Italian in America RANT!
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
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There are so many Italian words used commonly in American on a daily basis. Bruschetta, Cannoli, Panini, pizza, pasta, cannelloni, lasagna, bolognese, caffè espresso, macchiato, latte and so much more! Ever wondered how these are actually supposed to be pronounced? And what about the actual food? Places like Maggiano's, Fazoli's or Olive Garden, are they even close to how Italian food is eaten and served in Italy? Or are they simply Italian American, and therefore a completely different thing? Let's find out!
#bespoke #funny #italian
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I'm happy for u n Mrs Metatron 😊
We r happy to have u with us in Amurica 😃
Is BeSpoke a "GetWoke" merchant? :) So happy to have you and your bride here with us in the States!
how can you switch the glorius and gorgeous italian cities and architeture for ugly modern american architeture are you mad
Meanwhile in italy Metatron where have you been, you must return to Italy at once
im from Brazil and i left São Paulo for the countryside and im never going back and if i could i leave my town for Ouro Preto or any other historical city here like the Imperial city Petropolis, but sadly petropolis has recently being damaged by a storm and flood of a river many people died including the pregnant wife and daughter of the imperial museum curator. it is really sad, and here they dont preserve our history and our traditional architeture sadly since brazilian colonial archteture is gorgeous
Poor Raff...he's been here no time at all and we are already on his last good nerve.
lmao imagine when he realize that the rest of the world only knows what usa tells them or at least believes Americans over Italians any day.
@@datuputi777 most of the mispronounciations regarding Italian occurs on their own in other English speaking countries. Not everything revolves around the US lol.
In which part of America is he? Makes a huge difference.
Which is fitting since USA is on it's last good leg 🤣
There is a reason I will never leave my fatherland unless I intend to make my new homeland a copy of my original homeland.
Omg, thank you for mentioning the Pastrami part, Yes Pastrami is indeed Romanian, Pastrama comes from "a pastra" (to keep).
It's literally salted jerky (Keepers). Pastrami was imported by the Romanian Jewish immigrants in the US, no it is not Italian.
All the pastrami I have ever had was smoked corned, i. e. cured, beef brisket. Which I understand to be New York Jewish delicatessen derived
And in Bulgaria we have пастърма (pastarma) which is the same now that I've checked. Seems that Greece and turkey have very similar words for the same thing as well.
never had it, so it's odd that i know it only through american movies as a cured meat prepared alongside salame and all that
seems good though... i wonder if it's up to the greatness that is alto adige's speck...
And here I thought Pastrama was a Romanian Motocross racer
Here (in Italy) I never heard that Pastrama before, let alone trying it....
Look… if we pronounce things **correctly** then we get made fun of as being affecting upper class. If we pronounce things in American English we get made fun of us as uncultured…. And I honestly understand this on a deep level because my native land (south Mississippi / Louisiana) is consistently in a battle with outsiders doing news reports in our cities and towns and culture and not pronouncing anything right
Rebel...
Can’t please everybody. That is why it is important to just remain authentic to yourself.
Why doesn't south Louisiana of all places not know how to correctly pronounce Latinate Romance words? New Orleans had old Italian American population for centuries. Plus nobody speaks Cajun French anymore? Many Louisiana Creoles have Italian ancestry. Even General P.G.T. Beauregard was Italian (son of Louisiana French créole father Jacques Toutant-Beauregard and Italian-descent mother Hélène de Reggio-grandfather Italian knight Francesco Maria de Reggio offered services to King Louis XV who appointed him governor of French Louisiane, where Francesco Maria took French name form François Marie.)
@@InqvisitorMagnvs Do people of Italian descent in New Jersey, New York and Chicago pronounce Italian words like Italians?
@@minuteman4199
Standard or contemporary Italian?
Some 1st generation Italian-Americans, yes.
2nd generation and later, hardly any.
Caution: the vast majority of 'italian' restaurants in the US are staffed with non Italian speaking folks (esp the waitstaff). They WILL NOT recognize these pronunciations.
kind of like Chinese restaurants: Almost every one I've been to has chinese folks out front, but only mexicans in the kitchen cooking the food... very weird
MAMA MIA
@@Blox117it's actually mamma mia !!!
@@Blox117So funny and original
This is an old comment, but your post reminded me of croatians who dress as roman leggionares for photo ops with tourists. And ofc they dont speak italian xD
I do like to mess with them and speak italian and ask them what kind of a roman doesnt speak italian xD
This reminds me of going to a Turkish restaurant in Dallas where almost every menu item was listed in Turkish, making the mistake of pronouncing my order perfect Turkish (my mother tongue), and being "corrected" by the obviously local waitress. :))
@@zogwort1522 what the hell is even that?
I’d have gone with their way personally.
@@ChadKakashi I hope you understand that a native would feel very ridiculous in misprounouncing their own language just to please the uneducated waiters. If you work at an ethnic restaurant, it makes sense to try to learn at least the dish names.
I lived in Italy for 3 years, and I do know how to more or less properly pronounce Italian. However, If I tried to order something at an "Italian" restaurant in the US with a correct pronunciation, first, the wait staff wouldn't understand what I was trying to say, and, second, I'd likely be judged amusingly pretentious. So, there's that. All of that said, having travelled extensively in Europe and Asia I find it charming how most locals naturally misconceive American words and customs, so there's that too.
