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Here in the US we (or the commercials) pronounce it ?knee-sawn? and ?hun-day?. But I have heard you guys pronounce them ?niss-an? and ?high-oon-die?. I think you guys say it more correctly than we do. No?
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I think we pronounce it "niss-an" because of memories of "Nissen huts" - wartime all-purpose huts made of corrugated iron or asbestos, curved like half a cylinder, and bricked up at the ends.
Many still survive as storage sheds etc, and the word has become applied to any makeshift shed. Rather an unfortunate choice of name by the Japanese, I'd have thought - it's never made me want to look at one.
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I still call them Datsun's............
I think the yanks have Nissan pronounced right - "knee-san" and who knows if we have "Huy-un-dai" right.
Is there a scholar of Japaneese around the back room? (yes ok I know huy-un-dai is Korean, but as Prince Philip said.........)
One the the yanks do have wrong is "Jag-war" (or do they?)
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Just thought.
Given the money behind the company, no one needs to bother about how to pronounce Knee-sawn, or Nissan. Just get used to the pronunciation "Ren-o" or as my old grandad used to say "Ray-nought"
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I travel to Japan a lot and although I pronounce it the same way as most Brits, "niss unn", the nearest Japanese words are "ni" meaning two and "san" meaning Mr. They pronounce it "Nee san" (translate "Mr Two").
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Interesting. Who's Mr One, then?
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'You are number seven'..
{/Prisoner geekage} ;)
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...and could ecplain why a number of people think that Nissans are a load of Number Two's!!!
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They pronounce it "Nee san" (translate "Mr Two")....
If it's a MR 2, wouldn't that make it a Toyota?
(BR groan!)
Chad
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If it's a MR 2, wouldn't that make it a Toyota?
Of course the MR2 is called the MR (or is it the MR-S?) in France - not sure about the rest of Europe - as otherwise it would sound like a certain French word with unfortunate connotations.....
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>>One the the yanks do have wrong is "Jag-war" (or do they?)
Given that the Jaguar is a South American cat, and given that it is pronounced jag-war in Spanish, I suspect that you may be on dodgy ground with this one.
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>given that it is pronounced jag-war in Spanish
Or should that be hag-war?
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The Engish have a precedent for taking native words and making the pronunciation their own e.g. Paree becomes Paris.
As Jaguar started off being made in England by the English, my vote is for saying Jag-u-ar. Of course, you could argue that pronunciation is irrelevant, Jag-war or Jag-u-ar both mean the same thing and therefore the communication has achieved its desired objective, that of corrrectly identifying Jag.
Going for a lie down now.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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I seem to remember hearing a hyundai advert a while back where the voiceover used the pronounciation 'He-un-day' with a very short explosive 'e'.
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That's how the Koreans pronounce it!
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And what fun many people have pronouncing (and spelling) Peugeot!
Purr-joe.
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And what fun many people have pronouncing (and spelling) Peugeot! Purr-joe.
When we moved house when I was 4 years old, I was very proud of myself when I managed to read "pee-youg-ee-ot" on the back of the new neighbours' car.
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When Acura was created for the US market it was supposed to sound like 'accurate', making the car brand seem better. The Texans of course pronounce it Ay-cura, so screwing up a cunning Japanese plan.
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My local (fen-dwelling) garage man reckons "them Mister Busheys" are OK.
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Slightly off track but..
My younger days in a Zephyr Plod car listening in to the circulation of a stolen vehicle details by Control Room:
"Stolen ABC 123 Newcastle, between so and so, a Ford ANGULAR.."
DVD
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Which reminds me of the origin of the Mitsubishi Starion (for newer members). The marketing department was communicating the new name to the manufacturer: "We've decided to call it a Stallion", to which the reply was something like: "Ah, Starion - excerrent!" The rest, as they say, is history...
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Illegitimi non carborundum!
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My sub-division has a great many Korean-owned businesses in it, so I asked a shopkeeper once.
"H-YUN-die" : the aspirated "h" is pronounced not as in "hair" but rather by putting one's tongue against the roof of the mouth and audibly but lightly expelling one's breath. The "y" sound carries over into the stressed second syllable. It is the "y" that is strong and it's almost as though the "h" isn't there but only just. The "dai" is pronounced "die" as in cark, croak, depart this earth, shrug off these mortal coils etc.
Now then, say after me.......
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But RSX, I thought you folks pronounced Nissan "Infiniti" !
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lol, only part of the line sells under the name "Infiniti".
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When foreigners market their goods here, and create a brand here using a word which is foreign, they should spell it how they want it pronouncing. If they want us to call it Kneesaw, then call them Kneesaw Sunnys not Nissan Sunnys.
