The whole premise of this seems really suspect to me. I'm not saying I can suggest a better methodology, but basing all the data on number of listens on Forvo.com can't be statistically...
The whole premise of this seems really suspect to me. I'm not saying I can suggest a better methodology, but basing all the data on number of listens on Forvo.com can't be statistically meaningful. Or at least not as presented, as "the most mispronounced brand from every country."
Yeah, especially because the people who looked up Société Générale more or less know how to pronounce it but some of the others are still tough to pronounce even after hearing it.
Yeah, especially because the people who looked up Société Générale more or less know how to pronounce it but some of the others are still tough to pronounce even after hearing it.
I personally suspect that "Lego" is the most mispronounced brand in the US - I have never heard an American who doesn't call them "Legos" (although I'm sure they exist - even if only those...
I personally suspect that "Lego" is the most mispronounced brand in the US - I have never heard an American who doesn't call them "Legos" (although I'm sure they exist - even if only those employed by Lego)
As a person with three kids in prime LEGO age, plus multiple LEGO obsessed adult friends, I hear people talk about LEGO the company ALL. THE. TIME. "Dad, why hasn't LEGO made a Percy Jackson set?"...
As a person with three kids in prime LEGO age, plus multiple LEGO obsessed adult friends, I hear people talk about LEGO the company ALL. THE. TIME.
"Dad, why hasn't LEGO made a Percy Jackson set?"
"Dad, LEGO discontinued this set I want, can we still buy it?" (It was like $700 dollars. We did not buy it)
"Dad! (younger brother) is messing with my Minecraft LEGO set!"
Please...can we talk about something besides LEGO? 😅
That's weirdly blunt/rude phrasing... are you trying to imply that Americans only talk about American companies or something? Starting to regret posting comments on Tildes now :-/
That's weirdly blunt/rude phrasing... are you trying to imply that Americans only talk about American companies or something?
Starting to regret posting comments on Tildes now :-/
I think LookAtTheName misunderstood the point of the article, but don't take it to heart. Most of the time on Tildes you get more helpful comments than harmful, compared to reddit at least, but...
I think LookAtTheName misunderstood the point of the article, but don't take it to heart. Most of the time on Tildes you get more helpful comments than harmful, compared to reddit at least, but once in a while you still see stuff like this. Sorry if my comment earlier contributed to your regret
I will always say "legos" in the same spirit as saying "the iphone". I could not care less about corporate branding guidelines and so far, no one on the planet has been able to make me do so. On...
I will always say "legos" in the same spirit as saying "the iphone". I could not care less about corporate branding guidelines and so far, no one on the planet has been able to make me do so.
On the fateful day (coming soon) when the corporate lawyer hit squads show up I will look up – and jump into – the nearest volcano.
Apple's weird cultish way of addressing their products is hilarious to me, because even their most die hard fans don't use it. It would be so strange to hear it in every day usage. "Honey, the...
Apple's weird cultish way of addressing their products is hilarious to me, because even their most die hard fans don't use it. It would be so strange to hear it in every day usage.
"Honey, the kids want to play candy crush. Where is iPad?"
"You think we should sell iMac? We don't use it much anymore."
"I know you were testing the pixel watch earlier, but it's time to test Apple Watch now. Make sure you charge Apple Watch."
It would sound like an alien attempting to clumsily blend in with humanity.
If they were serious about this, yeah, they'd have to go back a few steps. Just off the top of my head…. Start with a simple study measuring Forvo visitors’ self reported reasons for using the...
If they were serious about this, yeah, they'd have to go back a few steps. Just off the top of my head….
Start with a simple study measuring Forvo visitors’ self reported reasons for using the site and establish that a significant majority visit because of self-perceived pronunciation issue(s). You could do an MSc dissertation on this.
Continue with another study that confirms that these pronunciation issue(s) on the part of site visitors are in fact deviant in some meaningful way(s). There’s a PhD in this part alone.
The next studies could get into the brand-related stuff.
Since people are posting their own suggestions, I'll throw one in from my country and maybe this thread can serve as a repository for commonly mispronounced words. Not a brand per se, but anything...
Since people are posting their own suggestions, I'll throw one in from my country and maybe this thread can serve as a repository for commonly mispronounced words.
Not a brand per se, but anything that includes açaí as an ingredient.
It's 3 syllables, the ç sounds like an s, and the accent over the í means that's where the emphasis is.
A lot of TV/online cooking personalities and foodies like to use and mention the correct pronunciation of açaí, so I think that one is actually getting much more well known these days.
A lot of TV/online cooking personalities and foodies like to use and mention the correct pronunciation of açaí, so I think that one is actually getting much more well known these days.