To be fair he is also in the South where we are even worse when it comes to pronouncing other languages words. Even English words at times depending how deep you are going. Why people ask me where I am from around here cause my Southern accent is very mild. And then I go New York accent.
oh yeah, we're not exempt from that, but here's the thing: that too makes us roll our eyes.
it irks me so bad that the one place in italy where cheese steak is commonly eaten in (campi flegrei) now often calls it... cistecca...
god it feels so wrong to write down like that, feels like i committed an unspeakable sin!
depends on who is there. When I lived in Syracuse, NY there was a large Italian American population there. One of my favorite Italian Cafe's was ran by an immigrant from Italy. I think he was from the Northern part but I used to order using Sicilian Italian as my grandma would pronounce it and he understood what I wanted. I don't speak much Italian outside the kitchen so past that I was a bit lost.
Haha, I feel you. I'm Italian and when my compatriots hear me pronounce Italian words in English they are horrified, because I pronounce them like English speakers do.
The reasoning I give to them is exactly the same: if I pronounced those words as they were supposed to, most people would not understand me.
Practicality takes precedence over linguistic accuracy 😆
It's not possible to learn the proper pronunciations for every single foreign food, let alone keep track of foreign foods that have become American over 100 years ago.
I worked as a waiter in the 90s and I pronounced the word 'bruschetta' correctly while doing so. As I walked away from tables I would constantly hear women whispering "OMG, did he really just pronounce it "bruschetta"?"
The people mispronouncing were making fun of me for properly pronouncing.
That's the trouble- at this point, the wrong way is so ingrained into the culture that anyone who does pronounce these words correctly is perceived to be in the wrong.
I noticed Americans are really prone to "correcting" people speaking their native language in full confidence
You wouldn't believe how often I had to deal with being told my French pronounciation was "wrong" (being a French native) only to hear them use completely outlandish pronounciations in turn
This is just the nature of language if everyone walked around making sure only the "correct" pronunciations were used English would sound more like Dutch. Just think how much it must have drove the Danish crazy when they conquered half of Britain and everyone started using their words badly
I'd constantly correct my wife's pronunciation of various French, Italian and Spanish words that are commonly used in recipes or at restaurants. Her answer? "We're in America."
English is a Germanic language, and yes languages do indeed evolve...but scoffing at people for "mispronouncing" a clearly Italian word in an Italian restaurant is an entirely different issue.
I just realized the American pronunciation of 'Bolognese' sounds like a Italian word pronounced French. However in Austria you'll hear all versions possible. It would drive you nuts.
because it is an italian word pronounced french, i say it like that because i didn't knew how to say the word and didn't bother looking how to say it also
"Bolog-neesey"
Boom! NAILED IT
In Brazil it's super easy since we say "Bolonhesa" it would be a shitshow if we used the "g", people would call it "bolog nessa" xD
@@kabardino1337 You Brazilians and your "R" sounds though, lol. "Rickson" being pronounced "Hickson", just flabbers my gast.
Yes, a lot of stuff, especially food, gets Frenched if we don't know better. I expect that's why the accented É.
My great-grandparents on my father's father's side were Italian immigrants. I learned nothing from them.
My wife is from Firenze and she almost fell over laughing. She gets on me about spaghetti ALL THE TIME 🤣
Just ask her how they pronounce sghetti in furensi then
Yet I GUARANTEE she uses tons of English loan words in her Italian with fully Italian pronunciations, because that is how language works.
Bro, how are you still alive?
@@alittlebitgone The use of English words in Italian is just a recent thing for the most fortunately.
There’s a part of me (a Japanese Canadian) that’s always looking for the “correct wrong pronunciation”
I saw the word “Bolognese” in a restaurant, and as a slight linguistic nerd, i more or less knew the right Italian pronunciation (something close to it, at least)
But it felt weird dropping a “Bolo-nyeh-zeh” in a restaurant full of anglo-saxon Canadians. I knew nobody says that. But on the other hand, I also knew that NOBODY says “baw-log-neez”
I was desperate to find the “right wrong way to say it”, but just couldn’t so… I ordered something else.
Wrongly pronouncing words in English is kind of a skill in itself…it seems
Wow. You are super self-conscious. Maybe just care a little less about what other people think of you 😉
Thats was.... a very japanese reaction of you....
I think that the "correct wrong pronunciation" you're looking for here is "bola-neez". Of course, that never stops me from saying it the correct way. I like to shatter their notion that they're saying it right by actually saying it right lol
Oh no! You missed a wonderful dish tho! As we say in Italian: il gioco non vale la candela! (literally: the game is not worth the candle). 😄
Like a street in St. Louis. Gravois Avenue. Should be grav wah but its grav o way. Cuz noone knows how to pronounce French.
As a spaniard in London, going to a "spanish" restaurant was the last thing crossing my mind.
True. However, Italians always seek their mamma's food. In Erasmus partnerships, the Italian teachers used to leave the dinner table to go to a pizzeria!
Even as an Englishman finding out Americans pronounce Bologna as baloney was a WTF moment.
It is what it is. 😉
Now make me a bologna sendwitch.
Blame it on all the French words in the English (and American) language. We're used to dropping all kinds of letters out of words.
@80sguy an anomaly.
