Pretentious people really ruined it for those who are just interested in linguistics or just lived in catalonia or etc. Like apart from saying barcelona as barthelona, catalonia as cataluñaand any french word correctly, nobody gets mad about pronouncing words correctly. Like if i (try) to say a polish word correctly most likely a polish person is gonna be happy and nobody else will notice. If anything its not even pretentious people ruining it, its the people who get upset by that. This a comment about society.
It’s honorable to try if your in that country. If your back home you’re just making it harder for others to understand you, which is the purpose of language. It’s less bad with things like parii and barthelona as people can guess those, it becomes more annoying with things like Deutschland and Nihon where most people won’t understand where you went.
I don’t understand how it’s pretencious to try and get somewhat close to how the locals call it. Places have names in their own language and it seems to be a matter of showing respect to that to pronounce them somewhat correctly? I wouldn’t pronounce New York as Nef Jork just because that’s how it reads in my mother tongue. Or Ar-kansas, Connect-icut. So why shouldn’t I try to pronounce is Barthelona and Pariii?
I think it is about who you are talking to. If you’re talking to a Spanish speaking person then it’s appropriate. If you’re speaking to an English speaking person then you are being a bit of a dick by not communicating in the established language of the conversation. What is the point of deliberately confusing your listener if not an immature power play?
I never understood why people think it’s a compliment to use a foreign version of a word for a country. I don’t get upset when a Japanese person uses the Japanese name for my country in a Japanese conversation.
Well, for one thing, pronouncing it very heavy as Barthelona is actually a Madrid accent, not a Barcelona one.
And there’s a bit of bad blood recently . … .like since the early 1700s.
If you say “I’m going to barthelona” I won’t bat an eye probably.
If I say Barcelona and you say “it’s barthelona” I’m gonna walk away lol
While visiting I bet locals would be pleased too. When you’re back home, people might just be weird about it though
that is not how it’s pronounced in catalan. it sound more like “barsalona”. if you are being pedantic you can at least acknowledge that.
Oh I’m pronouncing it Barcelona, because I’m German and I didn’t actually know the correct pronounciation until you told me. But that is honestly not my point. My point is, I am simply unable to look down on people who put in at least some amount of effort (even if they completely fail) to try and pronounce it correctly. I don’t understand why that is supposedly pretentious.
I mean yes, if it is completely performative like @cattywampas@lemmy.world says, I can look down on the performative aspect of it. But I wouldn’t presume it to be performative without further indication. Imho, as a society we’re too harsh on people and I don’t quite understand where that comes from, because it feels like we’re only putting more harsh vibes out than there need to be. It’s like we’re constantly sarcastic and cynical and trying to find ways to look down on others, because we feel small and lost and all the world is harsh and cynical towards us… And sometimes I like to think about breaking that cycle.
In Catalan is “Barsalona” and in Spanish is (close to) “Barthelona”. So both are correct 🤷♂️
places also have names in other languages, probably because they couldn’t stand people from other countries trying to pronounce “københavn” and “göteborg”
I unironically say Ar-Kansas…
Because “places have names in their own language” is a two-way street, and most English speakers pronounce Barcelona with a regular “S” sound. Unless you’re a native Spanish speaker (particularly Spanish Spanish) you’re probably just being performative.
Except the native language of Barcelona is arguably Catalan, not Castilliano (Spanish)
So, unless I’m a native English speaker (which I’m not), I should say Connect-icut?
I would never fault a non-native English speaker for pronouncing something, especially a proper noun, the way it’s spelled.
But would you call a person pronouncing it correctly pretentions?
In English? No. In their native language? Maybe, maybe not.
But if everyone in your native language pronounces it “Connect-icut” and that’s the way you’ve always said it, but after one summer trip there you walk around your hometown saying “Connecticut” in a perfect American accent then yeah you’re probably being pretentious.
Hmm… okay, maybe I don’t get it because I’m the pretentious one.
I think it’s dependent on the language, and subsequently the culture.
I saw you mentioned in another comment that you’re a native German speaker. I took four years of German in high school and I know a decent amount of it. We have lots of German loanwords in English and I know how to say them perfectly, but if I suddenly switched to perfect German pronunciation when I used them it would come off as pretentious. In Germany there are a lot of people who speak English very well, more than there are foreign language speakers in the US, so maybe it wouldn’t be as out of the ordinary to say an English word “correctly” as it would be for an American speaker to do the same with another language.
You’re missing out! It’s so fun to mock people for not predicting the utterly unpredictable!
Obligatory Map Men: https://youtu.be/uYNzqgU7na4
I’m not really understanding what your spelling is pronouncing wrong with that place. Or have I been pronouncing it wrong? Native English speaker here, British though not American
I would also add, that after having enough exposure to a language it gets hard to shake it off when switching back to English. So I sometimes accidentally pronounce Spanish places as in Spanish because it slips faster than I can correct it to be as in English
I think it’s crazy that one king had a lisp, and a whole population copied him.
Addressed in another comment: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/28536370
I’ve always heard that the largely Catalan folks in Barcelona really don’t appreciate people pronouncing their name with a distinct Castillian accent.
Wait, you’re telling me Catalans and the Madrid government might not be the best of friends?
That’s the rumor I’ve heard.
For anyone who hasn’t learned the history, that speaking impediment is literally how the pronunciation came about, the king who had a speech impediment was so adored (as the story goes) that the people took on that pronunciation and it stuck. It’s not pretentious, it’s kindness and love.
