How do you pronounce....

[ItsAStupidQuestion]

Latte?

Do you say LAT-tay? Or LAR-tay?

Just curious.

Lar-tay but I know it should really be latt-ay

Lah-tay

Neither. It’s neither a short nor a long ‘a’ in English pronounciation.

Lat-Tay

Lah-tay. You're probably going to get a bunch of rhotic English speakers (e.g. Scottish people) replying with 'Why on earth would you put an 'r' sound in it?! There's no 'r' in latte!'. Because 'lar' = 'lah' to most English speakers from England!

In Italian the sound is sonewhere between a flat 'a' and an 'ah'. It's hard to replicate that without sounding a bit try-hard in English

Lattay

I say LAR-tay and when I hear northerners say LAT-tay it sounds really weird (sorry 🙈)

How do you say it?

Latteh, probably not quite the Italian pronunciation as I say it faster, but close enough.

Lat ay

Yes to a Scot there is definitely no r in latte! I’d say pronunciation is ‘latty’ - in my dialect it’s a short sound at the end, ‘Tay’ is too long.

My dh granddad was from Lancashire. He always pronounced in la tea

I sat LAT-Tay because I’m northern. If people from different regions say it differently that’s fine, we say lots of things differently. I do object slightly when people say I should say it differently because of the correct Italian pronunciation. I’m not Italian, I’m not in Italy and the drink isn’t Italian, if I asked for latte in Italy I’d be given milk, so I’m not going to worry about pronouncing it like an Italian.

I can never decide how to pronounce this! I think I flit between the two.

Curious where the “r” comes from? I speak American English, btw.

Flat white.

(Sorry.)

Latty - am Scottish. No r.

A lot of English people put in an r to indicate it's a long vowel because they don't pronounce r after a vowel. As at least one other person has already pointed out, people who pronounce English properly (i.e. Scottish people, probably also the Irish, not sure about the Welsh) don't do this.

As it happens, I am Scottish.

It's Lat Tay

I used to say Lar Tay which I realised was completely wrong

Not that it really matters tbh but yes the correct way is definitely Lat Tay

It's mocha that I'm not too sure about.

Lat-tay. Lah-tay sounds American to me! Although I'm sure it's probably regional like the whole bath/barth thing.

Curious where the “r” comes from? I speak American English, btw.

See my post above re: rhotic English speakers (which includes most U.S. American English speakers, I think). When most English speakers from England say, for example, the word 'car', there is no audible 'r' sound (we pronounce it 'cah'). So to us, 'lar-tay' is just as accurate a phonetic rendering as 'lah-tay', because 'ar' is 'ah' for us.

It's Lat Tay

I used to say Lar Tay which I realised was completely wrong

Not that it really matters tbh but yes the correct way is definitely Lat Tay

No it isn't. The Italian 'a' in latte is neither totally like in 'lat' nor like in 'lah'/'lar'. It's somewhere in between those sounds. So neither is more correct than the other.

It's weird calling it a latte anyway, imo, since latte just means milk. I'd like a milk please!

Laa-tay. Why on earth would you add an 'r'?

So of the probably approaching two billion people in the world who speak English as a native language - in India, large parts of Africa, North America, Australia, NZ, UK, Ireland and many other countries/territories/places, fewer than 14 million of them are speaking it 'properly'?!