Yh t gts nsn smtms
Actually surely blame anything and everything in teh French 🤣
@@TheSteam02 BUUURRNNNN
Smart
There is a scene in the Sopranos, where they are at a restaurant in Naples and Pauly asks for gravy for his pasta. By which he means tomato sauce. You can imagine the waiter’s reaction.
I’m an American of Italian descent (with a really Italian last name), and I have to tell you, this video reminded me I have not seen a Fazoli’s in like 10 years, but it sure did make me miss its cheap, crappy Italian American food. God bless.
I think there's one still operating in my town. I used to go frequently with my ex, but haven't driven by in a while. I called it, "Fozzy Bear's."
The breadsticks are amazing and, really, the only reason to go there.
The only issue I have with this is that if WE correct somebody else who mispronounces English words, then we're just being rude. So if we mispronounce things from other languages it's because we're uneducated, but if somebody else mispronounces something in English it's totally fine and we're not allowed to correct them or else we're made out to be rude for doing so. Kinda hypocritical.
It's extremely hypocritical, every single language, including Italian, takes hundreds of English words into it's lexicon, and the pronunciation of these words changes to match. For whatever reason people only expect English speakers to sound like morons by switching how they say each word depending on what language that word came from.
I work with an Italian guy and I tried some of these on him
And he knew I learned from a Sicilian 😂
My maternal great grandparents emigrated from Naples in the early part of the 20th century. Like many Italians from that part of the country, they settled in and around New York City. Most of the menu at a place like Maggiano’s is the kind of Italian-American comfort food my grandparents’ generation contributed to American culture and cuisine. The odd pronunciations reflect two drivers: (1) pronunciations of the Neapolitan dialect circa 1900, which tended to drop the last syllable of many words and (2) an effort to anglicize pronunciations for English speakers who had difficulty pronouncing gli, gn and anything with an impure S. But if you go to other American cities with large Italian-American populations-Philadelphia, Boston or San Francisco for example, they tended to rely on dialects from other parts of Italy. Interestingly, I was hooked on the Italian crime show, Gomorrah, which features the modern Neopolitan dialect, and it is unintelligible to me.
It is unintelligible for most of non napolitan italians as well :D
I was just about to say the same thing. Also you will see a lot of Neapolitan S's turned into Z's in what I guess we could coin the Italian-American dialect.
@@gantoniopatriarca9520 ^ In CT we have the largest density of Neapolitans in the US. Father is from Pontelandolfo, In the Campania Region. Grew up listening to my families "dialect" and was shocked when i went to learn Standardized Italian, and the sentences took 2x as long to say, every word had a vowel at the end, and there were a lack of "shhh" sounds. "Come shtai". "Ashpett". Looking into the Neapolitan Language, I saw that most Americanized Italian Words have their roots in this Language and its dialects.
@@scumbagnamechooser , l grew up speaking Italian and when we went to Napoli I couldn’t understand any of their dialect. For me Spanish is much easier to understand than that dialect
This sounded just like my rants during my first years in the US. 😆
I especially loved it when overzealous waiters patiently corrected my native Italian with the americanized version: "It's pronounced 'broosh-ee-ehtta', like in SHore. That's how Italians say it". Nothing like having a foreigner insisting you don't know how to speak your own language. 🤣
Can’t believe how bone headed Americans are, comment section is full of examples like this. It’s offensive, really.
I think a lot of Italian Americans don't realize that their ancestors who immigrated over never spoke standard Italian. They spoke archaic southern dialects. However, to this day, in certain places in italy like Napoli you can find people who say bruschetta with a hard sh sound.
@@My_Personal_UA-cam not true: what you can hear in Napoli is something like "brushketta" cause of a very heavy "sh" sound in a lot of words having "sc" sound (like "scuola" meaning "school" pronounced "shkuola").
Nowadays you'll never find someone in Italy saying "brusheta" tho
@@alessandroscurti2053 You're agreeing with everything I've said. Brushketta contains a hard sh sound.
@@My_Personal_UA-cam maybe I misunderstood, what I meant is that the sh sound you talk about goes with the "k" sound right after. I just wanted to point that out not to make people think that the word "brusheta" is a thing
The trouble is you're so entertaining when you're worked up that I'm going to deliberately order spugetty bolonaise and baloney calzoans just to aggravate you.
🤮🤢
How about spaghetti with ketchup…
@@jamieott7080 Some people just wanna see the world burn..
As I understand it, Italian immigrants, especially those from impoverished, Bourbon-ruled southern Italy, quickly found themselves swimming in greater economic opportunities than they'd known at home, and they introduced more meat into their cooking, and more processed sugar. This explains the appearance of meatballs and sugar in their sauces, and meats of all kinds atop pizzas. They also adopted American-style sandwiches but filled them with vegetables, cheeses, and sauces that were more familiar to them, as well as cold meats that had become available after arriving in the U.S. and Canada.
I had a friend who ordered "chilli con cane" at an italian restaurant. They got really mad XD
Chinese-Mexican fusion food
Isn't cane dog in italian? Your friend is truly a multicultural man, integrating korean cuisine with italo-mexican food
My dumbass ex really thought 'pasta e burro' at an italian restaurant was pasta with donkey meat.
@@pablodelsegundo9502 it's not common, but we do it donkey meat in Italy
@@thebrognator3524 Does donkey taste any different from horse?
It's because most of our grandfathers that got stationed in Italy during WWII were stationed in Palermo, so they all learned how to say that one correctly.
