Re:Voltswagen of America
by jeromenerf on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @11:13AM
(#26635541)
Pronunciation is no longer “folks wagen” but “faults wagen”. The classic German ironic sense of humor.
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"V" can be randomly soft or hard, "Volk" is pronounced like "Folk" but "Volt" like "Wolt". THere's no real equivalent sound in English, I think.
But, yeah, I've owned several VWs and electrical wiring is usually faulty so I'll go with Faultswagen as well.
> but "Volt" like "Wolt".
Not really, it would be pronounced like the v in Vincent, not Wincent.
Yes, that's it
Re:Voltswagen of America
by saberdancer on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @02:03PM
(#26638028)
Volt uses "W" sound instead of F, because Volt comes from the name of Italian physicist Allessandro Volta. Italian sound for V is W or english V.
Are there proper German words that don't read V as F? I've been lead to believe German is strict with phonem/letter combination.
Excellent question, running through a few options in my mind "Version and Variation" come to mind. I'm not sure those qualify as a proper German words, probably not.
Re:Voltswagen of America
by tomjakubowski on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @05:48PM
(#26641004)
Is my understanding correct that loan words are usually pronounced according to the donor language? (e.g. "das Handy") I seem to remember V is special somehow too, for historical reasons.
If I am reading Duden right, Version is directly a French loanword:
https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Version
while Variation is "influenced" by French:
woltswagon?
Is that the correction pronunciation now?
No. Since this is for the US division, the pronunciation would be "Voltswagen".
Yeah, that's very close. The German pronunciation would be halfway between the English F and W sound.
Not really. Volt is pronounced like a soft w, not like an F.
But they must have known that people won't know that, so you still have a valid point.