Top holiday spots where words really do fail you
Thethames,worcester and Edinburgh are among the 20 holiday destinations in the world whose pronunciation causes the most confusion.
Some of the most famous spots on the planet are often pronounced incorrectly, a study shows.
Search data from the past year has revealed just which names tie people’s tongues in knots – often leading them to look for advice on the right way to say them online.
The River Thames has proved to be one of the trickiest locations to pronounce for non-britons, who often say the “Th” in the same way as in “they”.
However, this may actually be the true pronunciation of the river’s title. Historians believe King George I, the first monarch to rule from a royal house of German origin, was unable to make the “Th” sound, instead saying “Temms” – and as nobody wanted to correct him, it stuck.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh is often mistakenly said as “Ed-in-berg”, while Worcester has been spoken of as “War-cess-ter”.
Other place names that get butchered include the French city of Cannes, where the “s” is silent; California’s Yosemite National Park, which outside the US gets called “Yoh-se-mite”; Versailles, often described as “Ver-sales”; and Ibiza, often misarticulated so it rhymes with pizza.
But perhaps the most unfortunate case is Phuket, Thailand’s tourist hotspot.
Said correctly, the name should sound like “Poo-ket”, but certainly not “Foo-ket”.
While Dubai is said as “Doo-bye” in England, the classical Arabic version is “Doo-bay”.
But because Dubai’s huge population of expats get it wrong, anyone can probably be excused for using either version. And those going to this year’s World Cup in Qatar may have a linguistic challenge ahead of them due to the classical pronunciation of consonants.
The “Q” should have a gutteral “K” sound that English does not have.
But recently there has been a push towards using “Kuh-ter” because it more closely resembles Arabic’s sounds than “Kat-aar”.
Ahead of a travel boom this summer, the data comes from language learning platform Preply.
Its Learning Success Manager, Amy Pritchett, said: “There’s nothing more embarrassing than arriving at a new holiday destination and mispronouncing its name in front of a local – especially if you butcher the regional accent.
“To avoid that awkward encounter, we’ve researched the most commonly mispronounced places, so you hopefully don’t have to worry about these tongue twisters again.
“The extra effort you make to accurately pronounce other people’s home towns and countries demonstrates your respect for their language and culture.”
‘Dubai’s huge population of expats get name wrong’