Caesar salad was invented by a Mexican restaurant owner - Cesar Cardini iirc, by the way. And what he invented isn't much like what's served in modern restaurants.
You beat me to it. Caesar Cardini was an Italian who went to America, then to Mexico. He went Mexico to open a bar due to alcohol prohibition. The salad was an accidental creation. He couldn't fill an order so he made the Caesar salad. It became popular mainly due to his bar serving a lot of a lot early Hollywood stars.
@@hughmongus6191 Oh. I didn't know he was Italian, but makes sense. Cardini certainly sounds more Italian than Spanish.
As I heard it, he made the salad to feed some Hollywood stars who were trapped at his Tijuana bar by bad weather. Romaine lettuce, worchestershire sauce, and raw eggs - not quite what we call a Caesar salad today.
@@vodostar9134 Caesar salad can be almost anything these days as long as it's drenched in "Caesar salad dressing".
@@vodostar9134 which I 'think' is made with anchovies generally.
Thank you for spelling Cesar Cardini's name right. There's no initial "a" in his name.
10:30
As a Portuguese I always struggle with ordering coffee abroad because most people in Portugal only ask for "a coffee" and it's always implied to be a simple expresso.
I'm Norwegian and when we order "coffee" we get a full sized cup of black coffee. So for me it was quite the culture shock when travelling in Portugal and Italy ordering a coffee and getting espresso as that is a very nice and unusual coffee drink in Norway :)
As a Swede, I've usually heard two variations of most foods (not counting the Internet): either the Swedish word for it, or something that attempts to sound like the original (with various levels of success). I think both are correct(ish). If a foreign word has developed into a native word, then you can use the native pronunciation, even if that's different from the original. In some cases, it's even appropriate, since if you're talking about a specific dish, for instance, then the recipe might've also changed a bit in the new culture.
Edit: I've also not heard much about "sounding pretentious" for trying to order something with an Italian (or whichever) pronunciation. Might just be here, or it might be a European thing, where people are more used to hearing a multitude of languages.
Calling your dog "canoli" is actually like calling your dog "peaches" - which happens to be a thing, for some reason.
🤣👍
Peach..I can eat a peach for hours
@@johnv6806 Peach is ok - what's _really_ good is peach jam.
@@itskarl7575 i confess I hate peach and was quoting nicolas cage in "face-off"
@@johnv6806 Oh. Not the most oft-quoted movie, but ok. Peach jam is still great, though.
As a Portuguese i really appreciated the whole "un caffe" because the same happens here. Portugal is very "Italian" when it comes to café
im curious, why do people say "as a __" instead of "as someone who is _"
i guess its just lazy/simpler to say?
@@Blox117 Like we say in Portugal. "Para bom entendedor meia palavra basta" "To a good connoisseur half a word is enough "
@@adrianomiguelfontes well I was curious because it's not just Portuguese speakers, other language speakers other than native English ones say that a lot
Imagining overweight Murk tourist in Europe: _Boy, gimme one o' them flapper chinooks, … pronto!_
It’s just a Latin thing, because I’m Mexican and we do the same
The US restaurant industry loves mixing French words with anything else. You won't win that argument with menu writers.
You can't reason with the lowest common denominator.
That's nothing. Discuss "beef jerky" with a Native American. 😅
It's like if Italians introduce spaghetti to 'Murks' and they start selling it as "sperg tea" everywhere.
We also have a cringer like that in Germany. We turned "Château Morel" branded cherries into "Schattenmorellen" (shade morells - whatever that is).
Avoid chain restaurants. You can find good Italian if you look for the small hole in the wall places.
An odd thing is having to know whether a word is Spanish or Italian to know how to pronounce it. There is a fair amount of overlap, but Gallo, like the winemakers, is not pronounced the same as Spanish for rooster, also gallo.
Latin based languages usually do I dont speak either Italian or Spanish but I recognize a lot of the words that sounds similar. Like German words that sound English
@@mr.m4297 German does have a fair number of words similar to English, but some that are “false friends” like gift, which means poison in German.
Very true! In particular because pronunciation rules between Spanish and Italian are very different. "Ch" in Spanish is soft c, like ceviche, in Italian is pronounced like k, like bruschetta or fianchetto (chess term commonly mispronounced by amateurs). Or double "LL" like you mentioned, but also "gui" and "cui", "gli"... they are pronounced completely different in Spanish and Italian.
Not to mention French words in all things culinary arts related
Gallo means rooster in Italian as well.
I was under the impression that dropping the vowels at the end of words, like Calzon for Calzone, Projut for prosciutto, etc., was a Neapolitan dialect thing. Dialect vs standard Italian. All the poor immigrants from the South of Italy 100 years ago brought their dialect pronunciations with them. I am British, not American, but watch the Sopranos. They drop the vowels at the end of all their words - Moozadel for Mozzarella, Rigat for Ricotta, etc. Calzon is just another example of this.
Baloney though - no idea! This one has never made sense to me. For about 30 years I did not know what it was at all. It took me until then to realise it was what Americans call Bolognaise. In England we pronounce it to rhyme with Mayonnaise, so we don’t pronounce the e at the end, but it’s still nowhere near as bad as Baloney (though for us it tends to mean a pasta sauce rather than a cured meat). And I never thought Pastrami was Italian. I always thought it was an Eastern European Jewish type thing that you get with Bagels.
