Learn how to say 30+ foods that are hard to pronounce

Hi everyone, this lesson is about hard to pronounce foods. Have you ever had that embarrassing

situation in a restaurant when you want to order something and the waiter comes and you

just sort of whisper it quietly, or point at the food, because you have no idea how

to pronounce it. Or, I guess some people just don't order that thing because they don't

know how to say it. In this lesson, I'm going to teach you the British English pronunciations

of those words, and also if you're learning something about IPA or pronunciation in general,

this lesson will be useful for you.

So, let's start with staple foods. Staple foods are foods that you eat regularly and

provide you with a lot of your energy requirements. These are not regularly eaten foods in England,

they're not staple foods for most people, but in other countries of the world, they're

regularly eaten. First one: quinoa (keen-wa). This word has two pronunciations. Some people

say "keen-wa", other people say "ki-no-wa", "ki-no-wa". Moving on, next we have couscous,

"kus-kus", and we have bulgur, "bol-ga".

Sauces and dips. Here is an English food that's hard to pronounce, even among English people,

and we say Worcestershire, "wus-ta-sha" - we try to say "wus-ta-sha" sauce, "wus-ta-sha"

sauce. But because it's a bit of a mouthful, that pronunciation, there is a shorter way

to say it, which is just "wus-ta", "wus-ta" sauce. Next one: tzatziki, "tsat-see-key".

Hard for me to pronounce because this kind of pronunciation with the t next to the s

isn't common in the English language. "Tsat-see-key".

Next, we have taramasalata ("ta-ra-ma-sa-la-ta"), so many syllables in that one. Let's have

a look at the IPA transcription of the word, because this helps us understand the sounds

in that word more precisely. If you look here, I've spelt it with all these syllables ending

in the letter a. ta-ra-ma-sa-la-ta. But actually, there are quite a few schwa sounds in this

word, and the schwa sound changes the sound of the a. So, we get "ta-ra-ma-sa-la-ta".

Unstressed, unstressed, unstressed, unstressed. "ta-ra-ma-sa-la-ta".

I just want to add something about the orange and red columns. The orange column is the

sound of the word written out in the easiest way that everybody can understand, and the

red column is for people who know and understand IPA, which is a way to more precisely write

down the sounds of words. The problem with this is that not everybody understands, and

the problem with this is that it's not very exact in all cases. So, if we look at the

word taramasalata, it doesn't sound like that when we say it, it sounds like "ta-ra-ma-sa-la-ta,

and that's because of the schwas in the word, but we can't write the unstressed sound in

our normal writing like this.

The next word we have is guacamole. I'm saying that in the British pronunciation: "gwak-a-mo-lee",

whereas Americans have kept or have, maybe not kept, maybe have absorbed more of the

Mexican influence, so they pronounce it in a different way. We say "gawk-a-mo-lee", they

say "gawk-a-mo-le". But in England, this is a much more common pronunciation that you'll

hear people say. We haven't really been eating so much South American food here in England

for that long, I would say. I would say the last eight years, the last ten years, the

last ten years before it started to get more popular, but I think in North America, they've

been eating it a lot longer and a lot more of it, so they can pronounce it more authentically.

The next one is baba ghanoush, "ba-ba-ga-nush". Here again, we have the issue where the way

that I'm writing this word in the simple to understand characters doesn't show us that

we have a slightly - we have a different sound here. This is "ba-be-ga-nush", "ba-ba-ga-nush".

Now, moving on to the salad course. Can I tempt you with a hard-to-pronounce salad?

Let's start over here with tabbouleh, "ta-boo-lay". Next, this is the French pronunciation of

this word. We might find this pronunciation in the menu of a fancy restaurant, rather

than, say, the English pronunciation. This one is salade niçoise, "sa-lard ni-swarz".

In this word, we're not saying "salad", the second syllable is "lard", sounds longer.

This is the French pronunciation.

The next salad we have is Waldorf, ("wall-dorf"), wall as in - in your garden, wall, or in your

house, "wall-dorf, wall-dorf" salad. Compare the French pronunciation of "sa-lard" to the

English pronunciation of salad. And the last salad on our menu of hard to pronounce salads

is Caprese, "ka-pray-zi".

Next, we have pantry foods. These are foods that you keep in your cupboard and you cook

with them. And because these are unusual foods, these are ones that we would see on a restaurant

menu in specific dishes. Let's start here with aubergine, "oh-ba-zheen". You might not

recognize this word, especially if you're an American, because you call this one "eggplant",

but over here in England, we say aubergine. What stands out about the pronunciation of

this word is that it has a "zh, zh". This is not a very common sound in English. It's

also in the next word: courgette, "kor-zhet", "kor-zhet". It sounds close to a j, but it's

not a j. "Kor-zhet, korzhet". "Oh-ba-zheen", "oh-ba-zheen", "kor-zhet".

