Fun fact, I can't say breakfast correctly for the life of me. This wasn't a preference or a region though, my dad just thought it would be REALLY funny to only say "breafkast" to me for the first 10 years of my life. Now I"m over 20 and it's still a problem lol
I'm the same way with "reglear" instead of regular. I disagree with the other reply. Your unique pronunciation of breakfast brings whimsy to the world. I will be adopting breafkast from you now.
I always pronounced "suspicious" wrong. I think I pronounced it like you would "specific", but eventually I got out of the habit and I'm not even sure if I'm physically capable of saying it the same way again? Language is weird.
I'm a week late on this video but gonna comment anyway. This literally brought me to tears. When I heard the accurate pronunciation of guacamole, I was floored. That is the exact way my lilly white small town north dakotan grandmother would pronounce it while ordering when we would go out to eat at Mexican restaurants in the 90s when we were taking care of her. I have so many memories of cringing, thinking she was butchering the language, because I'm apparently an ignorant judgemental jerk. I knew she traveled to Mexico in the 70s and had fond memories of the food and culture, but because she was a very difficult person, I assumed it was a bit of a ridiculous and incorrect affectation. Anyway, for the billionth time I'm reminded to be humble. All this is incidental to the great video. Thank you for sharing this very intriguing topic.
Oh man there’s a whole topic here that can be expanded to us who are Hispanic, never spoke Spanish growing up (parents wanted us to be American) learning Spanish later and struggling with how to order things at restaurants. Feels weird.
Hey wow, quite relatable. Didn't get taught Portuguese as a kid so that I would be Canadian, then taught myself Portuguese as an adult and it feels so weird to use it. I will default to say "Portuguese tarts" when every ounce of my being wants to call it natas, I'll say Portuguese bread instead of papo seco because because I don't want to sound exotic It's further complicated that my family is European Portuguese but all the resources online are Brazilian, so both the accent I picked up and my word choice keep me as an outsider to my family Frick man, why couldn't our parents have just taught us as kids? Lol
@@Jason-fp7vi it’s interesting how things parents do with their best intentions can backfire. Or just out of silliness, my mom was an immigrant in France and speaks fluent French but didn’t teach me as child to “not seem pretentious”. Brazilian Portuguese is absolutely lovely (and easier to learn) but you’re right it sounds different and some grammar and vocabulary also differ. I’m native Portuguese and wish I could help you sound more like your family. Accents are a funny thing because I absolutely hate mine when speaking English (in my head I sound like Mourinho freshly arrived to the premier league) but find a lot of people’s accents when speaking English sweet. Heheh papo seco sounding exotic cracked me up because it’s such a silly name for a bread and the most cheap basic ass bread (so many better breads here in Portugal).
So called "heritage" speakers are an interesting case because there are many different kinds, depending on their upbringing. For example, some who were exposed to the language at a young age can speak with completely accurate pronunciation, but lack the grammar and vocabulary to be more competent speakers. When I visited the US with my ex who only speaks Spanish but is "white" looking by US standards, the opposite happened at some restaurants. Where a heritage speaker wouldn't be able to take her order in Spanish and I'd have to explain that she wasn't in fact trying to show off and that she only spoke Spanish. Anyway, I highly encourage you to keep going with your learning, it's totally worth it in the end.
Can totally relate as a Nigerian American trying to teach myself Igbo since my parents mostly spoke English at home. And it doesn't help that the dilects from town to town are so different, it takes me longer to understand someone speaking the same language if they're from a different village.
The worsts being the only Hispanic at the table at an "authentic" Mexican restaurant and being asked to communicate with the server. Sure, I know a few more spanish words than you, but there is more context and nuance that I don't have. 99% of the time, it will go quicker if everyone just points to what they want and communicate in the best way they can.
One of those wierd things that sticks in your head from a lecture in college a decade later is statement that my phonetics professor said. "American English speakers use an anglicized approximation of Spanish phonology rules for most loanwords with the exception of words from Spanish."
What makes you think she was pretending? Just rewatched it then and it seems genuine enough to me to not question it. I ask because it also lives rent free in my head.
As a japanese american living in Japan this thing of code switching is very interesting. Highly contextual I think. I do tend to anglicize a lot of japanese words when im speaking English because as you said it can be pretty jarring to switch fully over, but I do tend to place the emphasis of the word in a place more aligned to the japanese prononciation than the American one in some cases. Like OHsaka instead of oSAka. Definitely use sa-keh instead of saky though or kyo-to instead of keeyohto. What's interesting as well is deciding how much to anglicize certain English words when speaking japanese! Hey Shaq if you read this how do you treat English words/names when speaking Spanish?
I feel that. Currently learning Japanese, and it hurts my brain that I can say "Burger King" with a proper english accent in a conversation but I have to pronounce "escalator" as エスカレーター (read: esukareetaa).
I am a native English speaker living in America and idk how that thing with sake pronunciation happened. It's not that hard to say it with the original pronunciation.
I speak English and Hebrew and have similar conundrums. When speaking to Israelis in Hebrew I'll often say English words in a mostly Hebrew accent, but I think it's because I'm self conscious about sounding too American. When speaking Hebrew I'll pronounce Hebrew words most of the way they are meant to but without the trilled R (but yes the KH for a khet sound). So like a cartwheel and not a back flip.
@@emeryboehnke4259 It isn't hard to say with original pronunciation, but it does require vowels which technically don't exist in English phonology. 3 of the 5 vowels in japanese have no direct equivalents in general american, and "sake" contains 2 of those. If you think I am wrong, then I am sorry to inform you that it is harder to say it with original pronunciation than you apparently thought.
I am a paralegal and my mexican coworker had never heard the word “subpoena” out loud, so the first time she said it with the spanish pronunciation of the vowels, it sounded like a fancy mexican sopa I had never heard of.
