Are there any decent unmodded MkIs left that haven't been ragged, rolled or written off?

1 hour ago, @Lee said:

Are there any decent unmodded MkIs left that haven't been ragged, rolled or written off?

Wot ?

 

( Even if mine is just a TDI ) .........  Not telling you where I live !

That's weird. I was looking up his channel yesterday and thinking I would contact him to review my standard but well equipped vRS....

I'm sure things are pronounced differently, but it always sounds so pretentious when people try and approximate native-language pronunciation of certain words, brands, etc...

 

Suddenly I drive a "Schk-eau-dah" and it's a model "Ock-TAAAAAHH-vee-ah", I wear "Nai-key sneakers", yet I still go to a "rest-ront" instead of a "rrey-stah-rraor" and shop at "Eye-kee-yah" instead of "Ick-ee-uh".

I'm not a fan of 'eeeeelectronic' (as used in this video) and that's an english word ;o)..


 

oh and blame the advertisers, until people like Ikea & Skoda started using the above approximate native-language versions nobody used them

15 hours ago, Winston_Woof said:

oh and blame the advertisers, until people like Ikea & Skoda started using the above approximate native-language versions nobody used them

 

It's more that we Anglicise foreign words to such a great extent, that it sounds pretentious when people try to un-Anglicise them, mainly because no-one does it uniformly or consistently. It's only on certain words when doing so makes them feel sophisticated.

As it happens, my mate is working on a 'Porsh' today!

 

Surely the fault is in the Anglicising of the foreign names?

 

It should not be viewed as pretentious to refer to a company with the correct prononciation, if it were a foreign friend or neighbour the majority would try to pronounce their name correctly and discreetly correct others when they get it wrong.

 

My country has got to be one of the worst anyone named Ian might as well give up putting people right on day 1, after 19 years I still cannot get anyone to spell correctly my very simple family name, one that they would have learned in infants school English lessons unless I deliberately mispronounce it which I refuse to do, and that is also with spelling it out letter by letter with the correct French prononciation.

 

They also rename foreign towns and cities and would ask you the way to Londres, édimbourg, Douvres etc or ask for the River Tammys, mind you the UK has misnamed Dunkerque as Dunkirk, there are probably others, at least the prononciation is almost identical.

 

The one that really shocked and confused me and made me feel it was very disrespectful was pronouncing Michael Schumacher, I get they would say Michaël but Shoomarrer? WTF is that about 😬 they spell it correctly but pronounce it differently, I don't think the Germans pronounce it that way, Lee will know.

 

Edit, the River Thames is correctly spelled in French but pronounced in the native manner.

 

I had lived not far from Wrotham for 30 years and never knew the correct very odd prononciation till a friend who lived at West Kingsdown was giving me directions on the A20 - Rootem! Thats a weird one!

Edited 7 August, 20241 yr by J.R.

On 07/08/2024 at 14:45, J.R. said:

Surely the fault is in the Anglicising of the foreign names?

Nope.

It's the fault of the foreigners, for invading us and forcing their language/culture upon us.

The French and Yanks can get very upset over the British use of Lef-tenant instead of Lieutenant, and even more upset when you point out that it's actually from the Old French form 'Leuftenant' which means their version is technically incorrect!

 

Besides, most languages will have their own forms, spellings and domestic pronunciation of foreign places, names, words and even film titles, either because there is no direct translation, or because the domestic language simply does not have the same linguistic sounds as the original. Having to learn all the French, German, Italian and Spanish words for not just British places, but their own as well was a nightmare. I ended up doing one exam speaking a mix of French and German in one sentence. Something akin to "Es tut mir leid, je nais parle Franzosisch", while also completely forgetting the German for toilets... and then kicking myself when I found it was 'toiletten'.

 

Oriental people get stereotyped by 'Flied Lice', yet many Brits are equally challenged by the Welsh 'll' sound and some of the others found in most European languages. I'm lucky in that, while I couldn't remember enough of the vocab, I was good enough at the pronunciations and accents to earn the praise of my language teachers - German, French, Turkish and Afrikaans, with a smatterin' o' Latin. 

 

On 07/08/2024 at 14:45, J.R. said:

It should not be viewed as pretentious to refer to a company with the correct prononciation, if it were a foreign friend or neighbour the majority would try to pronounce their name correctly and discreetly correct others when they get it wrong.

