We love to drive ‘em and we often talk about ‘em. Even if you’re no car enthusiast, no doubt you’ve still found yourself in conversations about cars and having to navigate their names. Most of us blaze on airily through, adopting popular pronunciation but here’s the catch… What if most people are pronouncing it wrong?
Well, as it happens we’ve written a guide to let you know how to correctly pronounce the names of 8 cars which are either commonly mispronounced or just a little tricky. (Please note that we’ve made up our own phonetic alphabet below according to what we think makes the most sense).
- Porsche
Porsche immediately brings cool-looking, glossy luxury sports cars to mind but does it bring the right pronunciation to the tip of your tongue? Lots of people pronounce it porsh like porch but with a shhh sound at the end. Lots of people would be wrong. In reality, Porsche is pronounced porsh-ah. Satisfying, right?
- Lancia
The name of this Italian manufacturer is another one more satisfying to say when it’s said correctly. Instead of lan-see-ah it’s actually pronounced lan-cha.
- Hyundai
Anyone else out there been pronouncing this so that it rhymes with high-and-dry? Hyundai is based in South Korea and it turns out that’s not actually the way to say it. It should be said hyun-day (a bit like Sunday). This video from TalkToMeInKorean says it better than we could.
- Volkswagen
So here the w is turned into a v sound, while the actual v is turned into an f sound. You should end up with something like folks-vah-gen.
- Citroën
We tend to turn this very pretty French name into sit-trun which doesn’t sound quite as nice as the original although, if you don’t know what the diaeresis (two dots) over the e means, it’s understandably a difficult one to automatically get right. It just means that there should be two syllables there instead of one, making it seet-tro-en. See what we mean? Much nicer.
- Koenigsegg
If you look at this name and think ‘Help!’, you’re not alone. Koenigsegg is Swedish and intimidating just to look at, let alone say. It should be pronounced something like kur-nig-szegg. The z sound is somewhere between a z and an s, making a sound we’re not sure how to replicate with words. Oh and the kur is sort of a ko-ern but run together. Yup.Good luck with that one (and if you have a better explanation, please let us know).
- AIXAM
Aches-arm. Aches-arm. That one should be easy to remember.
- Caterham
This one is actually an English name but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to say for English people. If you were guessing, you might end up saying this kat-ter-ham. Actually, it’s named after an English village and should be said kate-er-um.
Hopefully that helps. If you’re going to start pronouncing everything correctly from now on though, make sure you tell people what you’re doing so they don’t just think you’ve lost it. You can even send them back here to read this blog if you like…
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