Food Pronunciation Guide for the Dim-witted

[chefzadi]

Move on please....

[culinary bear]

kids! play nicely.

[chefzadi]

kids!  play nicely.

←

Toujours

[gourmande]

Comme on dit dans le region d' Abitibi du Quebec: "taberrrrnacle".  

←

Or in Hawkesbury jargon (a dialect I'm learning to appreciate)..." j'va dire comme s'te gars..." followed by whatever suits

Can mean anything along the lines of "oh well...", "as they say...", "like I said..."

Warning: EXTREME regionalism - don't try this, errrrr... ANYWHERE!

Back to food...

Can someone help me with the mardi gras treat of choice in my area: paczki

First, let me say I had NEVER heard of this food item until I moved here 5 years ago. My introduction to it was mardi gras week 2000 when my husband announced that "poonshkis" would be available soon. "Poonshkis ?"

Ok, now I know WHAT they are, but is that the correct pronunciation?

[Jensen]

I won't be looking it up.    If you aren't pronouncing it the way I am, well then you are as they say in France a "peg". 

←

This is interesting to me. Of course, being Canadian, the French I learned is totally different than any "French French" (as we called it). That's not what's interesting to me though.

Do you mean to say that there are no regional dialects in French at all? Didn't you say somewhere else that you were from Lyon? So all native French speakers (i.e., those French speakers who were born in France, not one of the many other places that speak French as a first tongue) speak just like you or they're deficient in some manner?

That is just so antithetical to my experience with other languages that I was momentarily gobsmacked. I speak some German and, even with my limited abilities, can hear differences between the different areas of Germany (nevermind those German-speaking Swiss people or the Austrians! Yikes!).

And English has so many different accents just within England, nevermind all the colonies.

How odd that France and French would escape that natural development of language. Do you think it has to do with the Academy?

[Jensen]

If anyone is looking for German pronunciations, I can recommend this site:

http://dict.leo.org/

I checked that for the Gewurztraminer pronunciation but it wasn't there. However, I know from past experience that they list "der Wirsing"...

[Jensen]

Dueling transliterations aside, does everyone agree that vin is pronounced comme ci?

←

No.

It's not Lyonnaise but, when I learned Quebecois, I learned to say it like this.

[chefzadi]

I won't be looking it up.    If you aren't pronouncing it the way I am, well then you are as they say in France a "peg". 

←

This is interesting to me. Of course, being Canadian, the French I learned is totally different than any "French French" (as we called it). That's not what's interesting to me though.

Do you mean to say that there are no regional dialects in French at all? Didn't you say somewhere else that you were from Lyon? So all native French speakers (i.e., those French speakers who were born in France, not one of the many other places that speak French as a first tongue) speak just like you or they're deficient in some manner?

That is just so antithetical to my experience with other languages that I was momentarily gobsmacked. I speak some German and, even with my limited abilities, can hear differences between the different areas of Germany (nevermind those German-speaking Swiss people or the Austrians! Yikes!).

And English has so many different accents just within England, nevermind all the colonies.

How odd that France and French would escape that natural development of language. Do you think it has to do with the Academy?

←

I must be a moron. I can't grasp how pronouncing food terms and a little play between friends on egullet turns to this.

[Jensen]

I must be a moron. I can't grasp how pronouncing food terms and a little play between friends on egullet turns to this.

←

It could be your arbitrary proclamations of correctness. As an example, after I heard that first pronunciation of vin, I went looking for more. Only one of them sounds like the pronunciation that I learned but I'm not about to say that the others are "pegs".

BTW, your comments about the German accents were almost as offensive.

[chefzadi]

I must be a moron. I can't grasp how pronouncing food terms and a little play between friends on egullet turns to this.

←

It could be your arbitrary proclamations of correctness. As an example, after I heard that first pronunciation of vin, I went looking for more. Only one of them sounds like the pronunciation that I learned but I'm not about to say that the others are "pegs".

BTW, your comments about the German accents were almost as offensive.

←

I never made comment about German. I'm really confused now.