If it's pronounced "sapeena" just write it that way 😅 I'm Norwegian so I know a lot of English both from written and spoken media (we don't dub movies here). For years I knew the word /segway/ from podcasts, meaning transitioning from one topic to another smoothly, and I also knew a synonym for the same concept from books written "segue", I wasn't quite sure how it was pronounced but I assumed it was something like "seg-you". Then one day I realised it's the same word, they just borrowed the spelling from Italian and made up a completely nonsensical pronunciation for it.
Mandarin Chinese is romanized using Pinyin, but certain groups of letters are pronounced differently in English than the actually Chinese word would be. On top of that, there are sounds that don't even exist in English (and, in my experience, some non-Chinese speakers are incapable of producing them). As an additional complication, Chinese uses tones, so on top of having to navigate the different pronunciations of Chinese words with non-Chinese speakers, I also have to think about whether or not to also include the tone, which English does not feature and could confuse someone completely unfamiliar with the language. I usually resolve this by saying the word correctly (in terms of phonetics) without including tones when speaking in English. It's definitely not a perfect solution, especially since I'm not really sure there *is* one, but usually it takes less than 10 seconds to explain to an English speaker who's confused so I just stick to doing that. Thanks for bringing attention to this!
tbh i just full swap to chinese whenever i say chinese in a mostly english sentence since i think it does good for me to practice (i am 2nd gen but i hated learning chinese when i was younger so im behind in terms of my learning)
My strategy is usually to go for the closest pronunciation that falls within English phonemes. It feels super jarring to go from English where most of the action is in the back of the mouth (at least how I speak) to french where everything's up front and nasally and back just for a single word. With your tortilla example, I'm not going to make an alveolar tap for the r in tortilla. I'll just really soften the r so I don't go around saying TORRRRRRRRRRTEEYA. The exception is peoples names. I'll do my best to say it right unless they tell me not to.
That's more or less what I do as well. I've always internally called it "tasteful anglicization", though that's something I only rarely say out loud because it sounds kinda pretentious. Code switching too hard makes one kind of come off as an ass in my experience, and I'd rather not draw attention to myself (especially the negative kind). I also do the same thing when speaking other languages. Why would I code switch to English in the middle of a German sentence? That would sound so awkward. I do have a French friend that gets annoyed that English speakers don't pronounce French loan words properly, but I chalk that up to her being French.
geoff lindsey is incredible; he's helped me move more towards descriptivism than prescriptivism. appreciate your candid honesty, and I might start saying guacalito myself now. keep it real
I work at a whisky bar in Scotland, and we tend to have a lot of American tourists. There was always an awkward moment when referring to many whiskies or regions, typically with Gaelic names, that have counterintuitive pronunciations. (Glenfiddich is glenfiddiCK, Laphroaig is Lah-froyg, Islay is I-lay etc..) so when someone ordered a whisky (even if incorrectly) I'd understand perfectly fine, then when I serve I'd use the correct pronunciation but I always worried I sounded like a pretentious dick correcting them. I'm also Brazilian, and it's weird saying things like mate tea, caipirinha, açaí and cachaça, because I grew up speaking Brazilian Portuguese and a lot of the pronunciation is fundamentally different to Spanish (and people tend to assume Spanish pronunciation as it's more commonly spoken/taught), so nobody understands when I say Mah-chee and i have to correct nyself and say Mah-teh. Infact people assume i mean matcha lol.
This definitely is a struggle of mine. I try not be performative with how I pronounce things but sometimes it really feels disrespectful to put no effort into saying these things in their native accent lol
I feel this. As an italian american- I can especially relate to the food pronunciation stuff. I grew up eating a lot of gababool. It was a staple in the deli drawer, and my whole family called it that. I distinctly remember actually reading the package one day to see the word "capicola" and asking my Mom why it said that, she just replied, "Oh, I don't know, your grandma always called it gabagool." I still always call it gabagool, though now that that's sort of a meme from the sopranos, people think I'm putting it on. I'm gonna keep saying it though, because every time I do, I remember my grandmother, who I miss dearly.
I think there's a misconception that pronouncing a foreign word with the phonemes of its origin language is somehow more correct. It's not that it's the same word with multiple pronunciations; it's two different words across two different languages that just have the same origin. If you're speaking english, it makes sense to speak english. I think this is more clear when you think about words that have long been anglicized, like words borrowed from french. This definitely even applies to proper nouns; again, think of how we pronounce "France."
I have this same issue every time I go to a pho restaurant. If I'm with friends then maybe I'll order by menu number (it's there for a reason). But with family then it's full Vietnamese (ordering food is all I can really do). If I order in Vietnamese with non-Vietnamese company, I always get the comment of, "oh I didn't know you spoke Vietnamese". That's because I can't, I just know what (some) food names are.
good video! im from a city americans consistently mispronounce the name of, melbourne (australia),, sometimes americans will have been Warned and will try to get it right its v cute (aus accent is non-rhotic so we dont pronounce the r in it most of the time, also the difference in our accents rhythms is rly pronounced on specifically 'melbourne' we rly emphasise the 'mel' and shorten the 'bourne', ive seen the tip given to americans to pronounce it melbin but to me its more melbne... thats the end of my tipsy infodump)
This is such an interesting topic/discussion that I've thought about but never had it broken down like this. I grew up in San Antonio, TX with a maternal Spanish speaking grandmother and a paternal Spanish speaking grandfather and even though I'm not quite fluent in Spanish, there are certain words that I simply cannot say the anglicized pronunciation of: "Cilantro" and Guacamole".. I'll typically change how I speak depending on who I'm around. I'll say an anglicized version of tortilla around my white friends but when I'm around family, 30 miles north of the border in the RGV, those rs come out rolling!
I lived in austria for a while so i can struggle with this for some german words. Wurst for example is pronounced like Vurst in german and the even the rest of the letters are pronounced a little differently and i always worry i sound a little prententious when I say something like Mettwurst in the proper german pronunciation but its so internal at this point its hard not to
My friends and I would deliberately pronounce Jalapeño "Gel-LAP-pen-no" to make fun of people who didn't know how to pronounce it. How ever we did it so much that, embarrassingly, I started automatically saying it wrong even when I didn't want to make fun. I had to retrain myself to say it right.