That's true! I remember when it first gained popularity in the US as a healthy super food maybe like a decade ago and people pronounced it all sorts of ways ('akay' was my favorite).
That's true! I remember when it first gained popularity in the US as a healthy super food maybe like a decade ago and people pronounced it all sorts of ways ('akay' was my favorite).
I'm sure Volkswagen is one brand which is highly mispronounced outside of Europe and America. It should sound like "Folks" but most read it just like the letters and call it "Volks"-"wagon". And...
I'm sure Volkswagen is one brand which is highly mispronounced outside of Europe and America. It should sound like "Folks" but most read it just like the letters and call it "Volks"-"wagon".
And also "Credit Suisse". It's called "Swiss" but many call it "Su-ee-say".
Pretty sure the German 'w' is equivalent to English 'v' as well, which makes it "Folksvahgen". Which further makes BMW, also German, actually pronounced "BMV", which is pretty funny. Surprised...
Pretty sure the German 'w' is equivalent to English 'v' as well, which makes it "Folksvahgen".
Which further makes BMW, also German, actually pronounced "BMV", which is pretty funny. Surprised it's not on the list.
It's not far off, but it's not equivalent. There's a small but definite distinction between W and V that's difficult to hear for non Germans/Dutch people. For fun, try saying Bayerische Motoren...
It's not far off, but it's not equivalent. There's a small but definite distinction between W and V that's difficult to hear for non Germans/Dutch people.
For fun, try saying Bayerische Motoren Werke over BMW.
B and V are also pronounced pretty differently between German English. BMW is pronounced something like "bay em vay". However, I think it's incorrect to expect an acronym to be pronounced the...
B and V are also pronounced pretty differently between German English. BMW is pronounced something like "bay em vay".
However, I think it's incorrect to expect an acronym to be pronounced the exact same way across all languages. Unless the acronym is actually pronounced as a word (like "laser", which is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"), it's just a string of letters, and I think those letters should be pronounced consistently with the language being spoken.
I'd say that it's even Ok to pronounce laser differently, in my language it's pronounced the way it would sound in that language and I think that's fine.
I'd say that it's even Ok to pronounce laser differently, in my language it's pronounced the way it would sound in that language and I think that's fine.
Annoying redditesque pedantic fact you probably didn't care about moment incoming: All acronyms are actually pronounced as words. That's what makes them acronyms. If they're not pronounced as...
Annoying redditesque pedantic fact you probably didn't care about moment incoming:
All acronyms are actually pronounced as words. That's what makes them acronyms. If they're not pronounced as words, and instead as individual letters (BMW), they're called initialisms.
I am convinced that the distinction is a new fad. I ignore it specifically because it's an annoying pedantic thing that doesn't deserve anyone's attention. I have yet to hear anyone verbally speak...
I am convinced that the distinction is a new fad. I ignore it specifically because it's an annoying pedantic thing that doesn't deserve anyone's attention. I have yet to hear anyone verbally speak the word initialism in my lifetime; not even in English classes when I was a kid.
Maybe, no idea. Sometimes people rediscover the original meanings of words thanks to the internet and then the new thing becomes trying to get that word back to its original usage despite that...
Maybe, no idea. Sometimes people rediscover the original meanings of words thanks to the internet and then the new thing becomes trying to get that word back to its original usage despite that usage dimishing among the general public. Kind of a meme prescriptivism. That may be what's going on here, although I have heard people use initialism in real life.
Cottage Pie vs Shepherd pie is an example of this. The terms have overlapped for a long time, regardless of whether it's lamb or beef mince and it's mostly on places like reddit that it becomes a...
Cottage Pie vs Shepherd pie is an example of this. The terms have overlapped for a long time, regardless of whether it's lamb or beef mince and it's mostly on places like reddit that it becomes a whole thing
But there’s a huge catch here. Think of all the foods and ingredients that you have come across and how you pronounce those compared to how people in the food’s originating country (a tricky...
But there’s a huge catch here. Think of all the foods and ingredients that you have come across and how you pronounce those compared to how people in the food’s originating country (a tricky concept itself) do. Are you mispronouncing some of those things? Relative to whom? Does the pronunciation even have solid agreement or the name for the thing itself even have agreement within the country to which that thing ‘belongs’?
Now with brands we have an interesting case because you could say that the company may dictate how its name is pronounced. Sure, but does it always want to? And, is that not similar to how a person from country A in country B would accept alternative pronunciations of their name?
In many cases, companies will designate different pronunciations in different countries. For example, when I moved from the US to Australia, I was startled by the pronunciation of "Nissan" here....
