Yeah pronouncing loanwords is always tricky. There are often many pronunciations, varying between the original one in the original language (which normally few speakers of the borrowing language can pronounce) and a totally Anglicized or converted pronunciation, usually somewhere in the middle. Over time, one more or less standard pronunciation settles in popular usage, whether it's consistent or correct or not.
What pisses me off the most is when the pronunciation is somehow modified in a way that was never found in the original language. For example, Beijing is pronounced with an affricate J, similar to English word judge, even in Chinese! Why the hell did English-speakers decide it was more correct to swap it out for a plain fricative like the "zh" of "pleasure"?? Maybe to make it sound more foreign, since that sound is not common in English?
Another one that pisses me off is Moulin Rouge. People kept pronouncing the "in" part like the vowel in "long", when it's actually supposed to be like the vowel in "man", which totally exists in English.
What pisses me off the most is when the pronunciation is somehow modified in a way that was never found in the original language. For example, Beijing is pronounced with an affricate J, similar to English word judge, even in Chinese! Why the hell did English-speakers decide it was more correct to swap it out for a plain fricative like the "zh" of "pleasure"?? Maybe to make it sound more foreign, since that sound is not common in English?
Another one that pisses me off is Moulin Rouge. People kept pronouncing the "in" part like the vowel in "long", when it's actually supposed to be like the vowel in "man", which totally exists in English.
Doh.
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