As Linguriosa would say: ¡que nooooooo!
that is a myth. that change happened across three centuries during what is called “the adjustment of sibilants” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives )
https://www.britannica.com/story/is-castilian-spanish-spoken-with-a-lisp
The myth of the Spanish king’s lisp has been attributed to at least two monarchs: Ferdinand III, king of Castile from 1217 to 1252 and of Leon from 1230 to 1252, and Peter the Cruel, king of Castile and Leon from 1350 to 1369. In court historian Pedro López de Ayala’s Crónicas, the latter is said to have “spoken with a slight lisp,” an observation often taken out of context to support the theory of a Castilian speech impediment. But Ayala never claimed that others in court mimicked Peter’s way of speaking, nor was the lisp at all the subject of his writing.
Ayala is one of Peter the Cruel’s only contemporaries to mention the king’s lisp; no historical evidence exists that suggests that it—or Ferdinand III’s alleged lisp, of which no record survives—influenced other Spanish speakers. Claims that Castilian Spanish is spoken with a lisp are based on rumor, not fact.
Edit: > For anyone who hasn’t learned the history, that speaking impediment is literally how the pronunciation came about
Oy vey.
I’m sorry, I’m not going to go back and forth with this person. I know I’m coming off like a “well, actually” dick here but that’s not a pedantic minor difference. It was objectively false.
Are the accounts true that their sex was on fire?
Scholars are still debating. One can only hope.
Right. Thus my “so the story goes”. Very happy you posted the long form explanation of it, though.
What I’ve learned from this post: Barceloneta are a complete bag of assholes & idiots.
Which… kinda sucks, as someone who kind of loves hyping up and appreciating other peoples and cultures. Damn.
“What, I just went into Belfast and said how much I appreciate the people as proud Englishmen? What a bag of assholes and idiots!”
Interesting scenario you chose right there.
My stepmom (who already spoke Castellano like a pro) was simply trying to do tourist things and enjoy the experience. She wasn’t trying to be the ‘loud, typical Aussie / American / etc’ type of tourist.Why is she the ‘bad guy’ in this situation…?
The scenario is that, coming into Barcelona and affecting a Madrid accent, isn’t “hyping up and appreciating other peoples and cultures”. In fact, it’s like exactly not that. See if you can figure out why from the example I gave you.
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Yeah, you seem nice, guiri.
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That’s not a myth in Spain, Mexico, or any other country.
I thought you were big on learning about other cultures?
Man if you make such broad strokes off of a couple of internet comments then maybe you should take a break and do something else for a while.
You may be correct, sir.
And that would make sense, if not for my stepmom’s experience (and other experiences I’ve heard over the years), which I just talked about above.But here’s the thing-- we already know that various areas of Europe are completely wrapped up in their pockets of toxic, masochistic, exclusionary cultures, and *everything* that was said above just confirmed it to me for Barcelona in particular.
Problem…?
Okay, mi Castellano is a general disaster, but I’m pretty sure that the Barcellona region does indeed do what we call a ‘signature lisp’ in English.
Tell you hwat, though-- my stepmom visited that region one time, and even tho she spoke excellent Castellano, they got all bitchy because it wasn’t ‘Spanish-enough.’ So she duly worked on learning the local inflections and whatnot, just as a visitor, mind you! And they had the nerve to call her “slow.”
Bunch of wankers she ran in to, if you ask me.
EDIT: And of COURSE, someone’s already angry upon what I just said, lol.
Why are they all so angry at you?
Oof, I don’t want to be unfair, and act like a dumbass tourist, so…
even as they’re an angry swarm upon me right here, I do respect and understand their culture.I challenged what should not have been challenged, and I got the heat, if you follow me.
Maybe she should have learned Catalan instead of Castellano when visiting a Catalan region?
Oh sure! Spend years learning a major side-branch of the language, all so she could talk without language bias to the locals for two weeks…?
Idiot.
It’s not a dialect or side-branch. It’s an entirely different language, closer to Italian or French than Spanish.
I’m a non-native speaker who lives in Barcelona - and even though my Castelliano is far from perfect, I’ve never got anything but niceness and appreciation.
So your story seems either totally made up, or missing some important details.
Please don’t make me laugh.
If Barcelona is so VERY HARD to live in for non-natives, then that would be one thing, right?Women getting treated poorly in Europe and other parts of the world is unfortunately, real.
Got any more nuggets of bullshit in your sling, mate?
Oh boy, an Englishman who acts like Spain exists to serve them like a fucking resort. We’ve never seen that here - starting to see why you have trouble, “mate”.
Having lived in other countries, people in Barcelona are far more tolerant of people who don’t speak the language, especially compared to the Anglosphere. Where it seems most people don’t even speak one language properly, much less multiple.
Oh, do please keep downvoting away. The breeze is slight, and your characterisation of me is so hilariously offbase that it’s almost like an entertainment industry in itself, lol.
What is this? Beat your wannabe strawman day?
Lol, I’m not quite sure how to say that in Spanish, so… yeah. But please do GTFO with your complete bullshit prevarication upon what I already explained about my stepmom’s experience.
And here’s a bonus-- this is not an uncommon experience for women who experience Barcelona, genio grandisimo as you seem to style yourself.
Llora mas, grosero.
this is not an uncommon experience for women who experience Barcelona
They’re criticized about their Spanish?
Funny, my house is full of women, not all of whom are native speakers. We often have visitors from other countries, who don’t speak perfect Spanish. None of them have ever reported what you describe.
But from my brief interaction with you, if your stepmother is anything like you, I understand.
Nice to meet you, Idiot.
HairyHarry
El placer es mío, idiota. ^^
I guess the hike went right over your head
I love how your petty little downvotes example EXACTLY what I was talking about.
Lo hiciste bien, amigo mío. :D
And what “hike” would that be, mi genio fabuloso?
