To ask if you change accents when pronouncing a foreign word?

[AnaViaSalamanca]

So it goes like this: say you are speaking English, but you have to say a place or a food's name in French. Do you change your accent to say it with a French accent? Or keep to English? For example Jardin du Luxembourg, do you say it with a french accent, or jaaaardeeen du Luxembourg or simply Luxembourg gardens?

I feel it;s very pretentious to change accents to be honest, but can't bear to pronounce things wrong so usually translate if I can, but it does get very tedious...

Is there a proper way of doing this?

In our family it goes like this at Pizza Express:

Me: I'll have the brusketta please
Waiter: oh, you mean the bruschetta?
Me: yes, the brusketta
My DH: sharp kick under the table in my direction

My French DH hates the way most English people pronounce pain au chocolat, because they pronounce the n and the end of pain

So it sounds like

Pan-o-shock-oh-la

When it should be

Pa-oh-shock-oh-la

Has nobody brought up 'latte' yet?

'Not in Latin American Spanish. I say cho-REE-so.'

I do, too. I grew up bilingual with Mexican Spanish. My father is a native speaker who never learned English until he went to school and never spoke English in the home. My mother grew up trilingual with English at school, Mexican Spanish from her father and French from her French mother. She has been to Spain quite a bit, however, and changes to Castilian pronunciation when she's there.

I'm bilingual but when I'm saying a particular word or phrase in my native language, I will say it kind of in an English accent so any English speaker can understand. If I said it in full accent, it probably wouldn't be understood.

To the Dutch speaker who mentioned pronouncing Van Gogh, what is the correct way? I know we say Van Goff and for Americans it's more like Van Go, but I've always assumed it's probably neither or something in between?

Re the rest, I think I do like a lot have said, prouounced correctly but not with a highly exaggerated accent. Unless it's a word we've adopted so long ago it's just considered an English word, like pp said bungalow (not that I know what the Indian pronunciation would be anyway) - I would just use an English pronunciation and accent in this case.

It’s pretentiousness vs ignorance. I know which I’d choose.

grey - always thought the au bit in pain au chocolate wasn't pronounced. So in France I'd ask for a pa-skocola. In the UK I'd ask for a chocolate croissant.

I met someone who pronounced the z in pizza ( so it sounded more like most people would say Leaning tower of Pisa).
I guess they were determined to say it in an English accent, not an Italian one. It sounded very odd.

But, but, but, all those who say you pronounce words correctly according to the original language- what about Lidl? I think I am the only person left that pronounces it Leedle rather than the anglicised Liddle. I am a German speaker and yet so many people look at me as if I am crazy and say 'oh do you mean liddle?' No I bloody don't!

It depends to whom you are speaking. I live in Belgium, which has three official languages, and most speak English. If I'm speaking English to a Belgian then I will use the correct Flemish/French/German word pronounced correctly, if one needs to be used. They've been polite enough to speak to me in my language; the least I can do is not to mangle or anglicise a word in theirs.

My Spanish friend taught me how to pronounce chorizo!

Underneath If you ask for a chocolate croissant, you won't get a pain au chocolat. They are different things ( at least they are in Belgium).

I’m sure I’ve read that ‘chor ee zo’ is perfectly acceptable for an English speaker whereas chor it zo isn’t because that’s the Italian pronunciation of z so has no place in a Spanish word.
Is there a similar half way house for paella? I can’t bring myself to do a full on John torode!

OP this is a great question because I always have this problem. It usually depends on my audience. If it’s a regular person who I don’t really know I’ll say it in Anglicised form and offer a prayer of repentance to the language Gods.

If it’s in their language that I don’t know I’ll ask.

If it’s someone who speaks said language I’ll say properly (providing I know what it is of course).

If it’s my Mum I’ll say it with a deliberately pretentious flourish because my mum loves to greet me with a dramatic “Bon Jorrrrrrrrr” and serves every Italian meal she cooks (deliciously!) with a comical hand gesture and over exaggerated penultimate syllable.

And if someone says “no problemo” I spontaneously combust inside but say nothing. Because, well, I don’t want to piss anyone off

I truly love your question.

I die a little bit inside every time my mother says Ma-Jor-ca. She's adamant that's how it should be pronounced (instead of ma-your-ca). Please feel free to tell me she's right so I can start to heal the embarrassment.

Grey - that’s interesting as my French OH would definitely pronounce the n due to the following vowel. His cousins however would just say chocolatine so I suppose it’s regional

I never would as I'm only fluent in English. However I'm told if I recite something I learnt in school (eg The Lord's Prayer) then I revert to a northern accent. Dh finds this very funny.
So I can understand that if you are bilingual you probably do it without thinking about it.

I always try to pronounce things properly. But I’m multi lingual so I guess it come naturally.

In the UK I'd ask for a chocolate croissant.

Then surely that’s what you’d get and not a pain au chocolat? They are not the same thing. If I heard someone in the UK refer to a pain au chocolat as a chocolate croissant I’d automatically assume they were an idiot.

@everythingstaken123 perhaps your mum is channeling her inner Mexican! I seem to remember that in some regions they would say “jaygar” instead of “yegar” for “llegar”.

Incidentally I’ve just learned that Gothenburg is actually pronounced “Yurteborry” and I’m not sure I can go back from that now!

I'm told if I recite something I learnt in school (eg The Lord's Prayer) then I revert to a northern accent

When I go back up north, I revert to a fairly broad Doncaster dialect but still in a very R4 southern accent (imagine Sandi Toksvig saying “eh oop” and you get the picture). My husband says it sounds hilariously bad, I have absolutely no idea I am doing it.

I would always go with the correct local pronunciation where I could. If someone said Luxembourg Gardens or Our Lady of Paris to me, I wouldn't initially understand what they meant.

I always pronounce it in the correct accent, because I’m multi lingual and a pedant!