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?

52 I pronounce Lidl like you! I do speak German though

am glad others have intervened in the chorizo - Castillian/Latin American debate!

perhaps your mum is channeling her inner Mexican! I've heard j used in other parts of Latin America too.

My mum can speak French, a little German and always manages Spanish and Italian words fine but she butchers Portuguese and DH and the kids are native Portuguese speakers. I know the ão, ã, õe can be difficult, most people butcher words with those sounds but my mum butchers the city Curitiba every. ..single. ...time. We've told her how it's pronounced ku-ri-chi-ba and without fail she will say kuritch-iba. I can't stand it! I wish she was channeling something... other than her inner stupid!

I pronounce words correctly but still in my own accent, it's easy. Why would you try and sound French/Spanish/Mexican if youre not? I love it when people who do this also add a couple of theatrical hand movements to their new voice. dm

Is there a similar half way house for paella?

Nope, it's Pie-Ayya. You don't have to put on a Spanish accent, that would sound daft, but just say Pie-Ayya instead of Pie-Ella.

PinkFlamingo

I am pretty sure there is no official liaison in pain au chocolat. It looks like there should be but there is not!

But I accept it might be a regional thing.

I just asked my French DH and he said "les liaisons, tu sais...."

I don’t understand why some places are pronounced in their own language, but others aren’t. Why is it Nee-zher, and Cote d’Ivoire, but not Pa-ree or Bear-lin?

Pink
Now my husband has got the bit between his teeth and has googled the answer and apparently there is a rule that says no liaison with singular nouns!

Born in the middle, now lives in Paris.

When a word with a silent final consonant is followed by a word that starts with a vowel, there are three cases:

Required liaison (example: mes amis)

Optional liaison (example: je suis ici)

Forbidden liaison (example: pain au chocolat)

FrancisCrawford

I have just fallen in to a liaison black hole!

Here's more on forbidden liaisons (sounds hot!)
www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/forbidden-liaisons/

I think it really depends on the word or phrase. Croissant for example sounds better with a French accent rather than an English/Scottish/welsh/Irish one. My mum pronounces it in our local accent and it just sounds weird.

Similarly I wouldn’t necessarily translate words to English. Could you imagine asking for a bottle of toilet water instead of Eau de toilette? But then I would say perfume father than parfum (the latter requiring a French accent). Like I said it really depends on the word.

I don't change my accent or go out of my way to over exaggerate the accent when using foreign words, but I will use the correct pronunciation.

I am English but I lived in Spain for a decade, my DD was born and brought up there so while she is bilingual, Spanish is her default and it's only been the last couple of years, when we moved back to the UK, that she has started using English as her "main" language.

If we are talking about paella or chorizo (to use this thread's favoured examples) then we both use the correct Spanish pronunciation, but her pronunciation is more noticeable. This is because using Spanish words brings out her native Spanish accent which is distinctive to her English accent and draws attention to the word whereas I am a native English speaker and when I use Spanish words I can do so with Spanish pronunciation but with an English accent so it still fits in my natural speaking cadence.

Also if words have a Spanish pronunciation and an English pronunciation then my DD will often still default to the Spanish pronunciation as that's just what she was always used to, but when done with her English accent can sound like she's trying to be pretentious when it's just because she's Spanish with English parents.

52 I pronounce Lidl like you! I do speak German though Thanks Isadora, glad I am not the only one!

I get twitchy when people pronounce it "liddle"

What about bon voyage..

or le tour de France.
Surely you wouldn't call it the tour of France?

I used to work with a man in Paris who talked about "North Station" when referring to Gare du Nord in English

I'm multilingual and I always change accents, even when I'm speaking English, if I'm speaking with an American, I use an American accent, with a British person or use my British accent although people can still tell that I lived in the states for many years. People in the UK ask me where I'm from and some have difficult Y believing I'm from the UK.

Back to your question though, there has been a lot of debate in the US by Spanish-speaking newscasters on how to pronounce things when the word is Spanish. Americans don't like it.

I aim for the right pronunciation (and no doubt often fail) but I don't change my accent.

Interesting thread.

There's a big difference between pronouncing a foreign word with the correct foreign pronunciation and actually putting on the accent from the country.

For example, a woman I work with has a Nigerian name. I pronounce it the 'correct' way, which ignores the initial vowel and makes it two syllables rather than the three it would have if i followed the usual English pronunciation rules. But there is no way on earth I would say it with a Nigerian accent!

Interestingly, my German DH (living in the U.K. for decades) says 'liddle' not 'leedl.

Pronouncing the word correctly is obviously fine, but putting an accent on is highly irritating

I think I am the only person left that pronounces it Leedle rather than the anglicised Liddle.

You're not. I can't train myself out of pronouncing it that way, and what's more, I can remember when the radio adverts pronounced it that way too.

A close relation of mine, when she is in conversation with people who are speaking English as a second language - especially French people, but also to a lesser extent Spanish and Italian people - will start pronouncing completely English words in the accent of the person she is talking to.

It is excruciating and makes me and my siblings want to bundle her into the boot of a car and send her far, far away.