German words that get mangled, here, too.

Robert Mueller Airport was mangled as MULE-er for a long time instead of Miller.

Bexar (Bear) County should probably be spelled Bejar.

Duuuuuh, the US is an English speaking country.