Unless you make the effort to pronounce every 'foreign' word 'correctly', particularly those that are integrated into your native language, then it is pretty pretentious and done merely for effect. People think it makes them cultured and cosmopolitan, or something, yet it falls apart when they inevitably use the Anglicised version of other foreign words.

 

As for foreign friends' names - Not only do most people Anglicise those, they often shorten them. Muhammad becomes Mo or Hamza, in the same way Barry becomes Baz and Elizabeth becomes Lizzy. It's our way of showing appreciation and acceptance, even though some other cultures consider it offensive.

 

As far as correcting people goes, I once spoke about a Bugatti and called it a "Boo ga' tee". I got utterly reamed by a posh-sounding toff type, who informed my 'uncultured, uncouth, barbaric retarded' self that it was properly pronounced "B'yew-gatt-ee". I then spewed off a string of other Italian brands and terms (Armani, spaghetti, Versace, etc) in the best stereotypical Italian accent I could muster, but was met with even greater pretention. About the only one he didn't fall for was "Vur-say-ss"... and this was a top English student at a grammar school.

 

On 07/08/2024 at 14:45, J.R. said:

The one that really shocked and confused me and made me feel it was very disrespectful was pronouncing Michael Schumacher

 

My dad's name was Michael.

How many people around the world pronounce it 'Mikh-hai-ell' as per the original Hebrew, though?

 

Just Anglicise everything as per the natural progression and development of language, and be content with that, I guess.

8 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

My dad's name was Michael.

How many people around the world pronounce it 'Mikh-hai-ell' as per the original Hebrew, though?

 

 

My "real" name is Michael and as for alternative pronunciations of it try the Irish. They say mee-hawl.

 

@Ttaskmaster

 

The Mikaël was pronounced correctly, it was me that made the mistake in the spelling trying to hard to copy/paste the two dots over the "e", it was the Shoomarrer that I never could understand.

 

As for the rest of your projections regarding people being pretentious etc those are very bold and sweeping statements, I prefer not to judge people and am pleased when they make the effort to pronounce foreign words and foreign peoples names correctly, something I have always tried my upmost to do despite frequent accusations of being pretentious which says far more about the accuser than myself.

 

Generally most French words that have been adopted in English are pronounced in the correct manner.

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

As for the rest of your projections regarding people being pretentious etc those are very bold and sweeping statements, I prefer not to judge people and am pleased when they make the effort to pronounce foreign words and foreign peoples names correctly, something I have always tried my upmost to do despite frequent accusations of being pretentious which says far more about the accuser than myself.

I don't judge the people... merely their behaviour and their reasons behind it.

For example, a penchant for laissez faire attitudes might be more appropriate in the current linguistic evolutionary zeitgeist.... In matters of print and publishing, some foreign words are even italicised, to indicate that they are foreign or that the reader may not immediately know their meaning as they are not common in native vernacular. 

 

The pretention comes from using such words, particularly when perfectly acceptable terms already exist, either to add flavour to one's speech and thus imply a higher level of cultural and educational status, or to suggest that the existing alternatives and thus the native language are not good enough. Typically one does it to add a certain 'je ne sais quoi', nay a 'raison d'etre', to their articulation, in the concordant fashion of individuals uttering parlance bespattered with loquiacious verbosity in fora, where such practice just makes 'em sound like a hoity-toity pillock. It's on the same level as calling someone Raymondo, or trying to talkski very slowski so localskis can understandski.

 

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

Generally most French words that have been adopted in English are pronounced in the correct manner.

One of my academic fortes is English Language and etymology, about a third of which comprises words and phrases of French language origin, either as adopted words or just included ones. Almost none of them, regardless of the speakers' accents, socio-educational staus or foreign language proficiencies, are pronounced in any way that a French speaker would consider acceptable.

 

Reconnaissance, lingerie, connaisseur, commandant, justice, sovereign, counsel, dinner, soup, restaurant... all very Frenchy words.

French itself is essentially vulgarised Latin. It's then been filtered through evolved Brythonic, then Celtic, then Latin and finally Germanic languages before finally being integrated into the existing mish-mash that was spoken in the British Isles at the time. It gets even worse when the original French spelling remains, yet the meanings differ.

 

 

2 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

I don't judge the people...

 

Well your words are at odds with that.

