It's official: Germans can't pronounce "squirrel"

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[+3] - contrex - 06/13/2014[quote="Foofie"]"Chanukah" with the correct guttural "Ch" sound, so Chanukah has become Hanukah for Americans.[/quote] I impressed my (beer-drinking, pork-eating,...

@joefromchicago,

We've been playing the squirrel game with my French sis in law for donkey's years.
The nearest she's ever got was "squi-roo-elle".

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D Lowan tells a really funny story about seeing a squirrel for the first time in Washington Square Park, and asking a policeman what it was. Neither she nor her companion (also Australian) were able to decipher what he was saying. After he spelled it for them, they still couldn't link up his pronunciation to the word--that at least, is how i recall her story.

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@Lordyaswas,

Lordyaswas wrote:

We've been playing the squirrel game with my French sis in law for donkey's years.
The nearest she's ever got was "squi-roo-elle".

Your compatriot Izzie thinks Americans say "squirrel" funny. Or, at least, she thinks I say it funny.

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@joefromchicago,

I've often heard laboratory and alluminium sound funny, but I don't think I've ever heard an American say squirrel.
I have a Bostonian friend who I can get to say it next time we meet, will he be representative of the majority, or do they talk more like a Canadian, as I often tell him.

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@Lordyaswas,

Bostonians aren't representative of Americans. They call squirrels "tree rabbits."

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mark

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I knew an American (New England upper crust) who couldn't say "mirror" or "curry", it seemed to me. To my ear she was saying "meer" and "kirry".

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Japanese can't say the "l" sound I thought? Irish may not be able to say the "th" sound. And, Americans that do not speak German cannot pronounce "Chanukah" with the correct guttural "Ch" sound, so Chanukah has become Hanukah for Americans. Spanish speakers in the U.S. will add an "es" for pluralizing words (like in Spanish), so "test" becomes "testes." Not exactly like the English word "testes," since is sounds like two words - "test" and "es."

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I always tought it wuz pronownced SKWOI-EL. Den agen I wuz parshelly razed in da village and udder condfines of NYC.

translation for those what need it: I always thought it was pronounced 'squir-El. Then again I was partially raised in the Village and other confines of NYC.

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@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

I always tought it wuz pronownced SKWOI-EL. Den agen I wuz parshelly razed in da village and udder condfines of NYC.

translation for those what need it: I always thought it was pronounced 'squir-El. Then again I was partially raised in the Village and other confines of NYC.

I read somewhere, decades ago, that the New Yorkese/Brooklynese of "deese, dem, and dose" (these, them and those) reflects the Irish not pronouncing "th's"?

They were once one-third of New Yorkers in the first half of the 20th century.

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@Sturgis,

Sturgis wrote:

I always tought it wuz pronownced SKWOI-EL. Den agen I wuz parshelly razed in da village and udder condfines of NYC.

translation for those what need it: I always thought it was pronounced 'squir-El. Then again I was partially raised in the Village and other confines of NYC.

Stoigis, You're taking the oi Noo Yawk sound a bit too far. Even my parents said "squirrel." "Roboida, look at the squirrel."

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

"Chanukah" with the correct guttural "Ch" sound, so Chanukah has become Hanukah for Americans.

I impressed my (beer-drinking, pork-eating, very relaxed) Muslim colleague when I said "Halal" properly.

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One of my first bacteriology professors was English, and he taught us to iss'-oh-late bacteria. I remember being slightly shocked. Generally, you know, we eye'-so-lated them.

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@joefromchicago,

But you certainly can still say Oachkatzl (or perhaps Oachkatzal)or Sciurus vulgaris) as heard in your Wiana Zeit Wink

But honestly: Skippy the squirrel is a story in an English schoolbook used in primary school.

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/a_zps22ca02e6.jpg

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@Walter Hinteler,

I could never understand what those crazy Wieners were saying. I can, however, pronounce "Eichhörnchen."

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

I could never understand what those crazy Wieners were saying.

My closest relatives are Wieners. They are polite and talk "high German" with us, which sounds like Bavarian. (They don't know what an Eichhörnchen is.)

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@InfraBlue,

Quote:

mark

Thats what my dog says. "Mark, mark, mark!" He has a cleft palate.

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

Japanese can't say the "l" sound I thought? Irish may not be able to say the "th" sound. And, Americans that do not speak German cannot pronounce "Chanukah" with the correct guttural "Ch" sound, so Chanukah has become Hanukah for Americans. Spanish speakers in the U.S. will add an "es" for pluralizing words (like in Spanish), so "test" becomes "testes." Not exactly like the English word "testes," since is sounds like two words - "test" and "es."

How do the Spanish pronounce "Chanukah" ?

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

How do the Spanish pronounce "Chanukah" ?
[/quote]In Catalan it's "Hanukkà". In Galician it's "Hanuka". It really would be interesting to know what it's in Basque .... and plus the various pronunciations in the various Spanish languages and dialects.

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It's official: Germans can't pronounce "squirrel"

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