The Neapolitan dialect doesn't just drop the final vowel, most of the time the word is written or pronounced in a different way. For example, calzone is written in the same way, but pronounced "cazon" or "cazone" depending on which part of Campania you're from. Naples is written "Napule" but it's pronounced "Napule", "Napul" or "Napuli"
As a Mexican American this is absolutely relatable.
It goes both ways though, 90% of italians speaking a foreign language pronounce half the words in that very italian way and don't bother getting better.
Imma go to Italy and make fun of how Italians say cheeseburger and New York strip 😂
It's not cheesehboogerr Metatron!
It's not new yorke stripa Metatron!
😂
7:46 fru-it... I'm dying here lmao
The moment you said you move to America I KNEW! this was going to happen, eventually.
I feel like intentionally messing up the words because I now know how to properly pronounce them. Welcome to America, Raf.
Moments in which I am happy to be Spanish-speaking, there is more understanding with Italian (I cannot say the same for Portuguese and French, who are like brothers estranged from the family). XD
He makes a good point, but I don't think he realizes how pretentious I would sound if I pronounced these words the correct way when I am speaking to other Americans.
I think this is my favorite video so far! I laughed so hard. More rants please.
Congrats on your marriage, Metatron! May you and Kenzie have an everlasting love and great prosperity.
as a german i know exactly how you feel. anglophones butchering german words gives me a headache :)
And nobody understands the final "e" schwa sound in German and French.
You know how we, Russians, pronounce Einstein? [EinSHtEin]
I mean this happens when languages borrow words. For example if you ever hear english words borrowed into another language, japanese for example, they are not pronounced correctly at 7. There's nothing wrong with that. They are modified to fit the language they have been borrowed into. Continuing with the japanese example. If i were to say a word with the proper english pronunciation while speaking japanese, it would be both confusing, and sound very strange.
It works both ways. I remember a German girlfriend laughing at my English pronunciation of the American brand Colgate (kol-gayt). "It's kohl-GAH-teh!"
Now that is complete shy-sir.
The American pronunciation of Bologna comes from the UK pronunciation which is buh-lony-a/buh-lone-ya, which is derrived from the Latin "Bonōnia," which has devolved into the meat being called "Polony" in the UK. The meat itself is derrived from Mortadella which famously come from Bologna, obviously.
I think New Yorkers of Sicilian ancestry probably influenced our Italian-esque food names the most.
Actually, Metatron, I have found this video VERY helpful. I am someone who prefers to pronounce things the way they are meant to be pronounced, so I thank you for this video.
Welcome to the US! Please don't judge us for Olive Garden @_@ those of us who retain any familial connections with Italy don't call that food.
When we returned from Italy after being stationed there for three years and having been living outside the US for almost six years, my wife and I went to an Olive Garden for the first time. We both got sick from the so called "Italian" food.
Yes, Olive Garden is not good food.
@@markantony3875 I do enjoy some of their desserts. LOL
@@paulpski9855 Ok, but you have to sit through the shitty meal there to get the desert. 😁
I'm 50. I just learned that calzone is a 3 syllable word. Who knew? Besides all of Italy.
German cities have also been renamed by the english speaking population. I was so confused after moving to the UK and none of the other children at school knew my hometown "München" despite it being quite well-known here.... - yeah, "Munich". It´s even worse with "Cologne" being "Köln"
So with Köln the funny thing is, it's the Germans who are saying it wrong. It was founded by the Romans as Colonia Claudia. So calling ik Cologne instead of Köln is just an older version of the original name for the settlement.
English has no ü sound and "moon chin" sounds weird in English, so I guess somehow that became Munich. Or maybe it's some old dialectal version? Prussian maybe?
You're aware that every language on Earth does this, right? Even German?
@@alittlebitgone it's all England folt simple
I mean, every language does that, if you speak a different language you will adapt names of places to ease the pronunciation and writing.
Metatron: "I have so much more to rant about and I will, after a word from our sponsor."
UA-cam: Immediately cuts to its own ad right there.
XD
My heritage is Sicilian/Italian- Mexican. I'm 3rd generation American born on my mothers side. My maternal great grandparents came over to America from Palermo. My maternal Great Grandmother never learned English. My maternal Grandma, was bilingual Italian/Sicilian-English. She tired to teach Italian to maternal grandfather, my Mom and I. But we were having trouble pronouncing Italian, so she thought we were making fun. She lost her patience. Said she wouldn't teach us anymore. But some words and phrases did stick. After my grandparents and mom died I decided in honor of them. To embrace Italian/Sicilian culture, traditions, etc. I started going to the San Gennaro Italian Festival in Los Angeles held in September. The last one was 2018. For about 3 years it wasn't scheduled. Now, I found out it's returning to be held 1 and 2 October 2022.
How is Pizza Hawai called in italian? ;)
pizza hawaiana or pizza con l'ananas.
Che cosa?
Congratulations on your wedding. I didn't realize you had moved to the States. Welcome. Maybe we may cross paths someday.
And yeah, we do have have a tendency to butcher other languages, but we'll do it to our own words too. 😏
Ok, you got me on pepperoni! My grandmother was Italian (she came to the USA at 11) and I knew the rest. I still miss her cooking!