I want a video that explains how you effortlessly exude charm, lol. Also, I find this interesting with vocabulary as well. I had prepared lunch and my brother and his BF were over. Being Japanese American, I was going to ask my brother in English to “bring over the ‘ohashi’ and ‘shoyu’” but self consciously switched over to chopsticks and soy sauce because I didn’t want to exclude my brother’s BF.
As someone with Italian and Spanish heritage, born and raised in Brazil, and who just moved to the US, this resonates perfectly with a lot of the issues I've had when talking about food or even just ordering at a restaurant. Servers will find it easier to understand my English (which is far from being my first language) instead of my pronunciation of margherita or carbonara. Very frustrating, especially because I am still sensitive to having communication problems in day-to-day life, but I haven't been able to solve this problem yet - code switching is just natural to me when I talk about a foreign word.
honestly, this feels like the true Netshaq way of making a podcast - 2-3 minutes of him stating his opinion and/or sharing an anecdote about something, with his signature, witty delivery and little to no filler. all i'll say is i'm glad to have subbed to this channel when it was launched
I’ve always said tread MEAL instead of tread MILL. I got bullied so much for it that I would force myself to emphasize the word until I said it correctly. Now I have so many little words I use for every day things that it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t have mattered then either.
I experienced the inverse of this when I lived in Chile for a couple years, and the most flagrant example that I can remember was people spanish-izing the word "bully" into something like "me hizo buli." I could never get over how stupid it sounded. Other words like container -> conteiner were fine, and on the occasions where I spoke English to non-English speakers, I would usually put on my best Spanish accent just because it was easier for people to understand.
I've always pronounced crayon as "crown" to much derision by my family and friends. I've recently seen that there are other parts of the u.s. that call it that but I've always considered it my personal version of our regional texas accent
Hey, just in case it helps anyone; the function of language is to communicate. However you choose to communicate is valid, if you successfully get someone to infer the idea that you have aimed to imply, you did a good job! People have been socialised for a long time through school to think of language as something that can be done "rightly" or "wrongly", but the history of linguistics is just variations on people holding that viewpoint suffering for their immense hubris (and in many cases, learning from it to move to a descriptivist philosophy from their prescriptivist roots). So pronounce things however you like, as long as it's something your audience will understand. The real issue becomes clear if you ever visit a place with a completely different dialect. Trying to get my partner's family in Texas to understand what I meant when I said "plaster", or "cutlery", has taught me (from the UK) that "band-aid" and "silverware" are not specific examples of the categories I tried mentioning, but the only words some people have for them!
I say lie-berry with a single r sound and not "library" with the two r's. When people criticize me for this, I reply "well you don't say wed-ness-day even though it's spelled that way, right?" I also pronounce "room" with a short lazy vowel. Not a schwa, but something similar. The way I pronounce room is distinct but similar to rum, which has more emphasis on the vowel, and different from the double "oo" vowel in a word like rune.
This rich valley girl in my high school art class would pronounce “orange” like “aur-inj” and i would jokingly pronounce it that way too and now it is how i actually pronounce it LOL
I still enjoy the SNL sketch with Jimmy Smits being a new Mexican hire at an agency and everybody over enunciating ever Spanish word until he loses his mind. Reminds me of this whole conversation.
I moved to the USA from Scotland last year and I can’t bring myself to order a croissant. The UK never anglicised it like Americans did and it feels incredibly weird to say “crissont”
I live in Buenos Aires city and i simply can't say it the english way (Buens Eiris) so i always change to the spanish phonetic for this specific case, but it's always weird
I always assumed this was an accent issue with certain accents using sounds less than others. I have trouble pronouncing the name Lance Bass as it's pronounced by Americans, but don't have this same issue with guacamole or chipotle* filtered through the New Zealand accent. I do have this problem with anglicized versions of Japanese place names though; people will not initially understand when Tokyo is pronounced the Japanese way instead of "Toe-kee-oh" for example. *Funny side note - I don't see chipotle's pronunciation as "plain as day"; until I was told how to pronounce it correctly, thought the word read as "chip-pot-ill" and this video is the first I've heard of "chipolty" lol
I remember when the Simply Mama Cooks yt channel (a.k.a. (hilariously, in this context) Gochujang Mama) was getting more popular, several comments were telling her she sounded "pretentious af" and asking why she OBVIOUSLY was faking and accentuating certain words like tortilla. Dude, because that's how she talks. That's how she learned these words. Ya can't win. Say stuff however you want. If people think you're pretentious, then they're just wrong. That said, my own pronunciations are utter chaos. I will continue to say Pwer-to Rico at people because I just can't help it, and I don't even remember where I got that. Then there are other words I've said so redneck for so long solely to annoy my pedantic sister that now I sound like a hick when I say them even though I know better.
i have a similar problem with "bruschetta". i've been getting better about it but god damn is it hard to not pronounce it properly around non-italians. brew-sketta is the closest i've gotten to a pronunciation that sounds correct-while-anglicized but it's still not good. interesting topic
I've never heard anyone say, gwhack-a-mole-ee... Might be a regional thing. I say and always hear it the way you naturally say it but with ee at the end instead of ay. It may be easier for you to say that Americanized version.
Yeah I do this with karaoke. In Hawaii, where I grew up with some pretty mixed up asian heritage that is super common there, we say most Japanese words.. at least most of the way to how a Japanese speaker would say them. Especially in food contexts where word-borrowing is most common. For karaoke we'd say ka-ra-o-ke with the percussive r that is similar to a d sound. Now, I live on the mainland and everyone says carryokie and it makes me cringe but now I say carryokie because if I say karaoke I sound like a weeb who's way too into singing lol
it sucks when the word you struggle with is your own name. i never know how to introduce myself, it depends on whether the person speaks spanish or not, whether they speak spanish natively, and whether they were born in the us or latinamerica
Nuke-ular unreasonably bothers me as do people saying habanero with an enye. As someone from an Indian background, my accent in my native language is trash anyways so me pronouncing indian ingredients/food is already somewhat anglicized/westernized luckily/unluckily?
