Sunday, October 25, 2009

The Pilipino Axe-Cent

Disclaimer
The Filipinos I know speak much better English than I speak Tagalog, but that won't stop me from making another list.

Fs become Ps and Vs become Bs
By listening to enough conversation in Filipino, I started to pick up on the fact that Fs get converted to Ps ("fifty" to "pifty") and Vs often become Bs ("Biernes" instead of "Viernes"). This and other linguistic idiosyncrasies lay the foundation for frequent mispronunciation of English words. By the way, none of the following examples actually come from my wife, but she likes to read about herself so mentioning her again scores brownie points.

Examples
archie-teck - This person designs buildings. Pronounced phonetically here (which makes perfect sense).
choco-laite - Third syllable pronounced like late.
reee-leee? - Axe-cent on both syllables.
two porty pour - The number 244 called over the PA at Seafood City.
bri-yawn - Accent on yawn. I've heard my first name pronounced like this before.
pire place - Where logs are burnt and the letter F is forgotten.
creeteeseesum - The letter i becomes ee.
san jego - The di is pronounced as a j.
canajian - The di is pronounced as... you know.
calipornia - Most Filipinos do a better job of pronouncing my state's name than the sitting governor, who calls it cowlifornia.
hippopotamus - Americans put the accent on pot. I've heard it pronounced with the accent on tam.

Speaking of the Governator, my wife tells me that I sound like him when I try to speak Tagalog! Yikes.

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