Now with brands we have an interesting case because you could say that the company may dictate how its name is pronounced.
In many cases, companies will designate different pronunciations in different countries.
For example, when I moved from the US to Australia, I was startled by the pronunciation of "Nissan" here. Americans say something like "NEE-SAHN" (or "NEE- SARN" for any non-rhotic speakers reading this), while Australians say something like "NIS-in". But this is actually the way that the company itself pronounces its own name in each country: official Nissan TV commercials all say "NEE-SAHN" in the US and "NIS-in" in Australia.
Both of these pronunciations differ from the Japanese pronunciation, but it seems pretty unfair to call them mispronunciations when Nissan itself promotes these pronunciations.
Hyundai is another example. I've seen UK/AU commercials that pronounce it "HEE-OON-DAI" and commercials here in the US pronounce it "HUN-DAY." Two that I find a bit more interesting are Porsche...
Hyundai is another example. I've seen UK/AU commercials that pronounce it "HEE-OON-DAI" and commercials here in the US pronounce it "HUN-DAY."
Two that I find a bit more interesting are Porsche and Alpine. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial for either one that defines a pronunciation. And in some sense how you pronounce it kinda depends on how pretentious you want to sound: "PORSH" vs "PORSH-UH" and "AL-PINE" versus "AL-PEEN".
In the case of Alpine, 1. I doubt most Americans know of the brand unless they are car enthusiasts or F1 fans. 2. in the F1 fan case you here "AL-PEEN" all the time on broadcasts.
EDIT: examples of this are all over car world. Another example is Lancia: "LANSEE-UH" versus "LAWN-CHA". And Rimac: "RIM-AC" versus "RIM-AH-TSZ". Audi: "OW-DEE" versus "AH-DEE"
I think it's pretty mispronounced in America if it's supposed to be pronounced with an "F" rather than a V (though I think they've adopted the V pronunciation here?) Is Suisse not Su-EES?...
I think it's pretty mispronounced in America if it's supposed to be pronounced with an "F" rather than a V (though I think they've adopted the V pronunciation here?)
Is Suisse not Su-EES? (Approximate French pronunciation here)
For Romania, would have expected Dacia (it's pronounced the Romanian way, dah-chi-ya, not the English way, day-sha) to be more mispronounced than Bitdefender (which is obviously English).
For Romania, would have expected Dacia (it's pronounced the Romanian way, dah-chi-ya, not the English way, day-sha) to be more mispronounced than Bitdefender (which is obviously English).
As a narrator of ancient history videos, are you saying that the proper way to pronounce the people “the Dacians” should also be pronounced this way? I’ve been using Day-see-uns but would welcome...
As a narrator of ancient history videos, are you saying that the proper way to pronounce the people “the Dacians” should also be pronounced this way? I’ve been using Day-see-uns but would welcome the correction.
No, the name for the people/historical region is fine that way, that's the correct pronounciation in English. Just the brand name for the car manufacturer should be pronounced in Romanian, just...
No, the name for the people/historical region is fine that way, that's the correct pronounciation in English.
I had to read the article just to try to understand what they mean. And it's wrong. You don't put the stress on the first syllable; in Japanese, you essentially stress all syllables the same. It...
I had to read the article just to try to understand what they mean. And it's wrong. You don't put the stress on the first syllable; in Japanese, you essentially stress all syllables the same. It doesn't sound remotely like "hit Archie" to me.
The author likely heard the recording through their first language and imposed that ‘r’ on it. Also, yeah, Japanese has a thing called pitch accent. For example, the word "neko" (cat) has a...
The author likely heard the recording through their first language and imposed that ‘r’ on it. Also, yeah, Japanese has a thing called pitch accent. For example, the word "neko" (cat) has a high-low pitch pattern, where the first syllable is pronounced with a high pitch and the second syllable with a low pitch. In contrast, the word "inu" (dog) has a low-high pitch pattern, where the first syllable is pronounced with a low pitch and the second syllable with a high pitch.
Regarding Hitachi, according to NHK’s Japanese accent dictionary it’s the ‘ta’ that would sound “stressed” and not the ‘hi’.
I would like to nominate the french bike brand Vitus to this list. I own one and I've never had some many interpretations of one, seemingly straightforward, word thrown at me. VI-tus, vit-US,...
I would like to nominate the french bike brand Vitus to this list. I own one and I've never had some many interpretations of one, seemingly straightforward, word thrown at me. VI-tus, vit-US, VIT-is...
The whole premise of this seems really suspect to me. I'm not saying I can suggest a better methodology, but basing all the data on number of listens on Forvo.com can't be statistically meaningful. Or at least not as presented, as "the most mispronounced brand from every country."