The next vegetable is a very unusual looking vegetable.

It's long and it's purple and green and in England, that vegetable tends to be eaten

as a dessert called rhubarb and custard. "Roo-barb", "roo-barb". This word is interesting, because

it has two long vowels in it, roo-barb, oo, ahh, roo-barb.

Next, we have a vegetable that you might not have heard of before, and a vegetable that

could possibly not be available in your country. This vegetable was, and maybe still is, fashionable

to eat in restaurants over here in England. And we say celeriac, "sa-le-re-ak". Let's

look at the pronunciation more closely. When I write it here, I cannot write in a precise

way how we really say this word, because here in this syllable, we have an "ea", this is

a diphthong, where two vowel sounds are together in one sound, but I don't know how to write

that, can't do it. So, how this actually sounds is "sa-leah-re-ak", "leah, leah". "leah-re-ak".

Moving on to the Japanese - what are they, bean? Japanese bean? In our list, we have

edamame, "e-da-mar-may". And finally, we have lychee, "lie-chi".

Now, we have French and Italian hard to pronounce food, starting with quiche, "keesh", "keesh",

"sh, sh". Next, this is a hard one to say. Hos d'oeuvre? How do we say that one? Actually,

this one is pronounced "or-derv", "or-derv", "or-dev, or-derv". Brioche, "bri-osh", "bri-osh",

again ending with a "sh" sound, "bri-osh". Next, we have a dessert: meringue, "ma-rang".

This word ends with an "ng", "ma-rang", "ma-rang". And next, we have a potato dish called potato

dauphinoise, "doe-fin-warz". There are two stresses in this word, the main stress has

two lines under it: doe-fin-warz.

Moving on to Italian words. Many - I'll go this way - many, many people struggle with

this one. How do we say it? We say bruschetta, "bruh-ske-ta". Let's look at the IPA: "bruh-ske-ta,

bruh-ske-ta". Let me know any Italians in the comment section how I did pronouncing

this. Moving on, we have gnocchi, "nyak-ee". If we look - if we look here, can you hear

that the n joins very quickly with the "yeh" sound? "Nyak-ee, nyak-ee". That's not a common

sound in English, so it's quite hard for us to pronounce in the Italian way. Many, many

people will just say "knock-ee, knock-ee", but if you think about it, it doesn't sound

as delicious, it doesn't really sound like a food you'd like to eat, but it does when

we add in that "yeh" sound: "nyak-ee, nyak-ee".

Next, we have tagliatelle, "tal-yuh-tel-ee". I'm looking at the IPA on this side: "tal-yuh-tel-ee,

tal-yuh-tel-ee". Something to note here about IPA transcription is that at the end of a

word, what would ordinarily be a long vowel, e, written with two dots at the end of a word,

we often leave off those two dots, because it's the same vowel, but there's a subtle

difference in length. And because it's at the end of the word, we don't give it as long

to say it. So, that's why at the end of this word, I haven't written the two extra dots

on the e sound. Tal-yuh-tel-ee.

And finally, I included this one in our lesson today because I really like this flavor ice

cream, but I never ever had any idea how to say it, so I always said something like "I'll

have a cone of sta-ki-a-tella", and I was always embarrassed and tried to hide how I

was saying it. But for today's lesson, I've found out how to say it, and it's stracciatella,

"stra-chuch-te-la", "stra-chuch-te-la". "Ch, ch", "stra-chuch-te-la".

And finally, we have Mexican food. You were expecting Mexican food. Well, it's actually

South American food, starting with ceviche, "sa-vee-chay". This one is a Peruvian dish,

so I've included it. No offense, I said that it was all Mexican food. It's actually more

broadly South American. When I've written this one in easy to understand characters,

I've written "sa-vee-chay", but the first syllable has a schwa and instead sounds like

"suh", "suh-vee-chay", our stress is in the middle of the word.

Next, we have - this one, we say quesadillas, "ke-sa-dee-uhz", two stresses in this word,

main stress for "dee", "ke-sa-dee-uhz". We have enchiladas, "en-chi-la-duz", our main

stress is the "la", and we also have a stress at the beginning, but it's not as strong.

"en-chi-la-duz". And our final word here: tortillas. Where are they from? Are they Mexican,

are they Spanish, Spanish? I don't know, let me know in the comments. Do they eat them

all over South America? Let me know in the comments if you are the authority on that.

We say "tor-tee-yuz", "tor-tee-yuz", "yuh, yuz, yuh, yuh, yuz", "tor-tee-yuz".

So, there you go. There are the hard to pronounce foods. Thank you for watching and give me

a thumbs up - thumbs up if you liked the lesson. Bye!