I have a very difficult time with this because I speak multiple languages and I want to pronounce people and place names in the language they come from, but it ends up sounding weird to the listener.
I would order a box of 5 egg rolls @ the Wahiawa Jack in the Box. I said that I wanted Guacamole with them. The employees there really did not want to serve them together. It is superb together!!
I think picking and choosing pronunciation rules to absolutely mangle a word is funny and I've peaked with chamomile. Go at it imagining you just learned how to pronounce chandelier and break up the last syllable for an absurd yet somehow sensible shah-mah-mee-lay.
I learned Chinese and now I really can’t hear people pronounce Beijing with a breathy French juh sound. It’s a hard J, just like the J we have in English. It’s sound strange that Americans pronounce it with a soft French J, since that sound doesn’t exist in English or Chinese. I think people just associate French sounds with foreign things and that’s how we came to pronounce it that way. Also, Xi is pronounced exactly like “she” in English.
It's a complicated dance, but for the most part, you just have to approach foreign words with English phonetic inventory in order to get out on the other end communicating effectively without being pretentious. I could phonic-shift every time I encounter a Spanish, French, German, or even Dutch word, but then I'd be bogging down my speech because it changes the rhythm and the pace of conversation. Very distracting, so then the focus becomes the word itself and not its actual purpose.
Keep in mind that as people get older (meaning like, their teens) they lose a lot of the ability to hear and make new mouth sounds. Baby's brains are more plastic, if they hear a sound they can learn how to make it, but that ability fades quickly. I can hear the difference, but I have a hard time replicating the sounds. I'm never sure if people will appreciate me trying to roll my Rs or pronounce that light T or even if I should try to match the vowels, or if I'll sound like I'm mocking by doing it poorly. So I chicken out and order gwocka-molay and kayso on my bureedo.
I once found myself saying "tuhmollays" as a soft anglisation, then having to correct to "tuhmollys" to be easier to understand, which felt weird. Usually I just have trouble with words I don't anglicize often. Mole, achiote, guajillo, piloncillo- they don't come up that often in English conversation so I don't know whether to make something up or just go full Spanish since they won't know what it is anyway. Imagine saying huitlacoche in English. Feels wrong. Also going to a mexican restaurant and the menu's only in English??? Like, you're really gonna make me say the English name you gave this burrito when we we're literally speaking Spanish right now?? Also "rural" and "raro" but that's just me not being good with r's.
I'm white and I will always feel a little self-conscious about my pronunciation when I order at my local Mexican and Korean places. Do I lean in and embrace the americanized pronunciation and hope they think "oh, white people" or do I try and fail to hit the native pronunciation? I tend toward the "try and fail" approach because it feels nice to put in the effort even if I can't hear the differences well enough to get it right. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all. I'm glad I live in a place where people from diverse backgrounds can run successful businesses making authentic cultural dishes, and I'm glad I get to enjoy them and put my money into the community. It's just so rare for me as a white person to be on the receiving end of that potential judgment. I think it's probably a net positive for me to have to squirm about it a bit. Keeps me humble lol
I have adopted "Guac" as my go-to non Spanish pronunciation. If I'm saying "Guacamole" you're getting the full backflip
Broke: tamale
Woke: tamal
Bespoke: ta-molly
Fun fact, I can't say breakfast correctly for the life of me. This wasn't a preference or a region though, my dad just thought it would be REALLY funny to only say "breafkast" to me for the first 10 years of my life. Now I"m over 20 and it's still a problem lol
Yeah I'd fix that if I were you. People will judge
I'm the same way with "reglear" instead of regular.
I disagree with the other reply. Your unique pronunciation of breakfast brings whimsy to the world. I will be adopting breafkast from you now.
@@iiiiilllllllll maybe the fix is not being around that people lol
I always pronounced "suspicious" wrong. I think I pronounced it like you would "specific", but eventually I got out of the habit and I'm not even sure if I'm physically capable of saying it the same way again? Language is weird.
I say it "bruck-fist" and my friend give me flak for it every time
I'm a week late on this video but gonna comment anyway. This literally brought me to tears. When I heard the accurate pronunciation of guacamole, I was floored. That is the exact way my lilly white small town north dakotan grandmother would pronounce it while ordering when we would go out to eat at Mexican restaurants in the 90s when we were taking care of her. I have so many memories of cringing, thinking she was butchering the language, because I'm apparently an ignorant judgemental jerk. I knew she traveled to Mexico in the 70s and had fond memories of the food and culture, but because she was a very difficult person, I assumed it was a bit of a ridiculous and incorrect affectation. Anyway, for the billionth time I'm reminded to be humble. All this is incidental to the great video. Thank you for sharing this very intriguing topic.
Oh man there’s a whole topic here that can be expanded to us who are Hispanic, never spoke Spanish growing up (parents wanted us to be American) learning Spanish later and struggling with how to order things at restaurants. Feels weird.
Hey wow, quite relatable. Didn't get taught Portuguese as a kid so that I would be Canadian, then taught myself Portuguese as an adult and it feels so weird to use it.
I will default to say "Portuguese tarts" when every ounce of my being wants to call it natas, I'll say Portuguese bread instead of papo seco because because I don't want to sound exotic
It's further complicated that my family is European Portuguese but all the resources online are Brazilian, so both the accent I picked up and my word choice keep me as an outsider to my family
Frick man, why couldn't our parents have just taught us as kids? Lol
@@Jason-fp7vi it’s interesting how things parents do with their best intentions can backfire. Or just out of silliness, my mom was an immigrant in France and speaks fluent French but didn’t teach me as child to “not seem pretentious”.