I made a joke about"peg" were the emoticons not clear? I'm even more confused.

EDIT: Jen, you're confusing or combining me with other people. Please stop. This is all really bizarre. I'll go back to my hole now.

Edited February 21, 2005 by chefzadi (log)

[Ben Hong]

Je veux retourner aux sujets culinaire, allons-y!

[MaxH]

Until catching up here I didn't realize that "tastevin" was a big deal.

I've talked to many people in the US and France who use the word. In the US it is phoneticized sometimes like tat-uh-van with the last "n" mostly implied, as in the usual French vin. Pronunciation is even and staccato, rat-tat-tat. With the variation that some people pronounce the S. (In Yoxall's classic British book on Burgundy, which I mentioned in the wine forum, the S is silent.)

That may not be the exact original but they understand it fine in France.

-- Max

[gourmande]

Until catching up here I didn't realize that "tastevin" was a big deal.

It isn't... it simply took on a life of its own yesterday.

...With the variation that some people pronounce the S.  (In Yoxall's classic British book on Burgundy, which I mentioned in the wine forum, the S is silent.)That may not be the exact original but they understand it fine in France.

You are correct, In French there ARE two accepted spellings and pronunciations one with the s and one without:

taste-vin and tâte-vin

(I don't think I'll ever see, hear and use this word in the same light again )

[gourmande]

Je veux retourner aux sujets culinaire, allons-y!

←

Complètement d'accord !...

Back to food...

Can someone help me with the mardi gras treat of choice in my area: paczki

First, let me say I had NEVER heard of this food item until I moved here 5 years ago. My introduction to it was mardi gras week 2000 when my husband announced that "poonshkis" would be available soon. "Poonshkis ?"

Ok, now I know WHAT they are, but is that the correct pronunciation?

[ludja]

What an elucidating morning I've had, reading this entire thread.  I'm particularly fond of Ludja's pneumonic device--in my mind's garage, there now dwells a wee charming air pump that will help me remember these pronunciations.  Its cousin, the mnemonic device, contains one of the weirdest-spelt words in the English language.

...

←

I unleased this pearl before quickly dashing out the door yesterday. It's funny how your mind can play tricks on you. Love your post!

Thanks also for the additional info on pronouncing paella.

quote from esperanza:

One nit-picky correction: there is no PIE in paella. It's pronounced pah-EH-yah, or as someone else pointed out, pah-EH-zyah. The elision between the 'pah' and the 'EH' can make it seem to the non-Spanish-speaker that the PIE exists, but in fact it does not.

edited to correct 'paella' pronunciation; Pan caught my mistake in my original post. (don't want to be party to propogating false info if I can help it)

Edited February 22, 2005 by ludja (log)

[viva]

At least German is always consistent.

ei is always pronounced eye  (e.g. eigen = eye-gen)

ie is always pronounced ee (e.g. riesen = ree-sen)

←

so if it starts with an "e" it's pronounced "i" and vice versa? how <i> helpful</i>

←

A pneumonic phrase to help in remembering "ei" and "ie" German pronunciation is:

EIsenhower's nIEce

←

Another helpful phrase taught to me by my German teacher and still muttered when I'm about to order a German wine...

Schiessen is "to shoot, "

Scheissen is "to shit".

[Lone Star]

We need Mayhaw Man or Fistfullaroux to explain some of the pronunciations down in swamp land. They are an entire language of their own.

Court Bouillion = Coo - by -on

[Ben Hong]

coor-bwui-yonh

[touaregsand]

We're planning a trip hopefully sometime this year to France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Between my husband and I we have French, Italian and Spanish covered well enough to order food off of a menu. Portuguese we are not sure of.

