But what about their pronunciation?

In today's video, I'm going to give you 10 loanwords and I'd like you to say the pronunciation and guess which language they come from.

Joining me for the challenge is Gideon from LetThemTalkTV.

Gideon, thank you so much for joining me today.

Hello Luke, thank you for inviting me.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, and thanks for accepting the challenge.

Are you ready for loanword number one?

I'm a bit nervous, but yes, go ahead.

So on the screen now, can you tell me how this word is pronounced and which language it comes from?

Yes, I know this word.

I think there are two ways to pronounce it.

Because I do speak some and if I was saying in Spanish, I would say amigo.

But if I was using it as a loanword, I would say amigo.

Is that right?

Well, maybe there's no right or wrong answer.

But usually when we take words from other languages, we adapt them to our sound system.

And this is known as anglicization.

So this word in Spanish, we anglicize it.

So often that first vowel becomes a schwa.

So we often say amigo rather than the Spanish amigo.

At the end of this word, we have an O vowel in English rather than the O of Spanish.

Another difference is the letter G, which is pronounced as a G sound in English, amigo.

But in Spanish is a G sound.

So an approximant here, amigo, rather than amigo.

We're using it as a loanword, but if you used it in English with a female, you'd probably also say amigo, not amiga, wouldn't you?

One of the reasons we anglicize it is that we're used to pronouncing the sounds of English rather than the sounds of other languages.

So it's simply easier for English speakers to pronounce it in a more English way.

The other thing is that we're used to hearing English sounds.

So it makes more sense for communication if we're using English sounds rather than sounds from other languages.

Yet another reason is that we may have never heard the pronunciation in the original language.

There are going to be English speakers who have used the word amigo, but have never heard a Spanish person say it.

Very interesting.

So like in Spanish, it ends with an O sound, but we don't have many words in English, do we?

That the last sound is an O, it's an O or something different.

I suppose in my accent, I have an O vowel at the ends of words.

So for example, the past tense of C is saw, or, and that might be fairly similar, but it's not exactly the same.

Okay.

I remember what's in Fowler's Modern Usage, that when you're using a foreign word, a loan word in English, you don't want to sound exactly as it sounds in the foreign language, because firstly, that might alienate someone, they might not recognize the word, but you don't want to sound as if it's too much like an English word.

You kind of make a nod to the foreign language, just to indicate to the listener that it is a foreign word or a loan word, but nothing so close they wouldn't recognize what you're talking about.

I suppose it's tricky to find the balance between giving a nod to that language and not sounding pretentious.

Exactly.

It's a difficult line to draw because, you know, if you've studied Spanish or another language, you probably know some of those rules.

But perhaps you shouldn't.

I wouldn't say, if I'm speaking in English, I wouldn't say, you're my amigo.

One thing that is a bugbear of mine is when people ask for ciabatta when they're ordering it at an Italian deli in England.

Whereas, of course, according to Italian spelling to sound rules, if you see a C and then the letter I, it's a ch and not a cia.

So it's a ch or cha rather than cia at the beginning of this word.

So it would be ciabatta rather than ciabatta.

You'd still maintain sort of the an English way of saying it, but expect the cha at the beginning. Ciao, I suppose, as well, would be another example.

Yes, exactly.

Ciao.

So I would add a ch at the beginning, so ch rather than cha, and then I wouldn't geminate the t, so I wouldn't make the t longer.

I would just say one t sound, ciabatta, and then a schwa at the end, ciabatta, which, you know, according to many Italians, would be butchering this word.

It's anglicizing it, but still keeping the consonant sounds vaguely the same.

OK, let's take a look at word number two.

Ah, this one I know pretty well.

Café.

It's quite close, the French and the English.

Café, café.

Yeah, I suppose a couple of differences here.

In French, that first sound wouldn't be aspirated as much.

So in English, we would say c, c, café, but in French, café, you're not going to add lots of air to the c.

And the second thing is that we usually make the final vowel a diphthong, so it's a, a, café, at least in my accent, whereas in French, it would be a monophthong, i, café.

Do you know how people would pronounce this word in North America, how it would be different to our accents?

I'm not even going to try.

I'll leave that to you.

Do tell me.

Well, the stress is different.

Often when you have two-syllable words of French origin, English people often place the stress on the first, café, whereas North Americans place it on the second.

So, café.

Café.

OK, yeah, yeah, that sounds familiar.

Yeah.

Let's take a look at number three.

Number three, not from a language that I know.

I think it's Turkish, but...

Yes.

I would say doner kebab.

I've no idea about the Turkish pronunciation.

That's how most English people would say it.

Doner kebab, doner kebab.

How would Americans pronounce it?

Doner kebab, have I heard?

Is that known?

I think the stress would still be the same.

OK.

But the vowels might change.

OK.

So, some people would say doner, doner, rather than doner, doner.

So, the vowels change and we're adding the R in American English.

And then in the second word, the second vowel is different.

So, rather than kebab with an A vowel in my accent, kebab, kebab with an R vowel in American English.