Welcome to America. This country needs more people like you
I just got a job at Olive Garden.
This video will haunt me every time I mispronounce something now
This video brought back memories of my time in Belluno. Nearly every day we would have lunch at a restaurant called La Conchiglia. One of our coworkers was of Italian descent and he spoke Italian fluently. We knew how to pronounce the name of the restaurant correctly but we would call it "The Con Chig Lia" just to get under his skin.
I've always been taught to say bologna the way you pronounced it. To me, baloney means to say something stupid or BS, not something you eat.
Still, Bologna is a city. Not some sort of cured meat...
@@tizioincognito5731 Tell that to Oscar Meyers.
@@khodexus4963 😆
I'm a Spaniard living in Italy and I get you, I can't stand people mispronouncing words and thinking they do it right. I guess for me it's easier to pronounce than to an English speaker, but come on, some people don't even try.
But what I hate the most is English speakers that come to Europe and start talking to you directly in English, and then get mad when some folks don't know how to speak it. So, wait, you are so entitled that you want people abroad to speak English and when they go to your country you get mad if they don't speak English? Do you think you own the world?
Well it's "right" in that, in English it's correct enough. The point of language is to be understood, and in English you will be better understood with "bolonee" than "bolonya"
@@viysnjor4811 Of course, I don't pretend to change how English speakers talk, because changing a whopping 380 million people it's extremely difficult, but it would be good if, at least, they knew they were pronouncing it wrong. And when they come to Italy (or any other country), for God's sake, learn the basic phrases and pronounciation. Everyone will treat you better if you let them know you are trying to blend with the country. I don't speak fluent Italian yet, but hey, I try, and people really aprecciate and even compliment you.
@@ikad5229 Well it helps that you already speak a Romance language, you have most of the grammar and sounds already, English has very few sounds in common with Italian however. I agree people should try to say things properly when abroad, but English sounds don't go over well into Italian compared to Swedish or Danish, for example.
@@viysnjor4811 That can go both ways. As a Romance language native, it's also more difficult to me to pronounce English words than to a Swede, yet I try to improve my pronounciation all I can. All I ask for is common decency and respect. If you come here, try to blend with the natives, respect its people and its culture and you will be treated the same way. It's not uncommon to see how prices go up when selling things to an American, because A) they don't usually know they are being fooled and B) if they are bad tourists at least why not make a profit out of them. I'm not saying every American/British is a bad tourist, but my experience tells me that they are the least welcomed in Southern Europe.
@@ikad5229 Justifying tourists being conned if they don't have a grasp on the local language. Lol. Don't be bitter, be better.
Come on, Metatron, this is somewhat pedantic. Although I can very much relate to your being annoyed, it's just not realistic to expect Americans to understand the subtleties of Italian grammar and pronunciation. I grew up in Italy, and was quite amused at how Italians constantly butchered English words. And they by and large did the same thing that you are complaining about: they pronounced them according to their own spelling rules. And, like you, I wasted a lot of time early on trying to explain English spelling/pronunciation rules, like the 'e' being silent at the end of (most) words. And they would say, that's just stupid, of course you pronounce the 'e.'
Regarding "Italian" food in America, you also need to understand that what we mean by that is "the food that Italian-Americans eat." So an Italian restaurant can be very genuine while serving food that they've never seen in Italy. The classic example of this is spaghetti and meatballs, which is the absolute go-to staple of Italian-American cuisine. Here is perhaps a good way for you to understand this. Being Italian, you well know that there is no such thing as Italian food. Rather, there are many different regional traditions. Think of the Italian diaspora in the United States as simply being another region of Italy, with its own regional specialties and its own peculiar dialect.
This tangent video is quite delightful. Tonic accent and where you put it is a great factor with the italian language. I learned that with wines and their Denominazione di origine controllata.
Someone needs to start a UA-cam channel dealing with the history of Italian food.
As an Italian American who studied for a year in Firenze, I feel your pain to some extent.
"It's just an "i". A small detail."
...says a person whose language differs "throw" from "through", "set" from "seat", "bitch" from "beach" and "batch" ...
I am thrilled that you made this video. I don't know if you knew, but some Americans adore any oportunity to butcher words. This video is a wealth of how to annoy/tease any Italian one may run across. Welcome to America! Fuck yeah!
Just wait until he hears how germans pronounce “gnocchi” 😅
Gnoog schiiii
I know that’s jarring to hear how foreign people pronounce your local language’s words. Especially when those very words are kept written in the same way. But it’s a lost battle.
But think what may be worse: that they let go completely of those foreign words and adopt completely English sounding ones. To later on, with time, dispute where those meals came from, to begin with. It happened with other foods and meals. At least in this way, even if mispronounced, the Italian origin will stay strong on people’s minds.
Welcome to the USA my friend, where mispronouncing other people's to words is one of the things we do best XD
Oh please. You don't think that happens elsewhere?
Same with Polish "pierogi" explaining to English speakers that "pierogi" is plural never gets old.
my buddy is nuts about his "pierogis", any time he gets drunk he wants to cook them, never had them myself cause theyre his "pierogis", never knew he was pluralizing til now, thank you wladknsakjsnc, sorry i tried, its quicker that way
@@0NoOne1nParticular Anytime and next time try "Vwojimiez"
@@Yuudaddy ill be sure to correct him from now on! whats the single form of pierogi? just pierog? and whats "Vwojimiez"?