Brazilian Portuguese is absolutely lovely (and easier to learn) but you’re right it sounds different and some grammar and vocabulary also differ. I’m native Portuguese and wish I could help you sound more like your family.
Accents are a funny thing because I absolutely hate mine when speaking English (in my head I sound like Mourinho freshly arrived to the premier league) but find a lot of people’s accents when speaking English sweet.
Heheh papo seco sounding exotic cracked me up because it’s such a silly name for a bread and the most cheap basic ass bread (so many better breads here in Portugal).
So called "heritage" speakers are an interesting case because there are many different kinds, depending on their upbringing. For example, some who were exposed to the language at a young age can speak with completely accurate pronunciation, but lack the grammar and vocabulary to be more competent speakers.
When I visited the US with my ex who only speaks Spanish but is "white" looking by US standards, the opposite happened at some restaurants. Where a heritage speaker wouldn't be able to take her order in Spanish and I'd have to explain that she wasn't in fact trying to show off and that she only spoke Spanish.
Anyway, I highly encourage you to keep going with your learning, it's totally worth it in the end.
Can totally relate as a Nigerian American trying to teach myself Igbo since my parents mostly spoke English at home. And it doesn't help that the dilects from town to town are so different, it takes me longer to understand someone speaking the same language if they're from a different village.
The worsts being the only Hispanic at the table at an "authentic" Mexican restaurant and being asked to communicate with the server. Sure, I know a few more spanish words than you, but there is more context and nuance that I don't have. 99% of the time, it will go quicker if everyone just points to what they want and communicate in the best way they can.
One of those wierd things that sticks in your head from a lecture in college a decade later is statement that my phonetics professor said. "American English speakers use an anglicized approximation of Spanish phonology rules for most loanwords with the exception of words from Spanish."
Ha, interesting thought
I would love to hear more about this!
I can’t prepare or eat any avocado related food without hearing that woman pretending to laugh at “free shavocadoo”
I thought that Vine was from a man... 🤔
@@Kyrbi0 nope it was a woman
Yeah I’m literally Mexican from Mexico and it has gotten into my daily vocab
What makes you think she was pretending? Just rewatched it then and it seems genuine enough to me to not question it.
I ask because it also lives rent free in my head.
As a japanese american living in Japan this thing of code switching is very interesting. Highly contextual I think. I do tend to anglicize a lot of japanese words when im speaking English because as you said it can be pretty jarring to switch fully over, but I do tend to place the emphasis of the word in a place more aligned to the japanese prononciation than the American one in some cases. Like OHsaka instead of oSAka. Definitely use sa-keh instead of saky though or kyo-to instead of keeyohto. What's interesting as well is deciding how much to anglicize certain English words when speaking japanese! Hey Shaq if you read this how do you treat English words/names when speaking Spanish?
I feel that. Currently learning Japanese, and it hurts my brain that I can say "Burger King" with a proper english accent in a conversation but I have to pronounce "escalator" as エスカレーター (read: esukareetaa).
I am a native English speaker living in America and idk how that thing with sake pronunciation happened. It's not that hard to say it with the original pronunciation.
I speak English and Hebrew and have similar conundrums. When speaking to Israelis in Hebrew I'll often say English words in a mostly Hebrew accent, but I think it's because I'm self conscious about sounding too American. When speaking Hebrew I'll pronounce Hebrew words most of the way they are meant to but without the trilled R (but yes the KH for a khet sound). So like a cartwheel and not a back flip.
@@emeryboehnke4259 It isn't hard to say with original pronunciation, but it does require vowels which technically don't exist in English phonology. 3 of the 5 vowels in japanese have no direct equivalents in general american, and "sake" contains 2 of those. If you think I am wrong, then I am sorry to inform you that it is harder to say it with original pronunciation than you apparently thought.
I love this. I really hope the shaq wore some shirt with the Mayhem font that is clearly not Mayhem merch to talk about code switching.
I am a paralegal and my mexican coworker had never heard the word “subpoena” out loud, so the first time she said it with the spanish pronunciation of the vowels, it sounded like a fancy mexican sopa I had never heard of.
Soup Poéna lol
If it's pronounced "sapeena" just write it that way 😅
I'm Norwegian so I know a lot of English both from written and spoken media (we don't dub movies here).
For years I knew the word /segway/ from podcasts, meaning transitioning from one topic to another smoothly, and I also knew a synonym for the same concept from books written "segue", I wasn't quite sure how it was pronounced but I assumed it was something like "seg-you". Then one day I realised it's the same word, they just borrowed the spelling from Italian and made up a completely nonsensical pronunciation for it.
Makes me think of LBGT being misheard and misspoken as los gibidis
Dude, you and me are on the same youchube algorithm it seems.
I'm digging the bitesized thoughts videos. Feels very Little Joel.
Get it twisted
Linguists call this consonant swapping “metathesis”, and it’s one of the more fascinating dialect differences. Love this video!!
Mandarin Chinese is romanized using Pinyin, but certain groups of letters are pronounced differently in English than the actually Chinese word would be. On top of that, there are sounds that don't even exist in English (and, in my experience, some non-Chinese speakers are incapable of producing them). As an additional complication, Chinese uses tones, so on top of having to navigate the different pronunciations of Chinese words with non-Chinese speakers, I also have to think about whether or not to also include the tone, which English does not feature and could confuse someone completely unfamiliar with the language.
I usually resolve this by saying the word correctly (in terms of phonetics) without including tones when speaking in English. It's definitely not a perfect solution, especially since I'm not really sure there *is* one, but usually it takes less than 10 seconds to explain to an English speaker who's confused so I just stick to doing that. Thanks for bringing attention to this!
