Chorizo

[batmanladybird]

How should it be pronounced?

@BorisKilledMyHusband

Chore eetho in most of Spain Chore eezo in the South or South America.

I prefer the SA pronunciation .

@Alarmset

How it's spelt in English unless you want to sound outrageously pretentious

Same with croissant. They're worlds that have crossed into English. You're not speaking French/Spanish

So "chorizo" would be "chor - eye - zo" and "croissant" would be "croy-sant"?

So "chorizo" would be "chor - eye - zo" and "croissant" would be "croy-sant"?

More or less. A soft I in Chorizo. Chor - i - zo

Chor EEE tho in our house.

Makes me wince when people say Chor ITS so.

I always say Pie AY Ya as well (for Paella) but always feel very self conscious. Its generally accepted that we say Tor Tee ah (tortilla) and Fa Hee ta (fajita), so why don;t we pronouce Paella correctly in this country??

Alarm do you mean a short "i" as in "fish" when you say a "soft i"?
Or do you mean an "i" as in "pizza" which isn't an English vowel spelled like that?
In English we spell that vowel "ee" like in "sheep".
If it's spelled just "i" then it's either "fish" or "item".

I pronounce it cho-ree-so and I'm a native speaker.

I think it's been in the English speaking culinary world for long enough for us to be able to say it properly. Unless the people who think it's "wanky" still say "pitsa" or "pizzer", "camemberT" etc.

I live in Spain
Chur...eee.tho

There's no such thing as a soft /I/.
There's a short /I/ and a long /I/
The problem with both Spanish and Italian /I/ is that theirs is ever so slightly longer than our short one ("ship") and ever so slightly shorter than our long one ( "sheep")
It's why those speakers have trouble with ours, and we have trouble with theirs.

@lborgia

I say "Chore - reez- oh" or similar, but I know a lot of people say chore-rith-oh .. which I think sounds ridiculous unless you're Spanish.

Interested to know if there's another option!

100% this. It’s like speaking English but saying, ‘we’ve booked a holiday to Paree’ in a French accent. There are plenty of borrowed words that we have anglicised and nobody makes a big deal.

I speak Spanish so could pronounce it correctly, but unless actually in Spain I would avoid saying it at all because it’s too cringe to say it wrong and too cringe to say it right.
I have never ordered panini for related reasons.

Wanky to know how to say chorizo properly??? Hilarious.

@amusedbush That's because Paris is pronounced Paris in English, even though it's spelt the same it has a French and an English pronunciation. Some other countries/cities have a different name in their language and ours ie Florence/Firenze.

Chorizo though doesn't have an English word or English pronunciation of it's own because it's just a sausage.

[quote Tal45]@amusedbush That's because Paris is pronounced Paris in English, even though it's spelt the same it has a French and an English pronunciation. Some other countries/cities have a different name in their language and ours ie Florence/Firenze.

Chorizo though doesn't have an English word or English pronunciation of it's own because it's just a sausage.[/quote]
That’s a good point and maybe I’m just flat-out wrong but I still can’t bring myself to say choreetho

The same way I know that Nike is really pronounced Nikey and Adidas is Addy-das but I continue to say them wrong to fit in with everyone around me

I know it should be choreetho but I still say choreetso.

In the same way I know it’s technically pie-ay-ya but I say pie-ell-a. I feel a bit of a twat otherwise.

@batmanladybird

How should it be pronounced?

Mine!

I speak Mexican Spanish and it's pronounced, "choh-ree-zho".

As much as the Spanish pronunciation with the "th" sounds odd to me, it's better than some people's pronunciation with a "t". Please don't do that.

@elp but in Mexican Spanish s and z sound exactly the same, so it would be cho-ree-so , no?

We say
Chor ritz oh
But we are not Spanish !!!

I am not a native Spanish speaker, but I speak Spanish, in Spain, on a daily basis. It sounds completely wrong to me to say it in an anglicised way when speaking in English. How is that wanky? Why would I deliberately choose to pronounce a word wrongly?! I also say Mur-th-ia and pay-ey-ya when speaking English. And I try to say croissant correctly too.

@PinkSkiesAtNight But you actually live in Spain, so you're fitting in with local people and local pronunciation. Totally different to ordering it at a cafe in the UK.

It’s said with an English accent in our house as we’re not Spanish.

@tectonicplates true. But I would also say it the same way in a café in England. It would feel strange to mispronounce it. I've spent far too much time thinking about this on the school run this morning and I would say Madrid the English way in English. I think chorizo is a word that is so established in English now, like café, croissant and pizza, that it is acceptable to pronounce it properly. if you know how to

I don't think it's pretentious to pronounce chorizo correctly - certainly better than saying it as tho' it's Italian rather than Spanish!

I always hedge my bets so I don't sound like a complete ponce. I say "cho-ree-zo". Likewise jalapeño - I say "halla-peeno". Not going the whole hog, but also not implying that I don't at least know some Spanish pronunciation