@@0NoOne1nParticular Singular is "Pieróg" (pierug) and "Vwojimiez" is how to pronounce my name at least as much as the English alphabet allows it since it does not have the sound for "rz" which is basically the French "j". I was also not sure "wladknsakjsnc," was supposed to be so sorry.
Its pastramă it is a romanian food and traditionally its meat thats been smoke cured for weeks, the name comes from the verbe "a păstra" which means to keep because thats what people would do to keep meat good for longer without refrigeration
A few years ago, I read about basic Italian pronunciation and began saying “bruschetta” properly. Everyone, including my own wife, corrected me repeatedly until I just gave up and started pronouncing it incorrectly again. 😆
*Watches this video when you're American but the mother side of your family are Sicilians and you're used to homemade Italian cuisine, but they use a lot of these American pronunciations.*
"I'm in danger."
(Identity crisis ensues)
@@TheSteam02 My father side is German, so I'm well past that point.
Ah Caesar, the best leader of the Roman Republic 😏
Yay! Welcome to the US, Metatron. My grandfather was from Casteldaccia... I hope to visit someday (I'm in Colorado). These pronunciation tips are great ... you're welcome to drop them into any discussion, as far as I'm concerned. I often wonder about these terms. Thanks!
Fazoli's also ain't a family name, it began as a corporate concept, the restaurant was created by the company that made Long John Silver's.
I have tried to correct the pronunciation of bruschetta so many times in the US. Let me know if you find a good pistachio pasta in Nashville. I am only a couple hours away. The best ever was in Aci Trezza near Catania. When I lived in Italy and asked for pizza pepperoni they assumed I meant diavolo because I am American. I always loved peperoni and cipolla
I'm proud to say I've always pronounced it "buh-log-nah"... like some Tolkien orc's name
I worked in Jersey for almost 40 years with Italian guys "fresh off the boat" pouring concrete. Great people man. They yell and scream all day and a lot of Laborers couldn't take it.
I understood though. They're just good hearted crazy people who take their work seriously. The more they yelled and got mad the funnier I thought it was. I got along great with them because
I didn't mistake their passion for anger or hate.
Had to laugh that just as you were explaining about pepperoni youtube injected a dominoes pizza ad.
Congratulations Metatron! I do hope you enjoy he american italian restaurantts and pronunciation even tho different XD love your videos.
Hearing others mispronounce words from your mother tongue gets funnier if your language is tonal. Because then, the meaning completely changes and can often result in accidental obscenities or just plain goofy sentences uttered by strangers.
They made fun of this a lot in the Rush Hour movies
@@Nerobyrne Was it Mi or Yu?
“Alfredo doesn’t exist” … well Alfredo di Lelio did exist, and his restaurant in Rome popularly served pasta al burro e parmigiano so people associated his name with it.
Granted though, modern “Alfredo sauce” is an embarrassment to this dish and is at best garlic flavored cream gravy.
I came here to say this. He called his dish fettucine all'Alfredo. They Americanized the name and the dish when it came over here, and I agree the American version is an embarrassment.
@@giuliafiore7821 And he developed the recipe for his pregnant wife, who had problems keeping food down and needed something mild and easily digestible to maintain her health.
He didn't invent shit, Italians had been eating pasta with butter and parmigiano for centuries. He probably just scammed American tourists into thinking it was a prestigious dish when it's just the most basic thing you can make.
I have the same pet peeve with “pierogis” I see this in the menu in North America and I’m like wtf every Polish person knows that pierogi is plural so why would you make it even more plural??? No one ever orders one “pieróg” anyway
I think the plural name for a pet has some precedent: 'Waffles' makes more sense as a pet's name than 'Waffle', 'Sprinkles' more than 'Sprinkle' etc. And leaving the realm of food I know of people calling their dogs 'Snuggles', 'Snuffles', or 'Cuddles' but never the singular forms of those names. Which are, admittedly, all a bit twee as names go.
On the subject of calzone (and also mascarpone) - is there a possibility that it's a bit of a preservation of a previously held particular regional accent of Italian migrants that has developed over time into something distinct? I gather that the reputation for Italian Americans referring to capocollo as gabagool is an example of this, which then got shot into the popular imagination due to frequent references in The Sopranos. On a similar note a relative of mine (based in the UK) whose parents were originally from Naples sometimes refers to mascarpone (etc.) with the American pronunciation, hence my question about divergence of pronunciation in diaspora groups.
Hahahah, i feel you! I happen to speak italian as well, and it's funny and horrendous to see italian words butchered like that. Big congrats on your wedding, wishing you both a long, happy life together!
No rant about gnocchi? 🤣
Anyway... The video reminded me a bit of "it's leviOsa, not leviosA..." 😁
And I grinned a bit that you complain that people say "expresso" instead of "espresso", while I heard you say "excetera" instead of "et cetera" several times, some time ago.
But it's all good. Love by far most of your content!!! 😎
Amusing video. I grew up in Providence, RI, a city with a substantial Italian population. It has been settled there for several generations now, and the grandchildren of the first generation are thoroughly Americanized. Even they now often use the Americanized words and pronunciations. Nobody would fault you for saying things the proper way, but, behind your back you might be looked at as a "moustache Pete."
