to hate people who put on an accent when they say a foreign word?

[JustAHolyFool]

It really grinds my gears. I was talking to someone the other night and he started talking about the "bella figura" thing in Italy, but every time he said "bella figura" he said it in an Italian accent.

Dreadful.

I speak German but if I say, I don't know, Doppelganger or Reichstag or something, I don't put on a German accent to say it.

My best friend also does this, trilling her r's like a good one if she mentions anything Spanish.

Why is it so annoying? Is it annoying? Is it just me?

Are you British, CoteDAzur?

(Readjusts theories about British fear of seeming pretentious.)

That's what I'm saying Porkster. And Cote. I tor-tee-ya with the best of them. What I don't do is put on a cod Spanish accent when I do it.

JustAHolyFool - How do you pronounce "parmesan"?

From Anglophones, I have mostly heard it pronounced par-muh-zsohn with that last syllable pronounced like the French name Jean (Think of Jean Valjean of Les Miserables).

No Peevish, I'm not British.

Sod the accent thing. It grind MY gears when people insert foreign words into an English sentence. I'm thinking of words like de rigeur (I think that is how it's spelt) or sans.

Sorry OP, misunderstood. I shall refer you to my mother who puts on a stupid accent everytime she talks to somebody foreign. As though she were addressing a five year old, but with a strange accent, too!

"Les Miserables" isn't pronounced "LayMizzRarb", by the way. It is more like "Leh Miz-eh-ROHBL". There is no second R in the last syllable, and the L at the end is definitely pronounced.

Justa - but how do you differentiate accent from pronunciation? Take your example of 'tortilla' - even if you pronounce it 'torTEEya', to pronounce it correctly you still need to make deeply un-English sounds, like rolling the 'r' slightly - and the 'ee' sound isn't the same as in 'cup of tea'.

Er, isn't that exactly what I am saying Cote? People attempting to put on an accent resulting in atrocities like Paremzohn?

I say parm-i-zan.

It is pretty obvious in practice, Peevish.

Sonia I understand how your DH must feel. I have a problem with saying Kant, as in the philosopher

JustA - In your OP you are saying you have a problem with people who speak foreign words correctly. Or have I misunderstood? You are mentioning a friend who says "bella figura" in an Italian accent, which I presume was the correct way of saying it.

My problem is with people who completely mispronounce words.

There's a difference between saying the word correctly and putting on an over-done accent.

If you can't understand that, there's not much else I can say.

JustA - It's not parm-i-zan, by the way, but par-meh-zuhn. Listen here.

How exactly would you know if someone is pronouncing it correctly or not, though, given that you obviously don't speak these languages yourself?

Example: If you heard me say par-meh-zuhn, you would think that I am "putting on an overdone accent" because you seem to think it is pronounced parm-i-zan.

My German teacher told the group a few weeks ago that if a word is English then Germans are supposed to pronounce it in an English accent.

I had asked him how to tell people that I am Welsh. Apparently I am to say Wuh-elsh not Vel-sh. Wuh-ailes not Val-ez.

Yet they can't understand it in an English accent because in their heads they are thinking where is this place beginning with a V?

Anyhow the whole class got derailed as we highlighted every single incidence where Germans don't pronounce English created words in an English accent:

Www. Is veh, veh, veh,
DVD is de,veh,de
VIP is pronounced as Whip
Oasis sing a song called Vuuundaaavall.

I think he was sorry he'd brought it up.

In the country of origin it does help to pronounce in the accent. It does sound a bit wanky asking for a crrrrroizzzzan in Gregg's I suppose....

I could however go to higher echelons of farty pretentiousness and request some "Gipfeli"

I don't really care about the correct pronunciation. I care about the stupid accent. As I've said 20 times.

I get annoyed when words are over-corrected in comic accents. For example, Parmesan. "par-mee-san" would be over-corrected not to "parr-mi-Zhan", but to "Paaarrrr-Meee-GeeArno" in an accent like Luigi from Mario Bros.

I use poncy German pronunciation of Lidl cause I lived in Germany for 20 years and can't get used to saying Liddel.

I know what you mean though, it is an extension of LOUD PARENTING, I think. Not simply using the correct pronunciation, but doing it in an ostentatious accent to show off.

DH is German and has a grand Scottish accent, and DS has started to say, 'Ah dinna ken' just to annoy me.

loveto Out of curiosity I just asked DH to say "Kant", I'd never heard him say it before, philosophy not being his thing.

He wants to know why I'm sniggering.

I think that its normal to use the most common pronounciation of words in the language you are speaking. If that language is your first and it is also the first/only language of the person you are speaking to and you STILL insist on pronouncing it differently then it becomes odd. If you put on a dodgy accent then its very odd.

My dh is Hungarian and when he is speaking in Hungarian he says Budapesht, but when he is speaking in English it becomes Budapest.I know an English person who pronounces it Budapesht even when she talks in English - very pretentious and annoying, imo.

hmm interesting. The way i see it is these words are actually names of things, so the name is pronounced the same in any accent/language. Ie i wouldn't expect Cathrines to be called Katerinas in certain countries.

So Quesedilla is kay-se-di-ya, because that's the name of the dish in whatever country you eat it. if that makes sense.

Justt like you pronounce Wagner - Vargner etc. Can you imagine being at a concert and saying 'oooh i love a bit of WAG-ner'?

Yes but I'm saying that a French person would be encouraged to say Fish and Chips, not feeeeesh ah sheeeeeps if they were learning English. And a German would be encouraged not to say Fish und Ichpz.

I think your annoyance lies mainly in the pretentiousness of the situation i.e spitting cwazzon loudly over the counter in Cafe Rouge after spending a week eating them at a marvellous little Patizeyree when staying at a Zhgeeeet in the Dordogne, when the person behind the counter would perfectly understand the word in an English accent?

Should we call it the miserables.

OP I think YABU.
English is such a bastard language with so many assimilated words. I heard that the French were so protective of the erosion of their language that they have people to make up French words for new technologies, or is that an urban myth?

Incidentally, about pronouncing foreign words in their country of origin with the correct accent, I knew what my Polish friend meant when she said I had to wear liars in winter to keep warm, (eventually). Still a damn sight better than my attempts at Polish pronunciation.