This is how it's spelled in Turkish.

Does that help you with the pronunciation?

Not at all.

So, the pronunciation in Turkish and Turkish speakers, you're going to probably comment and tell me how I've done it wrong.

But the first word stresses on the second.

And so it's doner, doner.

And so it's an E type vowel at the beginning and the stress is on the second, doner.

And then it's kebab, kebab ends in a P.

Doner kebab in my bad Turkish.

Yes, and also in my bad Turkish.

And also what I find really interesting about Turkish is that when you have an R sound at the end of a word and there's nothing following or a voiceless sound following, then that R, which is a R type sound becomes voiceless.

So, it's doner rather than doner.

That's something you'll hear in Turkish speakers.

Forgive me if I don't attempt that right now.

Okay, you don't have to go.

So, it becomes voiceless, doner instead of doner.

Yeah, exactly.

Rather than R, it's a R sound.

That's difficult to say.

Doner.

I'll practice at home later on.

Or at your local doner kebab.

Yes, yes.

Let's take a look at number four.

Number four, again from French, I would say, in English I say entrepreneur.

That's the usual pronunciation, entrepreneur, in England at least.

And what about the French pronunciation?

Now, my French pronunciation isn't perfect, I should say.

I would say something like entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur.

It's difficult with those French R's, but… It's not important to speak a language perfectly because perfection doesn't exist, and the most important thing is communication.

But we could easily tell from your very good French R sounds that those R's have changed.

There's another difference with this word, which is vowel nasalisation.

In French, that first vowel is nasalised and that N isn't pronounced.

So, it's something like entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur.

In American English, that final R is pronounced as an R sound.

So, entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur.

I, I, I, have I heard entrepreneur?

Some people have said to say that in America or somewhere like that?

Yes, exactly.

And that's an alternative pronunciation.

Entrepreneur.

Perhaps using French pronunciation particularly might sound pretentious in the English-speaking world, I think.

I think we associate French culture with being high culture and perhaps imitating more of a French accent.

Either you're intending to sound humorous or people are going to perceive it as quite pretentious.

I think so.

And sometimes, as you said before, English people might just not understand.

I'm always thinking of the example of we say in English cul-de-sac, a dead-end road.

But the French pronunciation would be cul-de-sac, which is very different.

And I would never say to anyone, don't go down there, it's a cul-de-sac.

Firstly, you sound extremely pretentious.

And secondly, they probably wouldn't understand what you're talking about.

Yes, yes.

Although it does add a little bit of je ne sais quoi.

Yeah, sure.

Let's take a look at number five.

Number five.

Now, I think this is from Greek.

I think we've already had doner kebab.

This is gyro, is it?

Gyro.

I'm not even sure in English, to be honest, because I think in America there, they usually say gyro, gyro.

But in British, we usually use kebab version, don't we?

So I'm not even sure.

You might have caught me out here.

Gyro?

Well, I think a lot of English speakers won't know how to pronounce this or will come up with different ways to pronounce it.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this is either gyro or gyro.

But I think various pronunciations exist.

Obviously, in Greek, it's written in a different alphabet.

And there's also a sound at the end.

So in Greek, it's something like gyros, gyros.

But English, gyro or gyro, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

OK.

OK, that's interesting.

That's interesting.

Gyro, gyros.

OK.

What does it literally mean?

Do you know?

It's, it means turning because the meat is turning on that spit.

Oh, like gyration that comes from the same word.

Yeah, exactly.

OK, I see.

That's very interesting.

I got that one completely wrong.

So I've learned that.

I'm not sure if there's a right or wrong here.

It's simply how do we anglicize these words and people will have different opinions.

And the other thing is, do we do we first see these foreign words written down or do we first hear them?

And obviously, if you hear them, you're more likely to pick up that pronunciation.

If you read it, you're more likely to try and apply some English spelling to sound rules, which is why gy rather than year. We're more likely to say gyro rather than gyro here.

It makes more sense according to English spelling to sound rules.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've now reached the middle of the loanword pronunciation challenge.

And this is just a reminder that it's not just English that has borrowed words from other languages.

Other languages have also borrowed words from English.

So we have jogging or jogging in French.

We have handy in German and we have sandwich in Russian.

Now back to the challenge.

OK, number six.

Now I this is from Japanese, although it's kind of an English borrowing, as I think you might explain that later.

But I know a little bit of Japanese.

So in English, I say karaoke or karaoke.

But I think in Japanese you would say something like karaoke.

Is that right?

Yes, exactly.

What I find really strange about the anglicized pronunciation of this word is that it's karaoke, right?

You wouldn't expect an e vowel here, karaoke, when the Japanese and the spelling clearly indicates some kind of a sound.

But if you think about how English works, we never have an a followed by another vowel sound.

It's always followed by a consonant.

So we have cat, but not ca.

Ca can't be a word in English, but cat can be because a is followed by a consonant sound.

So here we can't say karaoke because there's a vowel following.

E is a very common vowel to have before another vowel in English.