Yeah i can understand you're frustration at the mispronunciations of Italian words, but alot of the blame goes to Italian-americans who mispronounce the words damn near half the time lol, i've heard even mob guy's do it. ;)
Most Italian-Americans can not speak proper Italian, it is sort of a running joke in italy that italian-americans know about italy only what is in the American culture. In truth, almost any italian do not consider italian-americans to be italian.
Of course Italian-Americans are not Italians. Like African American are not "Africans" etc
I'll never understand why so many USA guys claim they represent a certain culture or country when they clearly don't. It's not like they're not proud of their real country, usually - far from that actually lol
@@giulia885 Well they usually do have some form of sub-group culture but it's really distorded, Italian-American for exemple could be said to be American with a sub culture which is ispired by Italy.
German american will like beer and sausage, Italian American pasta and pizza, the familly dynamic will probably be influenced a bit as well.
At the end it doesn't make that much difference.
@@byletheisner5006 Italian-Americans are almost all descended from Naples or Sicily, whereas "Proper Italian" was based on Northern Italian dialects, and often not taught in southern Italy before the Americans of Italian Descent came over. There will be a difference between them, just as Chaucer's Madame Eglantine spoke French in the manner of Stratford, not Paris. And most Americans speak better English than they do in England, if you base it on the 1630-1750 dialects.
Dear REST OF THE WORLD:
Don't expect Americans to pronounce things from wherever you're from the same as you.
We aren't from there, or haven't been for a long time.
K thnx
exactly; shall we demand that every other nation speaks our language?
i'm pretty sure people would bitch hard about that.
"torta caprese": exists
customer: HAHA is that a cake with tomato and mozzarella?
A lot of the weird Italian-American pronunciation came from Napuletano. I’m sure you’re aware of the final vowel sound in Napule. Then that final vowel sound just slowly went away and the words end on the consonant instead. Pasta “fazool” etc etc. still drives me nuts though lol gabagool somehow from capocollo. Goomba-cumpà
This was hilarious. You have a new sub from me. I'm an American living in Italy...so yeah...let's talk about all those misspellings on the Italian to English translations on menus here...hahhahah. No, seriously, you're soooo right. Loved the video.
A thoroughly enjoyable rant. I'll still go on pronouncing these things with English phonology when speaking English in America - it's really no different than saying Rome and not Roma. But it's good to know for when I'm able to visit Italy again. Makes me wonder about what I'm sure is the comparable set of English words that Italians butcher in Italian :-).
That's the thing, I highly believe we should stop using translated words for cities...
Now, I don't know the italian version of "Keith", but imagine if someone is called "Kate" and then italians call her "Caterina", it just makes no sense 😅
Plenty! However in Italian it is not so bad compared with other romance languages. In Spain and France it is _much_ worse, as the accepted rule is to pronounce foreign words simply using local rules. In Spain it is common to pronounce Wifi as uee (like oui in French) fee, so much so that if you pronounce it correctly, they will not understand what you mean. In Italy the standard is to _try_ to pronounce foreign words correctly, even if not always with good results of course (in particular because English does not have pronunciation rules you can learn).
In English it is a bit of a mixed bag, they do not have the hostility of French and Spanish to foreign words but surely to pronounce the words correctly is seen as wrong and even offensive. There is a comedy skit, _The Guy Who Over-Pronounces Foreign Words_ by College Humor, showing that pronouncing foreign words correctly would be somehow offensive and funny... very difficult to appreciate it as a foreigner, it is not clear why someone would be embarrassed by him pronouncing bruschetta properly.
@@bobon123 i mean, i just watched that skit, and the reason is that he overpronounces it, like putting *extreme* emphasis on the accents and on the world itself, almost screaming it
that's kinda cringe
...but it's very different from properly pronouncing the word.
as for the "it's the same as saying rome instead of roma!"
no.
abslutely not.
because ROME is WRITTEN ROME AND PRONOUNCED ROME, even if it's the english pronunciation, at least in english it's properly written
meanwhile here in the video you get examples of people saying bruschetta in such a way that in italian it'd be then written as "bruscieta"(or even "burscieda") and in english as "brushetta"
its wrong in both languages!
@@bobon123 Americans don't like being corrected, and as an American I really don't get it either lol. I'd rather be corrected than find out I'd been sounding like an idiot by mispronouncing something my entire life.
It's not just Americans borrowing Italian words who do this sort of thing. When people in other countries borrow English-language words, they frequently modify the spelling, the pronunciation, and/or the meaning. I'd be willing to bet that even Italians do that sort of thing!
I can think of only two reasons for an American to learn the correct Italian pronunciations for Italian foods: 1) It's kinda cool to know stuff like that and/or 2) We're planning to visit Italy. When ordering or discussing Italian food in the US, we can generally save time and confusion by using the Americanized pronunciation.
Americans: Haha English is so weird, we spell bolonee as Bologna.
Brits: That's literally just you.
Then there's the "latte" thing.. I know exactly what would get if I ordered a "Latte" in an Italian bar. It's perfectly fine to order that, I've seen it. What you get is a glass of milk, of course.
My father worked for a few years in Portugal, then a few years in Spain. A Brazilian woman living in Spain said that he has the same accent as her :)
Imma go to Europe and rant about how they are not pronouncing American english words right. Oh wait....that would be stupid and be considered rude as hell. Its ok if its the other way around however..... Heheh Just saying. Double standard