My last name is Wang. If I pronounce it correctly it always gets misspelled. So I screw it up and anglicize it on purpose.
tbh i just full swap to chinese whenever i say chinese in a mostly english sentence since i think it does good for me to practice (i am 2nd gen but i hated learning chinese when i was younger so im behind in terms of my learning)
My strategy is usually to go for the closest pronunciation that falls within English phonemes. It feels super jarring to go from English where most of the action is in the back of the mouth (at least how I speak) to french where everything's up front and nasally and back just for a single word. With your tortilla example, I'm not going to make an alveolar tap for the r in tortilla. I'll just really soften the r so I don't go around saying TORRRRRRRRRRTEEYA. The exception is peoples names. I'll do my best to say it right unless they tell me not to.
That's more or less what I do as well. I've always internally called it "tasteful anglicization", though that's something I only rarely say out loud because it sounds kinda pretentious. Code switching too hard makes one kind of come off as an ass in my experience, and I'd rather not draw attention to myself (especially the negative kind). I also do the same thing when speaking other languages. Why would I code switch to English in the middle of a German sentence? That would sound so awkward.
I do have a French friend that gets annoyed that English speakers don't pronounce French loan words properly, but I chalk that up to her being French.
That writing of tortilla ended me
geoff lindsey is incredible; he's helped me move more towards descriptivism than prescriptivism. appreciate your candid honesty, and I might start saying guacalito myself now. keep it real
I work at a whisky bar in Scotland, and we tend to have a lot of American tourists. There was always an awkward moment when referring to many whiskies or regions, typically with Gaelic names, that have counterintuitive pronunciations. (Glenfiddich is glenfiddiCK, Laphroaig is Lah-froyg, Islay is I-lay etc..) so when someone ordered a whisky (even if incorrectly) I'd understand perfectly fine, then when I serve I'd use the correct pronunciation but I always worried I sounded like a pretentious dick correcting them.
I'm also Brazilian, and it's weird saying things like mate tea, caipirinha, açaí and cachaça, because I grew up speaking Brazilian Portuguese and a lot of the pronunciation is fundamentally different to Spanish (and people tend to assume Spanish pronunciation as it's more commonly spoken/taught), so nobody understands when I say Mah-chee and i have to correct nyself and say Mah-teh. Infact people assume i mean matcha lol.
I-luh is the correct pronunction for islay sorry
This definitely is a struggle of mine. I try not be performative with how I pronounce things but sometimes it really feels disrespectful to put no effort into saying these things in their native accent lol
I feel this. As an italian american- I can especially relate to the food pronunciation stuff. I grew up eating a lot of gababool. It was a staple in the deli drawer, and my whole family called it that. I distinctly remember actually reading the package one day to see the word "capicola" and asking my Mom why it said that, she just replied, "Oh, I don't know, your grandma always called it gabagool." I still always call it gabagool, though now that that's sort of a meme from the sopranos, people think I'm putting it on. I'm gonna keep saying it though, because every time I do, I remember my grandmother, who I miss dearly.
but also we pronounce our name "Car-Jolly" so who knows.
I think there's a misconception that pronouncing a foreign word with the phonemes of its origin language is somehow more correct. It's not that it's the same word with multiple pronunciations; it's two different words across two different languages that just have the same origin. If you're speaking english, it makes sense to speak english. I think this is more clear when you think about words that have long been anglicized, like words borrowed from french. This definitely even applies to proper nouns; again, think of how we pronounce "France."
Okay, I am DYING to know where the Farmer tee w/ the Mayhem font came from, PLEASE drop a link lol
chewsday innit bruv
I have this same issue every time I go to a pho restaurant.
If I'm with friends then maybe I'll order by menu number (it's there for a reason). But with family then it's full Vietnamese (ordering food is all I can really do). If I order in Vietnamese with non-Vietnamese company, I always get the comment of, "oh I didn't know you spoke Vietnamese". That's because I can't, I just know what (some) food names are.
I love Dr. Lindsey's videos! I am a speech therapist in an elementary school and they're just the right amount of niche for my viewing pleasure.
good video! im from a city americans consistently mispronounce the name of, melbourne (australia),, sometimes americans will have been Warned and will try to get it right its v cute
(aus accent is non-rhotic so we dont pronounce the r in it most of the time, also the difference in our accents rhythms is rly pronounced on specifically 'melbourne' we rly emphasise the 'mel' and shorten the 'bourne', ive seen the tip given to americans to pronounce it melbin but to me its more melbne... thats the end of my tipsy infodump)
This is such an interesting topic/discussion that I've thought about but never had it broken down like this. I grew up in San Antonio, TX with a maternal Spanish speaking grandmother and a paternal Spanish speaking grandfather and even though I'm not quite fluent in Spanish, there are certain words that I simply cannot say the anglicized pronunciation of: "Cilantro" and Guacamole"..
I'll typically change how I speak depending on who I'm around. I'll say an anglicized version of tortilla around my white friends but when I'm around family, 30 miles north of the border in the RGV, those rs come out rolling!
I find myself saying 'ovacado' instead of 'avocado'. Lots of people here in Kenya do
i like to hear you speak. thank you for these extra videos
Dr. Geoff Lindsey's Youchube: ruclips.net/video/eFDvAK8Z-Jc/видео.html
He is the best thing on RUclips right now, I cannot get enough
I've been a fan of both of you for a few years. It's a crossover I never expected.
I lived in austria for a while so i can struggle with this for some german words. Wurst for example is pronounced like Vurst in german and the even the rest of the letters are pronounced a little differently and i always worry i sound a little prententious when I say something like Mettwurst in the proper german pronunciation but its so internal at this point its hard not to
Shaq keepin us fed on the second channel
I, and the rest of the world, thought everyone understood how to pronounce 'taco' by now until of course The Great British Bake Off stepped in.
Oh my god, the mexican week... glockymolo will never leave my mind
Shaq, you are my 'wellspoken mancrush everyday'.
My friends and I would deliberately pronounce Jalapeño "Gel-LAP-pen-no" to make fun of people who didn't know how to pronounce it. How ever we did it so much that, embarrassingly, I started automatically saying it wrong even when I didn't want to make fun. I had to retrain myself to say it right.
