In Canada we pronounce it Hye-un-die-eh. Inflammable means flammable? What a country.
I think I'm gonna start pronouncing it La-KOHN
How to Pronounce Lakon?
- Thread starter Marklar_
- Start date
I think I'm gonna start pronouncing it La-KOHN
I wish people would use that for Lose and Loose !
Except in that example, it is the number of vowels affecting the sound of the consonant.
What mate, I say Maz-da with a short 'a'. Who are these Brits you speak of?
I concur. I have never heard any Brit use a long a in Mazda (for either of them).
And bizarrely, in the Top Gear video that was posted to demonstrate the long vowel.... Clarkson says it the correct way, using a short vowel. Long would be mars, not maz.
Are you people confused about what a long vowel is, or am I? Clarkson clearly says "Mayzda" throughout that video, not "Mahzda."
No he doesn't. I only listened to the first one, but he doesn't say may at all. Or mah. Both -ay- and -ah- are long forms of the vowel. Mazda is pronounced with the a as in hat (short).
Nah. Just ship him back home and let his own wonderful healthcare sort him outmaybe on the same trip you'll get to see the inside of an English ambulance and enjoy the hospitality of the NHS.
I'm a Brit and I pronounce it like it's a french concept. La Con.
I also pronounce Galnet as Gall-net. Like the Gall bladder. Probably as it reminds me of bile.
Of course, that's the other classic Brit trait. Bloody mindedness ("I'll call it what I like, thank-you").
(And I can't argue with that!)OK, I got that all mixed up.
That's not how Americans pronounce it, which is what I was getting at. So is the "a in hat" sound the way most Brits pronounce Mazda?
In my experience, yes. It is the way Clarkson said it in the video, but we class that as a short vowel sound. I believe that there is only one short version, but more than one long (as above).
Pronunciation discussions always amuse me, though (especially having lived abroad a lot). So long as the other person understands what you are saying, you're speaking fine.
There are a couple of British voices, but so far I've heard Scottish (two varieties), Dutch, Indian/South Asian, Japanese, German, Jamaican (perhaps, definitely West Indies), Polish, American, Australian and others. They all say /'leikɑn/ or (more commonly) /'leikɒn/. The key point is that the "a" is pronounced /ei/.
It's not really a matter of opinion. There is a strong pattern in English where a vowel-consonant-vowel spelling pattern changes the pronunciation of the vowel in the corresponding vowel-consontant pairing - see hat (/hat/) and hate (/heit/). It's commonly taught in elementary school phonics as the "magic E", but it extends further. Compare how you would pronounce "fav" with how you would pronounce "favor" (sic). As with all things, you can pronounce it how you like, but you'll need to understand that most people you talk to will pronounce it differently.
Incidentally, a key difference between N. American and British varieties of English is how and where vowels are articulated. American English tends to drag stressed vowels out for longer and articulate them towards the back of the mouth, whereas British varieties tend to articulate them shorter and towards the front of the mouth, leading to the common American perception of British accents as rather "clipped".
Last edited:
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
indeed that one always confuses me....
ooooooo does this mean i can steer this to my loathing of the double negative?
I dont know nothing!. [mad]
It's more a matter of dialect really. Recieved Pronounciation isn't even a dialect, it's artificial. English is defined by usage, so the "correct" way is however the people around you say it, the rules get made up after the fact.
