The best examples that come to mind are when ordering food. As examples:
• You speak English and Spanish and are ordering a burrito
• You speak Thai and English and are ordering Tom Yum
I imagine it could depend on numerous things:
• You primary language or ethnicity
• What sort of restaurant
• Who you’re dining with
• Who you’re ordering from
• and probably a lot more…
You pronounce the word correctly for whatever language the word is from. That’s the objectively correct way. Is this a serious question?
Do you speak multiple languages?
Yes, I speak English and Spanish
Interesting. When I’m speaking French I often pronounce English words with a French accent. I don’t enjoy switching accents mid sentence, and I find that people who only speak French understand me better this way.
It’s not objectively correct.
If you do this between English and Japanese, Japanese people will not understand the way you pronounced the English word.
If you ask a Japanese person if they own a “computer” they will not understand. You have to call it a “con-puuu-ta” or even “pa-so-con” which is personal computer.
McDonald’s… Nope. “ma ku do nal do” or even just “makku” depending on the region.
In Thai it’s just ‘com’.
If you’re ready for the bill at a restaurant it’s ’check bin’ which for some reason is ‘check’ and ‘bill’ combined. When I first learned this people were confused why I didn’t already know it, “but it’s English?!”
These wrong loanwords are always so weird! German has a ton of those, e.g. “trainer” is a coach, and “handy” is a cellphone. Add all the false friends because of the similar origins of German and English (even the latin-derived words often have completely different meanings) and it becomes a huge mess to untangle when you’re learning English as a native German speaker or vice versa.
“Trainer” probably would work just fine in US English but I can see what it wouldn’t with British English. Of course that only makes things more complicated…
“Handy” definitely does not work in U.S. English especially using it as a noun
There are times in which pronouncing the wrong way can save you a lot of hassle.
In many poor countries speaking proper English is a dead giveaway that you have money, so you can obviously see why that is undesirable. Even when that is not the case English is so deep in every other language that people use English words as they see fit without knowing the language at all, so one has to pronounce it like they do for them to understand.
Last case is to “avoid correcting someone” because one does not want to make the other person feel bad, or simply want to avoid the “how is it pronounced” situation.
Do you pronounce borrowed French words the way they should be correctly pronounced in everyday settings?
Like this video: https://youtu.be/fKGoVefhtMQ
While I don’t think that’s the objectively correct way (I can accept reasons both for and against switching accents), I also try to say some words the “original” way. In fact, at work I often hear native English customers pronounce some foreign loan words in their corresponding language (or at least making an attempt at it). I wouldn’t say that’s the dominant style, but it does happen.
What does NOT happen as often is the overexaggerated pitch change that is present in the video. Obviously, they were doing it intentionally for comedic effect, but it also makes fun of people who don’t do it out of pretentiousness. Once a word is used often enough, I don’t see the point sticking with the “original” pronunciation (I guess not many people pronounce ‘beef’ as ‘bœuf’ anymore). Even moreso if the “original” word has sounds that the English language doesn’t. I won’t get angry if you can’t roll your R’s.
But when they butcher words that just take some careful reading I lose it. They know the German ‘sch’, and it’s fine - even remarkable. What’s not remarkable is when they see a combination of those letters, ignore the order, and just pronounce it as if it was ‘sch’, regardless. Fuchsia. C-H-S. Maybe, just MAYBE it’s not the same as S-C-H. English has a good bunch of words containing CH. The plural of tech is techs. You don’t pronounce it as ‘tesh’. Fuchsia is, originally, a word containing CH, followed by S.
Another pet (ha) peeve of mine is Dachshund. I know it’s confusingly many characters, all c, h and s. But English also has the word ‘hound’. It comes from the same root as the German ‘Hund’. The rest is Dachs. For hints, see the above paragraph. Pronouncing it as “dashoond” is just as offensive and ignorant (to me; not in general) as saying warthog as war+thog.
If I can. My sentiments do not apply to “loan words”. Those are a different category in my opinion. And there are some French words I struggle with, tbh.
I don’t even know how coupé is pronounced in French…
I have a guess but those are usually way off when it comes to French pronunciations
Definitely serious. Loanwords fall all across the spectrum regarding how much they’re integrated from their source language into the “local” language and most folks don’t know or care about word etymologies enough to even consider it. If you’re not native there’s a good chance you’re mispronouncing loanwords even when you’re trying to use their native pronunciation.
Loanwords are a different story. I would argue those are part of both languages at that point. Burrito is an English word and a Spanish word. As I see it, anyway.