Praise the algorithm for showing me Shaquille’s channel
Adam Ragusea made a couple videos on this a while back, it's great to see lil bro following in his footsteps!
Dude no way! I just started watching Geoff Lindsey too and he’s great
I want a video that explains how you effortlessly exude charm, lol.
Also, I find this interesting with vocabulary as well. I had prepared lunch and my brother and his BF were over. Being Japanese American, I was going to ask my brother in English to “bring over the ‘ohashi’ and ‘shoyu’” but self consciously switched over to chopsticks and soy sauce because I didn’t want to exclude my brother’s BF.
As someone with Italian and Spanish heritage, born and raised in Brazil, and who just moved to the US, this resonates perfectly with a lot of the issues I've had when talking about food or even just ordering at a restaurant. Servers will find it easier to understand my English (which is far from being my first language) instead of my pronunciation of margherita or carbonara.
Very frustrating, especially because I am still sensitive to having communication problems in day-to-day life, but I haven't been able to solve this problem yet - code switching is just natural to me when I talk about a foreign word.
START A PODCAST!!! ;)
honestly, this feels like the true Netshaq way of making a podcast - 2-3 minutes of him stating his opinion and/or sharing an anecdote about something, with his signature, witty delivery and little to no filler.
all i'll say is i'm glad to have subbed to this channel when it was launched
Some one please link the video in the thumb nail. I've been looking for it for years.
I’ve always said tread MEAL instead of tread MILL. I got bullied so much for it that I would force myself to emphasize the word until I said it correctly. Now I have so many little words I use for every day things that it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t have mattered then either.
I experienced the inverse of this when I lived in Chile for a couple years, and the most flagrant example that I can remember was people spanish-izing the word "bully" into something like "me hizo buli." I could never get over how stupid it sounded. Other words like container -> conteiner were fine, and on the occasions where I spoke English to non-English speakers, I would usually put on my best Spanish accent just because it was easier for people to understand.
I used to be dyslexic. Then I sold my soul to santa to cure it. Like they say, when life gives you melons...
This comment hits the message in the video perfectly
I've always pronounced crayon as "crown" to much derision by my family and friends. I've recently seen that there are other parts of the u.s. that call it that but I've always considered it my personal version of our regional texas accent
I'm here for this new arc.
I’ve gotten into the habit of purposefully mispronouncing Chipotle as “chih - pot - ull” and now I can’t stop lol.
i think you have the same recommendations in your algorithm. that linguist was first shown to me a few weeks ago.
Hey, just in case it helps anyone; the function of language is to communicate. However you choose to communicate is valid, if you successfully get someone to infer the idea that you have aimed to imply, you did a good job! People have been socialised for a long time through school to think of language as something that can be done "rightly" or "wrongly", but the history of linguistics is just variations on people holding that viewpoint suffering for their immense hubris (and in many cases, learning from it to move to a descriptivist philosophy from their prescriptivist roots).
So pronounce things however you like, as long as it's something your audience will understand.
The real issue becomes clear if you ever visit a place with a completely different dialect. Trying to get my partner's family in Texas to understand what I meant when I said "plaster", or "cutlery", has taught me (from the UK) that "band-aid" and "silverware" are not specific examples of the categories I tried mentioning, but the only words some people have for them!
It's incredible that most of us can even understand each other to begin with
Where can I get that t-shirt?
Idk how to explain it but this video is very classy
This should be podcast, Shaq.
I say lie-berry with a single r sound and not "library" with the two r's. When people criticize me for this, I reply "well you don't say wed-ness-day even though it's spelled that way, right?" I also pronounce "room" with a short lazy vowel. Not a schwa, but something similar. The way I pronounce room is distinct but similar to rum, which has more emphasis on the vowel, and different from the double "oo" vowel in a word like rune.
This rich valley girl in my high school art class would pronounce “orange” like “aur-inj” and i would jokingly pronounce it that way too and now it is how i actually pronounce it LOL
I still enjoy the SNL sketch with Jimmy Smits being a new Mexican hire at an agency and everybody over enunciating ever Spanish word until he loses his mind. Reminds me of this whole conversation.
G+walk=gwawk
Massachusetts lol
I was just watching Dr. Geoff channel.
I moved to the USA from Scotland last year and I can’t bring myself to order a croissant. The UK never anglicised it like Americans did and it feels incredibly weird to say “crissont”
Does your shirt say farmer in the same font as Mayhem?
espresso expresso!
I live in Buenos Aires city and i simply can't say it the english way (Buens Eiris) so i always change to the spanish phonetic for this specific case, but it's always weird
I WANTED THAT ONLINE CERAMICS SHIRT GRRRRR ILL TAKE IT FROM YOU
I always assumed this was an accent issue with certain accents using sounds less than others. I have trouble pronouncing the name Lance Bass as it's pronounced by Americans, but don't have this same issue with guacamole or chipotle* filtered through the New Zealand accent. I do have this problem with anglicized versions of Japanese place names though; people will not initially understand when Tokyo is pronounced the Japanese way instead of "Toe-kee-oh" for example.
*Funny side note - I don't see chipotle's pronunciation as "plain as day"; until I was told how to pronounce it correctly, thought the word read as "chip-pot-ill" and this video is the first I've heard of "chipolty" lol
I remember when the Simply Mama Cooks yt channel (a.k.a. (hilariously, in this context) Gochujang Mama) was getting more popular, several comments were telling her she sounded "pretentious af" and asking why she OBVIOUSLY was faking and accentuating certain words like tortilla. Dude, because that's how she talks. That's how she learned these words. Ya can't win. Say stuff however you want. If people think you're pretentious, then they're just wrong.
