[nateo]

But when the waiter corrected me at Drai's for saying Belgian endive~in-dive with "it's awn-deev" it nearly got nasty.

Yeah, that's a really bad idea. I've been a waiter, and I've sold ferr-in sounding named skis and bikes. The appropriate thing to do is to pronounce it correctly yourself, when it comes up naturally, but not correct them unless they ask you how it's said. The worst thing you can do is mimic the customer's bad pronunciation, because it sounds like you're mocking them.

[bboy9000]

Its confusing here in Missouri ("ee" not "uh"). After working at a convenience store in Springfield, MO for three years I caught myself saying "ya'll". Without trying to be a local.  It just came out!  Then after college I'm dating a girl from St. Louis- old French history there- and got blasted for saying "Krev-Ka (kuh).  I just assumed the 8th largest metro area in the US with a French history would say it that way.  Whatever.

[euge]

Misery

[narvin]

Saying nasal vowels when you're speaking English is silly.  The word Saison has been used enough to be considered an English word of French origin.  Don't use phonemes that don't exist in the middle of an English sentence unless you want to sound pretentious.

[nateo]

Saying nasal vowels when you're speaking English is silly.  The word Saison has been used enough to be considered an English word of French origin.  Don't use phonemes that don't exist in the middle of an English sentence unless you want to sound pretentious.

Actually, if you want to get all technical here, nasal vowels are used in American English, appearing before nasal consonants, in words like "man," "can't" and "then," and "embalm." In British English they're not all nasalized, noticeably "can't." You probably don't notice how they're nasalized because you're a native American English speaker.

If you've ever heard someone who uses African American vernacular English, or some related southern accents say "Hey man" you've definitely heard a nasal "n."

[vinnieb]

I just say "say-zon",   I'm from NY, and have one of those weird accents anyway.  I can not be expected to pronounce foreign words (to me) with a an accent if its not my native tongue.  It sounds pretentious and snarky IMO.  When St Pats day comes around I don't order Corn beef and cabbage in an Irish brogue.  I am not Giada and I refuse to erupt into a horse tooth, 5-head, perma-smile, regional diction if I am not originally born and raised there. 


M'ERICA!

[theoman]

Saying nasal vowels when you're speaking English is silly.  The word Saison has been used enough to be considered an English word of French origin.  Don't use phonemes that don't exist in the middle of an English sentence unless you want to sound pretentious.

Actually, if you want to get all technical here, nasal vowels are used in American English, appearing before nasal consonants, in words like "man," "can't" and "then," and "embalm." In British English they're not all nasalized, noticeably "can't." You probably don't notice how they're nasalized because you're a native American English speaker.

If you've ever heard someone who uses African American vernacular English, or some related southern accents say "Hey man" you've definitely heard a nasal "n."

Absolutely! I didn't realize how nasally American English is until I was living outside of the country for a while. If I'm out somewhere, I can hear an American coming a mile away, even if I can't hear what they're saying. The nasal-ness seems even more pronounced in women.

[theoman]

I think it doesn't really matter, but for some reason, some pronunciations really bother me. Saison isn't one of them. HOEgarden for Hoegaarden does. Beer geeks should know it's HOOgarden. I'm ok with the hard 'g'. DuVELL bothers me, too, but that's just the Flemish nationalist in me coming out.

On the other hand, Belgians have pale ale, but the actual meaning of the words got lost some where, so they pronounce it "pellell". Kinda funny.

I want to rip out my radio when I hear the DJ on the French station say Stevie Ray Vah-gaun-ah. It's your freakin' job to know that the 'g' is silent.

[AmandaK]

Re: Missouri, yeah, it's baffling here. Versailles = Ver-sales, Lebanon = Leb-uh-nin, Kimbrough = Kimbroo. People are really assholes here if you don't know how to say things in their peculiar, messed-up way. It's not bad in the cities, but outside of KC/STL/Springfield, if you speak standard American English, people are pretty rude. I swear, when I moved here from CO people treated me like I was a Martian.

Why all the hate on Missouri, guys? We're not all inbred hoosiers!

BTW, my boss is an Englishman. We discover new ways of pronouncing words every day. The British phrases are the best. I am going to name my next English beer "The Dog's Danglers".

[phillamb168]

How have I missed this thread? Oh right, I was moving.

Where did I move? Not too far, only ~2 miles from where I live now, which is, btw:



<--- here.

So I feel that I can speak with authority on some of these things.

I say 'Say'zoh(n)' where the N is just barely pronounced. The most common Saison around here is Saison Dupont, which, when pronouncing it, thanks to the sharp D of Dupont, makes it sound like 'say'zohn' with a somewhat existant 'n.'

In general, when pronouncing French words in France, I use my French accent, which is pretty clean (although apparently hard English and American accents are considered 'sexy' but only if you're fluent, otherwise it's just annoying). For American or otherwise English words I'll use my American accent but sometimes for clarity's sake I'll say an English word in 'French,' so for example, burger becomes 'burhgeerh.'

I thought in French language the consonant at the end of a word isn't pronounced unless it is followed by a vowel.  Wouldn't Paris be "pair-ee?"

Yes, and that's how we pronounce it. But there are special rules - couer for example you pronounce the r, and in general even words like Paris get the consonant pronounced if the word is immediately followed by a word that starts with a vowel; so for example "Paris apres dark" would be "PearEES aprays dark"

A handy pronunciation guide:

Couer = 'Qehr', pronounce the R.

Voir Dire = "vwahr deeuhr'

@erockrph I love Quebecois words. "Gare ma voiture" becomes "Parker mon char' - 'char' means Tank in continental French. Also all women of 'interest' are 'blondes' which is really really old French.

[HoosierBrew]

Re: Missouri, yeah, it's baffling here. Versailles = Ver-sales, Lebanon = Leb-uh-nin, Kimbrough = Kimbroo. People are really assholes here if you don't know how to say things in their peculiar, messed-up way. It's not bad in the cities, but outside of KC/STL/Springfield, if you speak standard American English, people are pretty rude. I swear, when I moved here from CO people treated me like I was a Martian.

Why all the hate on Missouri, guys? We're not all inbred hoosiers!

BTW, my boss is an Englishman. We discover new ways of pronouncing words every day. The British phrases are the best. I am going to name my next English beer "The Dog's Danglers".

Ouch !

[Joe Sr.]

I want to rip out my radio when I hear the DJ on the French station say Stevie Ray Vah-gaun-ah. It's your freakin' job to know that the 'g' is silent.

Stevie Ray Vagina?

Say, son, you're pronouncing it wrong!

[erockrph]

@erockrph I love Quebecois words. "Gare ma voiture" becomes "Parker mon char' - 'char' means Tank in continental French. Also all women of 'interest' are 'blondes' which is really really old French.

Unfortunately, even though I went to a private school in a primarily French-Canadian city, the French I learned in school was Parisian French. I took 5 years of French in school, and felt pretty comfortable with it back in the day, but I could never under stand a word of French that my méméres and pépéres spoke. The Canuck French is so drastically different from Parisian French.

[gymrat]

http://www.pronouncehow.com/english/saison_pronunciation

[erockrph]

Even though Texas is a "whole other country" I run into the same thing in Missouri where we have towns with French names but you are looked at as either a fool or pretentious for pronouncing Versailles as "Ver-Sai" or Creve Couer as "Krev-ka."

Up in northern NH there are a couple of towns like Berlin and Milan that are pronounced "BER-lin" and "MY-lin". I think it's pretty common in most areas to develop a local pronunciation of town names with foreign origins.