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Yeah but we say "knee-sawn" not "knee-saw". "knee-saw" sounds like some kind of horrible tortuous saw for amputations! Lol
P.S. Chad R.
The "MR2" designation breaks down like this: M = mid-engine, R = rear-drive, 2 = two-seater. At least that?s what I read.
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Fellow Brits, do you remember the beloved Morris Ital? Now, I never did figure out whether it was "EEtal", "eeTAL", "EYEtal", "eyeTAL" or "ittle", but then I didn't really care as I wouldn't have touched one with the proverbial bargepole. BL's failure to name it sensibly was resoundingly consistent with their engineering standards.
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Not to mention the Maxi. My ex-wife used to say why did they name a car after a feminine hygiene product and only a man would have thought of that.
Should it have been the "Vanden Plas" as in "glass" or "Plass" as "mass" or "Plah" as in Acacia Avenue, Weybridge, as pronounced by the ffoulkes ffamily?
Was the Galant meant to imply chivalrous and one of those quaint Japanese mis-spellings? Or was it a nothing word pronounced "Gal-ant"?
Should the Celica be "Sell-eeker", "Sellicker" or "Sea-licker"? I've heard all 3 in currency. Likewise similar permutations on Cressida depending on whether you'd done Shakespeare at school or been to a secondary modern.
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erm, what's the difference in pronunciation of "glass" and "mass" Growler? They inna eyne doen Stoke duck.
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"quaint Japanese"
Any industry that can call a car a 'Cedric' is beyond comprehension, IMHO!
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Illegitimi non carborundum!
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Since we are piling them high, let's not forget Daewoo and Xedos.
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OK, so how many of you know the correct way to pronounce Citroën? Or Moët for that matter?
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citreun (with an Inspector Clouseau accent) ?
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Was it here that I read of the UK man and wife arguing how to pronounce Kissimee?
They drove in for a coffee and asked the waitress 'Can you tell us carefully and slowly how to pronounce the name of this place?'
She replied "Buurrger Kiiing".
Matt35
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Funnily enough I used to live there.
Ki-simmy.
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Or the American woman driven(motoring connection) to hospital for a gynaecological operation and announcing she was to have an hystericalrectum.
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Citroën? It's "sit-ro-un" or "sit-ro-en", or rather the last syllable is between the "un" and the "en" sounds. It is, it is. A pub pal who grew up in France insists it's "sitron", but that would make it a lemon . . .
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That would make him a lemon too ;) I think it's "sit-ro-en", but this time the middle syllable is between a "roe" and a "roy" sound. Moët is of course pronounced "mo-wet" with the first syllable halfway between a "m" sound and a "mow" sound.
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Robzilla,
Correct - as Moet is a Dutch name, the T is pronounced - unlike the silent P (as in Bath) in psychology.
Matt35
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Sit-ro-on, although the last "n" should be nasal. And Mo-eh for the bubbly.
Terry
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OY - we ain't "BRITS" we are "BRITISH"!
Why work when you can sleep?
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Nothing compared to the Mitsubishi Lettuce or the Mazda Brawny Bongo light trucks. I think we should have more of them!
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Roger the Ital was never pronounced anything like its name. It was pronounced after that awful brown colour most of them came in.
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I always said i-tal to rhyme with the syllables at the end of "hosp". I always thought the Ital was a great looking car and I remember contemporary reports of very high sales.
Citroën? on a sticker:
"J'aime les Ardennes,
je roule en Citroën"
So (given ai-me is two) that's three syllables "see-tro-enn".
Celica? thinking back to the mid-80s wedge design I used to say "silly car". Mind you a friend had one whose speedo and electric gear didn't work, it was actually quite an attractive design compared to modern Toyotas.
as for "Not to mention the Maxi. My ex-wife used to say why did they name a car after a feminine hygiene product and only a man would have thought of that." i can only say that sounds like the sort of name for a feminine hygiene product that only a man could have thought up, not heard of it myself. further musings about the comparisons while apposite would not be tasteful.
However: What I just CANNOT believe is that in Germany there is a car called the Ford Mondeo "ST"220!!!!
pat
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I don't think it matters how you say it really, but, the Japanese do not use any inflection in their language so they would not say Knee-sawn - the 'ee' sound is an inflection.
The best description I can think of - but you need to have a rudimentary knowledge of golf clubs - is the pronounciation of Mizuno. Everybody I know says Mi-Zoo-no. The Japanese call them a sort of grunted word which sounds more like Mzno.
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I call mine all sorts of things after a bad round.
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