Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well you claimed that Americans are pronouncing it "perfectly correctly," and Germans might disagree. It's a German word which has been Americanized. The company mostly doesn't care, but there is a single correct pronunciation in their native language. Insisting you are correct mispronouncing a foreign word because the letters look a certain way is just hubris.
Americans are pronouncing the English word Volkswagen perfectly correctly yes. BECAUSE THEY ARE SPEAKING ENGLISH
Voltswagen of America
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Re: Voltswagen of America
#622Earlier quoted context omitted.
Btw, how do Germans generally pronounce "volt"? Folt? 230 fau? Or is it like wolt and we? Does the name change still make sense in German?
No the pronunciation would be similar (english V, not F) between German and English for Voltswagen. That's part of the joke.
I noticed that the German site hasn't changed anything, seems to be a US thing only.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
¿Cómo pronunciar jalapeño? ;-) Halapeinyo ;-)))
The i in your pei shan't be there, the sound is a flat peh . All of the syllables are flat sounds, hah-lah-peh-nyo .
Pein, not pei.
It's not "peh," it's "pān" unless you're a gringo.
If you want to get technical: hæləˈpeɪnjoʊ, hä″lə-pān′yō, or xa.laˈpɛ.ɲɔ.
FYI: "Shan't" means "shall not," not "should not." Maybe don't use archaic language if you don't know how to use it. ;-)
Re: Voltswagen of America
#624An out of season April 1 joke?
Re: Voltswagen of America
#625Hmm did they release their April 1 joke too early by mistake?
Re: Voltswagen of America
#626Hmm did they release their April 1 joke too early by mistake?
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22357166/volkswagen-name-... > The proximity of the name change to April Fool’s Day initially raised suspicions that it was just a joke. But VW insists that it’s a real thing, so here we are.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#627This is a dumb name. Two theories: 1. Some young VP convinced the company to do it; that person will only last a couple years before they move on. The company will change its name back shortly. 2. It’s an April fools joke that accidentally got published too early.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. Proper nouns are to be pronounced in whatever way is dictated by the country of origin. Also, no, English is not very reliable when it comes to spelling vs. pronunciation. (Former diction teacher, here.)
I'm going to avoid being snarky and point out this is merely the way you taught it. There is not hard and fast rule that says you have to do it this way. Also, Vs are actually pretty consistent in English. Can't even think of a word with a V where the V doesn't sound like a V.
V is actually the only letter in English that is never silent.
Most other letters also have various possible renderings into pronunciation, especially the vowels—"i" for instance can end up being at least 5 different vowel sounds and also some consonant sounds.
So yes. As I pointed out, English is extremely irregular orthographically, in stark contrast to languages like German, French, or Italian, all of which have extremely reliable and simple pronunciation rules.
Re: Voltswagen of America
#629Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an interesting observation. As a non-native speaker I was surprised by how many German expressions are used in English (with the correct German spelling). Even when there is a perfect (or near perfect) English equivalent. However, this is pretty different as VW is a brand name so you don't have much liberty in how you write it.
Toyota was toyoda in Japanese, but they changed the spelling to look better in English. It can be done. And why not? They change the names of cars all the time. Why not the brands too?
Also, I don't think FW would look better than VW ;). And well, Toyota didn't change their name to look better in English (or rather, written with the Latin alphabet). At least not according to wikipedia. Quite the contrary, it was about how it was written in Japanse:
"Vehicles were originally sold under the name "Toyoda" (トヨダ), from the family name of the company's founder, Kiichirō Toyoda.
[...]
In September 1936, the company ran a public competition to design a new logo. Of 27,000 entries, the winning entry was the three Japanese katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle. However, Rizaburo Toyoda, who had married into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" (トヨタ) because it took eight brush strokes (a lucky number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off the diacritic at the end), and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced consonants are considered to have a "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to voiceless consonants, which are "clear").
Since toyoda literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also prevented the company from being associated with old-fashioned farming. The newly formed word was trademarked and the company was registered in August 1937 as the Toyota Motor Company.[31][32][33]"
Re: Voltswagen of America
#630Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe they grew tired of Americans pronouncing it wrong (most V are still pronounced as F, Vettel, Volkswagen etc.) ;-) Edit: This German apologizes for an attempt at a humorous / sarcastic comment and will revert to work-machine state at once. Beep boop.
Americans are pronouncing it perfectly correctly as most of us speak English and not German.
Or should we perhaps stick with the old rule that names are correctly pronounced as their owner wants them pronounced...?