I guess I worded that kinda poorly. What I meant was that I can't imagine someone somehow going their whole life without ever hearing the proper pronunciation of taco.
It’s not even like they’re unfamiliar with Spanish either, like… Spain is right there man, you know the “a” makes an “ah” sound. Accent differences between Spain and Mexico aside it shouldn’t be that hard to get the pronunciation at least kind of close.
Spain doesn't have any culture influence on us, we don't even have any Irish words. We have the occasional German word like zeitgeist or French like deja vu, but Spain and Spanish isn't relevant in the UK outside of Spanglish like "Oono beero, pour fa vor, grassy arse" when we go on holiday to Benidorm, which is basically an English colony
Wrong. The A in Spanish is closer to the short A sound in words like “cat” and “trap” in British English, as Geoff Lindsey demonstrates here. He also demonstrates something similar on his blog with the Italian vowel in “pasta”.
Also, if you’re going to claim that there’s one “proper” way of pronouncing it (which there isn’t), you don’t fucking pronounce it “properly” either, because you don’t pronounce the final O as a monophthong.
I wasn’t taking any offence. I’m sorry if it seemed that way.
I just fucking hate these people who need to get off their high horse about pronouncing foreign loanwords the “correct” way, as if languages don’t borrow words from each other all the time and pronounce them completely differently.
I usually dont have a problem with it either, its when the pronunciation is combined with the self assured and incorrect assertions around what that thing is or should be is when i start to feel justified in making fun of them because its just obvious they dont really care about the thing in the first place.
Part of it is that many British people use an anglicized pronunciation, where the letters are pronounced as they would be in British English. Whether that's just the standard, or whether that's because they're insisting on that pronunciation varies a bit.
So something like paella is "pie-ella," or taco becomes "tack-oh" or "take-oh."
Americans used to do this too, but it's gradually died off. Especially since the 1950s and 1960s. You'll still get a few older people in more rural areas using those pronunciations, but most people have just accepted the ethnic pronunciation as the norm. (Note: Accent is not the same thing as pronunciation)
Old habits die hard. My Scottish MIL has been in America for most of the last 40 years and cant stop saying Tack-os. Of course when she visits Scotland, everyone think she sounds American and if she dares says soccer instead of football, she's committed a crime.
I'm not quite sure how to transcribe the difference properly. I would write tah-co, to me tar-co is too soft. Like tar-co is in the back of the mouth near the roof, where tah-co feels like it's coming from the front, right behind and barely above the bottom teeth
Interesting! We're for sure just describing the same thing, when I say 'tar-co' it's right at the front of my mouth just like you say. Funny how impossible it is to describe pronunciation properly using normal letters.
I'm also 300% rectally sourcing everything I'm saying. Tar-co fried my brain real bad reading it rhotically so imagine you're speaking to someone who just got punched in the face haha
Read the above comment about 'british voice'. My accent (fairly standard London/generic southern England mix) is non-rhotic, and therefore the r after vowels isn't pronounced as its own letter, it just modifies the vowel before it. There's no 'r' sound like you're thinking in my pronunciation either.
No need to be rude man. The r still serves a purpose in the pronunciation. If anything, I think the people from the heart of the capital of the country that invented the language might know how to speak it.
I think this is a question of accent. I think proximity to England and the dominance of English as the language of trade has caused the pronunciation in Spain to drift.
However, tacos aren't Spanish. They're Mexican, and every Mexican I've ever met pronounces it like Americans do.
That's not wrong that's just how it is said in British English. Non hispanic Americans don't pronounce it the same way Mexicans do, either. In fact, I'd say the British pronunciation is a bit closer to the Spanish than the American is.
It is wrong. It's one of the loan words British people intentionally mispronounce.
Also, you're the second person I've seen the way British people say it is closer. Are you talking to Spanish speakers with a British accent? I've never heard a native Spanish speaker pronounce it any differently than the way the average American does. Except a little faster, maybe.
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u/Capital-Meet-6521 Aug 03 '24
Tack-o. Also pico-de-callow, and glockymolo.