That saying is really true here, if you torture the data long enough it will confess.
Drawing data from more than one site (which I've never heard of) would be a great start.
Yeah, especially because the people who looked up Société Générale more or less know how to pronounce it but some of the others are still tough to pronounce even after hearing it.
I personally suspect that "Lego" is the most mispronounced brand in the US - I have never heard an American who doesn't call them "Legos" (although I'm sure they exist - even if only those employed by Lego)
I mean, that may be an incorrect pluralization, but nobody thinks the word Lego is pronounced Legos, they just are saying the word Legos.
A fair point, I don't think I've heard any US folks talk about the company itself!
As a person with three kids in prime LEGO age, plus multiple LEGO obsessed adult friends, I hear people talk about LEGO the company ALL. THE. TIME.
"Dad, why hasn't LEGO made a Percy Jackson set?"
"Dad, LEGO discontinued this set I want, can we still buy it?" (It was like $700 dollars. We did not buy it)
"Dad! (younger brother) is messing with my Minecraft LEGO set!"
Please...can we talk about something besides LEGO? 😅
LEGO® for all 😹
Now we just need a signed affidavit that you're an American and that's the issue put to bed!
Will this be sufficient to validate my Americanness? /joke
That's weirdly blunt/rude phrasing... are you trying to imply that Americans only talk about American companies or something?
Starting to regret posting comments on Tildes now :-/
I think LookAtTheName misunderstood the point of the article, but don't take it to heart. Most of the time on Tildes you get more helpful comments than harmful, compared to reddit at least, but once in a while you still see stuff like this. Sorry if my comment earlier contributed to your regret
I will always say "legos" in the same spirit as saying "the iphone". I could not care less about corporate branding guidelines and so far, no one on the planet has been able to make me do so.
On the fateful day (coming soon) when the corporate lawyer hit squads show up I will look up – and jump into – the nearest volcano.
Apple's weird cultish way of addressing their products is hilarious to me, because even their most die hard fans don't use it. It would be so strange to hear it in every day usage.
"Honey, the kids want to play candy crush. Where is iPad?"
"You think we should sell iMac? We don't use it much anymore."
"I know you were testing the pixel watch earlier, but it's time to test Apple Watch now. Make sure you charge Apple Watch."
It would sound like an alien attempting to clumsily blend in with humanity.
If they were serious about this, yeah, they'd have to go back a few steps. Just off the top of my head….
Start with a simple study measuring Forvo visitors’ self reported reasons for using the site and establish that a significant majority visit because of self-perceived pronunciation issue(s). You could do an MSc dissertation on this.
Continue with another study that confirms that these pronunciation issue(s) on the part of site visitors are in fact deviant in some meaningful way(s). There’s a PhD in this part alone.
The next studies could get into the brand-related stuff.
Agreed. Nobody mispronounces Spotify or Volvo...
Since people are posting their own suggestions, I'll throw one in from my country and maybe this thread can serve as a repository for commonly mispronounced words.
Not a brand per se, but anything that includes açaí as an ingredient.
It's 3 syllables, the ç sounds like an s, and the accent over the í means that's where the emphasis is.
So aah-saah-EE
A lot of TV/online cooking personalities and foodies like to use and mention the correct pronunciation of açaí, so I think that one is actually getting much more well known these days.
That's true! I remember when it first gained popularity in the US as a healthy super food maybe like a decade ago and people pronounced it all sorts of ways ('akay' was my favorite).
I'm sure Volkswagen is one brand which is highly mispronounced outside of Europe and America. It should sound like "Folks" but most read it just like the letters and call it "Volks"-"wagon".
And also "Credit Suisse". It's called "Swiss" but many call it "Su-ee-say".
Pretty sure the German 'w' is equivalent to English 'v' as well, which makes it "Folksvahgen".
Which further makes BMW, also German, actually pronounced "BMV", which is pretty funny. Surprised it's not on the list.
It's not far off, but it's not equivalent. There's a small but definite distinction between W and V that's difficult to hear for non Germans/Dutch people.
For fun, try saying Bayerische Motoren Werke over BMW.
B and V are also pronounced pretty differently between German English. BMW is pronounced something like "bay em vay".
However, I think it's incorrect to expect an acronym to be pronounced the exact same way across all languages. Unless the acronym is actually pronounced as a word (like "laser", which is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation"), it's just a string of letters, and I think those letters should be pronounced consistently with the language being spoken.
I'd say that it's even Ok to pronounce laser differently, in my language it's pronounced the way it would sound in that language and I think that's fine.