That said, my own pronunciations are utter chaos. I will continue to say Pwer-to Rico at people because I just can't help it, and I don't even remember where I got that. Then there are other words I've said so redneck for so long solely to annoy my pedantic sister that now I sound like a hick when I say them even though I know better.
i have a similar problem with "bruschetta". i've been getting better about it but god damn is it hard to not pronounce it properly around non-italians. brew-sketta is the closest i've gotten to a pronunciation that sounds correct-while-anglicized but it's still not good. interesting topic
Any time I'm around schticklers I pronounce guacamole like whack-a-mole and chipotle so it soft-rhymes with waddle, and Moana as moan-uh
I’m stealing that outro, “video’s over, you can go watch another one”
Net Shaq has the best outros
still love the way midwesterners pronounce taco, like 'talk-o'.
I've never heard anyone say, gwhack-a-mole-ee... Might be a regional thing. I say and always hear it the way you naturally say it but with ee at the end instead of ay. It may be easier for you to say that Americanized version.
Yeah I do this with karaoke. In Hawaii, where I grew up with some pretty mixed up asian heritage that is super common there, we say most Japanese words.. at least most of the way to how a Japanese speaker would say them. Especially in food contexts where word-borrowing is most common. For karaoke we'd say ka-ra-o-ke with the percussive r that is similar to a d sound. Now, I live on the mainland and everyone says carryokie and it makes me cringe but now I say carryokie because if I say karaoke I sound like a weeb who's way too into singing lol
oh god mo-anna made me cringe lol
Yooooo I love YT pronunciation dude!! Odd crossover but I'll take it
Colloquially.
I always primarily associate that walking-backflip-walking disconnect with Alex Trebek (RIP)
He's in his pseudo podcast era
it sucks when the word you struggle with is your own name. i never know how to introduce myself, it depends on whether the person speaks spanish or not, whether they speak spanish natively, and whether they were born in the us or latinamerica
That’s how my last name is! I’m stressed as hell trying to figure out how I’ll tell my son how to say his own name
Nuke-ular unreasonably bothers me as do people saying habanero with an enye. As someone from an Indian background, my accent in my native language is trash anyways so me pronouncing indian ingredients/food is already somewhat anglicized/westernized luckily/unluckily?
I have a very difficult time with this because I speak multiple languages and I want to pronounce people and place names in the language they come from, but it ends up sounding weird to the listener.
I would order a box of 5 egg rolls @ the Wahiawa Jack in the Box. I said that I wanted Guacamole with them. The employees there really did not want to serve them together. It is superb together!!
Will be calling guacamole guacalito from now on
Shaq what does your shirt say
My family is from southeast Texas and I'm the only one who can say the word rural without stuttering.
As a tejano, I felt this so hawrd
I think picking and choosing pronunciation rules to absolutely mangle a word is funny and I've peaked with chamomile. Go at it imagining you just learned how to pronounce chandelier and break up the last syllable for an absurd yet somehow sensible shah-mah-mee-lay.
goodbye shaq
I'm confused, am I supposed to tell you in the comments which video I'm going to go watch next?
I learned Chinese and now I really can’t hear people pronounce Beijing with a breathy French juh sound. It’s a hard J, just like the J we have in English. It’s sound strange that Americans pronounce it with a soft French J, since that sound doesn’t exist in English or Chinese. I think people just associate French sounds with foreign things and that’s how we came to pronounce it that way. Also, Xi is pronounced exactly like “she” in English.
It's a complicated dance, but for the most part, you just have to approach foreign words with English phonetic inventory in order to get out on the other end communicating effectively without being pretentious. I could phonic-shift every time I encounter a Spanish, French, German, or even Dutch word, but then I'd be bogging down my speech because it changes the rhythm and the pace of conversation. Very distracting, so then the focus becomes the word itself and not its actual purpose.
Since I speak French, Spanish and Italian natively it’s pretty weird when I talk about food in English 😂
Keep in mind that as people get older (meaning like, their teens) they lose a lot of the ability to hear and make new mouth sounds. Baby's brains are more plastic, if they hear a sound they can learn how to make it, but that ability fades quickly.
I can hear the difference, but I have a hard time replicating the sounds. I'm never sure if people will appreciate me trying to roll my Rs or pronounce that light T or even if I should try to match the vowels, or if I'll sound like I'm mocking by doing it poorly. So I chicken out and order gwocka-molay and kayso on my bureedo.
It is just because you want a tiny embarrassed amount of the sweet green sludge.
this isn't really a cultural thing but for some reason i pronounce the word both with an l in the middle. Bolth.
great ending.
I can't say brewery without slowing down, brew-er-ree.,, And even then it's mouth twisting
Whack-a-molè
Neat.
I once found myself saying "tuhmollays" as a soft anglisation, then having to correct to "tuhmollys" to be easier to understand, which felt weird. Usually I just have trouble with words I don't anglicize often. Mole, achiote, guajillo, piloncillo- they don't come up that often in English conversation so I don't know whether to make something up or just go full Spanish since they won't know what it is anyway. Imagine saying huitlacoche in English. Feels wrong. Also going to a mexican restaurant and the menu's only in English??? Like, you're really gonna make me say the English name you gave this burrito when we we're literally speaking Spanish right now??
Also "rural" and "raro" but that's just me not being good with r's.
Don't Americans add an ñ to habanero? Like, why'd we throw the ñ in there?
I think everyone learned the ñ for jalapeño and figured the next hot pepper on the scene must follow the same template
I'm white and I will always feel a little self-conscious about my pronunciation when I order at my local Mexican and Korean places. Do I lean in and embrace the americanized pronunciation and hope they think "oh, white people" or do I try and fail to hit the native pronunciation? I tend toward the "try and fail" approach because it feels nice to put in the effort even if I can't hear the differences well enough to get it right.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all. I'm glad I live in a place where people from diverse backgrounds can run successful businesses making authentic cultural dishes, and I'm glad I get to enjoy them and put my money into the community. It's just so rare for me as a white person to be on the receiving end of that potential judgment. I think it's probably a net positive for me to have to squirm about it a bit. Keeps me humble lol
Gawk amoley