Comment on Flohmarkt - a Fediverse replacement for Facebook Marketplace

• Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes, since the pronunciation of Volkswagen can be inferred from taking ‘Volks’ as rhyming with ‘Folks’ and either pronouncing ‘wagen’ as intended—with ‘gen’ rhyming with the ‘gain’ in ‘again’—or just pronouncing it as ‘wagon’. In contrast, the pronunciation of ‘kt’ at the end of ‘flohmarkt’ can’t be inferred from an existing English word. Additionally, using the spelling ‘flow’ disambiguates the English pronunciation of ‘floh’, especially when dialect is taken into account.

  Ultimately, because Volkswagen has had decades of advertisements marketing its proper pronunciation and making the brand name widely-recognized, it has an inherent advantage in terms of brand recognition to start with.

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  • Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’d bet a lot of money the average English speaker pronounces Volkswagen with a “vee” at the beginning

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    • zerotothezeroth@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The Latin alphabet is overloaded. Words using the same script will inevitably be interpreted by other languages using their own sound systems. Orthography is bad. Plus, it’d be like asking a Spanish speaker why they say “eschool” instead of “school” (phonotactics.

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