18 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

it is pretty pretentious and done merely for effect. People think it makes them cultured and cosmopolitan, or something,

 

2 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

makes 'em sound like a hoity-toity pillock

 

2 hours ago, Ttaskmaster said:

Almost none of them, regardless of the speakers' accents, socio-educational staus or foreign language proficiencies, are pronounced in any way that a French speaker would consider acceptable.

 

Absolute rubbish! The first 4 you list are pronounced absolutely correctly in English as are all of the phrases that you have italicised in your mocking posting.

 

 

Reconnaissance, lingerie, connaisseur, commandant,

Edited 9 August, 20241 yr by J.R.

So....

 

 

 

Jayemm really likes the Octy 

I only asked if there were any decent ones still left 🙃

15 hours ago, J.R. said:

Well your words are at odds with that.

Do you not think a person is capable of judging another's behaviour, without judging who they are as a person?

Never told one of your friends or loved ones that they were being a bit of a divvy... or did that one criticism end the entire relationship?

 

 

15 hours ago, J.R. said:

Absolute rubbish! The first 4 you list are pronounced absolutely correctly in English as are all of the phrases that you have italicised in your mocking posting.

Reconnaissance, lingerie, connaisseur, commandant,

OK, let's break it down with typical English pronunciation, vs the best French approximation I can manage in written words... Apologies if my English phonetics sound a litle posh.

 

penchant -  'Pen-chunt' vs 'Porr-shawh'

laissez faire - 'Lass-iz Fayr vs 'Liss-ay  Ferr'

zeitgeist - Not actually a French word, but used to illustrate common italicising of foreign terms.

je ne sais quoi - 'Junna say kwah' vs 'zhuh nuh seh kwa'

raison d'etre - 'Rey-zonn Det-rah' vs 'rray-zon det-trr'

Here I'll also add Voila, which most English speakers now say as 'wah-lah'.

 

Reconnaissance - 'Rik kon-is-sonts' vs 'ruh-kon-iss-sonss'

lingerie - 'Lonn-zhah-rey' or 'Lonn-jah-ray' vs 'Lung-zha-rree'

connaisseur - 'Con-a-syoo-wah' vs 'Con-is-sur'

commandant - 'Com-ann-dant' vs 'Coom-un-duhn'.

 

Even amongst well-spoken, well-educated people, some of whom do interject correct French pronunciation of French and French-origin words, they still utterly disregard similar such words like 'restaurant', hence it is a choice to cherry pick certain terms for effect, and thus pretentious of them.

Arguably not even their fault, as we're often fed Anclicised versions of words from the outset, just like we're often fed Anglicised versions of Chinese, Italian, South African, Mexican and Indian foods. Other than the bloke doing their radio adverts, I don't know a single person who correctly pronounces IKEA as 'Ik-ee-ah'... including the staff and their tannoy announcers.

 

To that end, I don't even know who Jayemm is, but I reckon 'Schkoda' is just another one that almost nobody else will adopt, just like almost nobody correctly writes it as 'Škoda'.

 

On 06/08/2024 at 18:30, Lee01 said:

Are there any decent unmodded MkIs left that haven't been ragged, rolled or written off?

 

Not unmodded, but proper decent, lovely even, IMO:

 

 

Gaz

 

2 hours ago, Gaz said:

 

Not unmodded, but proper decent, lovely even, IMO:

 

 

Gaz

 

16 minutes ago, dubDEAN said:

 

You're biased! 

Thanks to @dubDEAN and @Gaz for bringing this back OT. 

 

This is a car forum after all. 

 

There are other areas within this forum to discuss languages or even other things. 

 

5 hours ago, Lee01 said:

Thanks to @dubDEAN and @Gaz for bringing this back OT. 

 

This is a car forum after all. 

 

There are other areas within this forum to discuss languages or even other things. 

 

have you ever been in a pub with a group of people ?

4 hours ago, Winston_Woof said:

have you ever been in a pub with a group of people ?

Just pointing out the irony of how people who don't like certain topics in the non car related section shout about how 'this is a car forum so X shouldn't be discussed' yet in an actual car related topic, they go wildly off topic.

And back on topic we go!

It was nice to see some sort of original car.

Props to him swapping over the engine, though!

On 10/08/2024 at 12:57, Gaz said:

 

You're biased! 

i'm allowed to be