Annoying redditesque pedantic fact you probably didn't care about moment incoming:
All acronyms are actually pronounced as words. That's what makes them acronyms. If they're not pronounced as words, and instead as individual letters (BMW), they're called initialisms.
I am convinced that the distinction is a new fad. I ignore it specifically because it's an annoying pedantic thing that doesn't deserve anyone's attention. I have yet to hear anyone verbally speak the word initialism in my lifetime; not even in English classes when I was a kid.
Maybe, no idea. Sometimes people rediscover the original meanings of words thanks to the internet and then the new thing becomes trying to get that word back to its original usage despite that usage dimishing among the general public. Kind of a meme prescriptivism. That may be what's going on here, although I have heard people use initialism in real life.
Cottage Pie vs Shepherd pie is an example of this. The terms have overlapped for a long time, regardless of whether it's lamb or beef mince and it's mostly on places like reddit that it becomes a whole thing
But there’s a huge catch here. Think of all the foods and ingredients that you have come across and how you pronounce those compared to how people in the food’s originating country (a tricky concept itself) do. Are you mispronouncing some of those things? Relative to whom? Does the pronunciation even have solid agreement or the name for the thing itself even have agreement within the country to which that thing ‘belongs’?
Now with brands we have an interesting case because you could say that the company may dictate how its name is pronounced. Sure, but does it always want to? And, is that not similar to how a person from country A in country B would accept alternative pronunciations of their name?
In many cases, companies will designate different pronunciations in different countries.
For example, when I moved from the US to Australia, I was startled by the pronunciation of "Nissan" here. Americans say something like "NEE-SAHN" (or "NEE- SARN" for any non-rhotic speakers reading this), while Australians say something like "NIS-in". But this is actually the way that the company itself pronounces its own name in each country: official Nissan TV commercials all say "NEE-SAHN" in the US and "NIS-in" in Australia.
Both of these pronunciations differ from the Japanese pronunciation, but it seems pretty unfair to call them mispronunciations when Nissan itself promotes these pronunciations.
Hyundai is another example. I've seen UK/AU commercials that pronounce it "HEE-OON-DAI" and commercials here in the US pronounce it "HUN-DAY."
Two that I find a bit more interesting are Porsche and Alpine. I don't think I've ever seen a commercial for either one that defines a pronunciation. And in some sense how you pronounce it kinda depends on how pretentious you want to sound: "PORSH" vs "PORSH-UH" and "AL-PINE" versus "AL-PEEN".
In the case of Alpine, 1. I doubt most Americans know of the brand unless they are car enthusiasts or F1 fans. 2. in the F1 fan case you here "AL-PEEN" all the time on broadcasts.
EDIT: examples of this are all over car world. Another example is Lancia: "LANSEE-UH" versus "LAWN-CHA". And Rimac: "RIM-AC" versus "RIM-AH-TSZ". Audi: "OW-DEE" versus "AH-DEE"
I think it's pretty mispronounced in America if it's supposed to be pronounced with an "F" rather than a V (though I think they've adopted the V pronunciation here?)
Is Suisse not Su-EES? (Approximate French pronunciation here)
Maybe "sweess"
For Romania, would have expected Dacia (it's pronounced the Romanian way, dah-chi-ya, not the English way, day-sha) to be more mispronounced than Bitdefender (which is obviously English).
As a narrator of ancient history videos, are you saying that the proper way to pronounce the people “the Dacians” should also be pronounced this way? I’ve been using Day-see-uns but would welcome the correction.
No, the name for the people/historical region is fine that way, that's the correct pronounciation in English.
Just the brand name for the car manufacturer should be pronounced in Romanian, just like Wikipedia does it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_Dacia
The author(s) from *BusinessFinancing.co.uk note that…
Based, presumably, on their Forvo listening. Man, this is some seriously bad linguistics.
I had to read the article just to try to understand what they mean. And it's wrong. You don't put the stress on the first syllable; in Japanese, you essentially stress all syllables the same. It doesn't sound remotely like "hit Archie" to me.
The author likely heard the recording through their first language and imposed that ‘r’ on it. Also, yeah, Japanese has a thing called pitch accent. For example, the word "neko" (cat) has a high-low pitch pattern, where the first syllable is pronounced with a high pitch and the second syllable with a low pitch. In contrast, the word "inu" (dog) has a low-high pitch pattern, where the first syllable is pronounced with a low pitch and the second syllable with a high pitch.
Regarding Hitachi, according to NHK’s Japanese accent dictionary it’s the ‘ta’ that would sound “stressed” and not the ‘hi’.
I would like to nominate the french bike brand Vitus to this list. I own one and I've never had some many interpretations of one, seemingly straightforward, word thrown at me. VI-tus, vit-US, VIT-is...