How to pronounce the following:

Rissois

Azeitonas

Chamucas

I think the rest we can pretty much figure out. I don't know if there is a significant difference between the Portuguese and Brazilian dialects, if there are variations in pronunciation please specify. I like to learn other languages for functional purposes (obviously) so I prefer to know which dialect I'm learning. I also try very hard, oftentimes quite successfully to get my accent "right" so if there are any websites that have audio I'd like to know which dialect is spoken and whether or not the person is a native speaker. For instance I was taught in school a "generic" dialect that my teacher called "standard" Latin American Spanish. Living in So Cal this has served me well. My husband's Spanish friends (from Spain) HATE it, if I were in Spain I would care but in Los Angeles my Mexican and Central American friends would think I was putting on "airs" (They think my accent is adorable, by the way). I'm also learning standard French French because that is what my husband and daughter speak and most of our Francophone friends speak this. I'm also at the point where I'm trying to refine my French accent so it helps me know "who" a speaker is. I don't want to repeat after someone who has the same accent that I do. And please non-native speakers or Qubecois do not be offended by my learning preference for French. I am in no way implying one is "better" or more "correct", I am simply stating that different dialects fit into the my personal cultural landscape better than other dialects.

Peace

Now back to food! Portuguese please. Help!

[therese]

I don't know if there is a significant difference between the Portuguese and Brazilian dialects, if there are variations in pronunciation please specify. I like to learn other languages for functional purposes (obviously) so I prefer to know which dialect I'm learning. I also try very hard, oftentimes quite successfully to get my accent "right" so if there are any websites that have audio I'd like to know which dialect is spoken and whether or not the person is a native speaker. For instance I was taught in school a "generic" dialect that my teacher called  "standard" Latin American Spanish.  Living in So Cal this has served me well.  My husband's Spanish friends (from Spain) HATE it

←

I'd say, yes, that there's a difference in Brazilian and Portuguese Portuguese. I've both Portuguese and Brazilian friends, and listening to them speak sounds at least as different as Spanish and Latin American friends speaking Spanish (and of course there are subsets within both Spain and Latin America, etc.). I can follow pretty much all Spanish, and do reasonably well with Portuguese Portuguese, but find myself about as lost in Brazilian Portuguese as I am in German.

Transparent Language is a web site that sells educational materials for foreign languages. One of their freebies is a "word of the day" that you can listen to (alone and in a sentence), and for Portuguese they specify that the speaker is Brazilian. They don't specify for Spanish, presumably because it's so much more likely that a U.S. customer will be interested in the Latin American version.

Anyway, have fun on your trip, touaregsand, it sounds fantastic!

What are these items, anyway?

Rissois

Azeitonas

Chamucas

[Viola da gamba]

Tepee, more like the second pronunciation, with a hint of growly R in your throat at the end of each syllable.

My favourite non-Anglo pronunciation is Van Gogh, which in Europe they say much as is it spelled, with that nice, throat-clearing 'gh' at the end, as opposed to the sanitized Van-Go we say here. That was a surprise the first time I heard it!

←

Like "Kant" - sounds way ruder than it is if you pronounce it properly.

Back to food - this is embarrassing, but please - "Nicoise"? I always end up butchering it and saying something that sounds a bit like "scissors".

[ChefDanBrown]

Ne-schwa

[touaregsand]

As I understand it

Rissois are little pastries classically filled with crab

Chamucas are another deep fried pastry but filled with ground meat, seasoned with "curry" and pirr piri. Origins are thought to be African

Azeitonas are olives. (I just realized that the Arab word for olives "zeitoun" is contained in that word).

I also received a friendly lesson in Canadian French. Yes, now I know it can be "international". I'm just surrounded by these "snobs" from the "mother" country. Poor me, that is where I will probably end up as an old woman.

As for Spanish I have to strain hard to understand Spanish spoken by Spaniards, the same thing with Argentinians. Tsk, tsk, they sometimes glare at me.

[Abra]

Sorry, ChefDan: nee-swahz.

Portugese is really daunting. Although I speak French, and have a tiny bit of Spanish, German, Swedish, and Hebrew, as well as a few words of Russian, I find Portuguese pronunciation to be more difficult than any of the above. For that reason alone I'm dying to go to Portugal!

[gourmande]

Back to food - this is embarrassing, but please - "Nicoise"?  I always end up butchering it and saying something that sounds a bit like "scissors".

No need to be embarrassed...

Nee-swahz