American English Pronunciation: How to Pronounce Countries and Languages

Remember last year when the  World Cup was hosted in Qatar,  

and people in the US were scrambling on how  to pronounce this country name in English?

How do you pronounce my country?

Qatar might be a tiny gulf country

The nation of Qatar

Stop saying Qatar. It’s Qatar.

Qatar

You are right there. How  are the locals pronounce..

Actually heard it three different ways.

It’s Qatar, Qatar and Qatar.

It got me thinking, wouldn’t it be  useful to have a list of country names,  

nationalities, and languages in English  with American pronunciation? That’s what  

you’re getting today. We’re starting  with the most populous countries,  

and in most cases we’re listing the official  languages, though sometimes not all of them.

First up, China. China, first syllable stress,  

but, Chinese, second syllable stress.  Languages: Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese.  

If you’re wondering what these symbols are,  they’re the international phonetic alphabet and  

they represent the sounds. They’re really helpful  and I’ll show you later why. She’s Chinese,  

from China, and she speaks Mandarin. Or, he’s  Chinese, from China, and he speaks Cantonese.

By the way, if any of these words or sounds  are tricky for you as non-native speakers,  

I totally get it. Recently I was just  experimenting with Chinese, trying to  

get some of the sounds and intonation, and I  was practicing saying “America” in Chinese.

Very tricky. Next, India. Look at the sounds here,  this is where the International Phonetic Alphabet,  

or IPA, is really handy. We have the letter I  twice, but they don’t make the same sound. So  

having unique sound symbol can help us get  the pronunciation. The first one is IH, IHN,  

India. The second one is ee, eee, -ia, -ia. IH  and EE. India. I do have a free cheat sheet  

that teaches the mouth position and IPA  symbol for each sound in American English  

so be sure to download that if you haven’t  already, here or in the video description.

Country, India. Demonym, Indian.  Demonym is a noun used to denote  

the natives or inhabitants of a particular  country, state, city, and so on. India,  

Indian, and the official languages are Hindi and English.

The United States, or, United States of America.  American and English or American English.  

I’m from the United States, I’m American, and  I speak English. Though I would like to speak  

many more languages. And you probably noticed  the country of the gets shortened to the US.

By the way, if any of these words  are especially tricky for you,  

use the video player to slow down the pace  and listen several times. This might help.  

Ok let’s keep going. We’ll go over  the 50 most populous countries.

If you like this video and want to see more  countries, let me know in the comments.

Indonesia and we have Indonesian.  Both have third syllable stress.

Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesian.

Pakistan or sometimes Pakistan.

Pakistani or Pakistani.

English and Urdu or Urdu.

I didn’t point this out earlier when we  were going over the word English but let  

me say it now when you look this word up in a  dictionary you will see the I as in sit vowel  

as the first sound e. However, because  it’s followed by the NG consonant, we do  

change that and make it more like e. This is how  Americans actually pronounce this word, English.

Nigeria

Nigerian

And actually, the only official language in  

Nigeria is English although there are  lots of other languages spoken there.

Brazil. Second syllable stress.

Brazilian or Brazilian

Portuguese. The word ends in  e s e and we’re making that  

last syllable stressed just like  Javanese and Sudanese. Portuguese.

Bangladesh or Bangladesh.

Bangladeshi

Bengali

Russia

Russian

And the language also Russian.

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Mexico

Mexican

Spanish

Japan

Japanese

The language is also Japanese. And notice  ese ending last last syllable stress.

The Philippines

Filipino

Filipino, English

Ethiopia

Ethiopian

Amharic or Amharic.

Oromo

Egypt

Egyptian

Notice the T now makes the sh  sound as part of the ending.

Arabic

Vietnam or you might hear Vietnam.

Vietnamese

Ends in e-s-e last syllable stress.

Vietnamese

Democratic Republic of Congo

Congolese

French

Iran or you might hear Iran.

Iranian

Persian also called Farsi.

Turkey

Turkish

Turkish or Kurdish

Germany

German

German

France

French

French

United Kingdom

British

English

English

Welsh

Gaelic

Scots

Thailand

Thai

Thai

Tanzania

Tanzanian

Swahili

English

South Africa

South African

You can really connect these  two words to make it feel like  

one word. The th going right into the  vowel. South African, South Africa.

English

Africans. They also have nine  other official languages.

Italy. Notice the flap T.

Italian. Now it’s a true T because  it starts a stressed syllable.

Italian

Myanmar also pronounced Myanmar  formerly known as Burma.

Burmese

Burmese

South Korea

Korean

Korean

Colombia

Colombian

Spanish

Kenya

Kenyan

English

Swahili

Spain

Spaniard

Spanish

Argentina

Argentine

Spanish

Algeria

Algerian

Arabic

Berber

Sudan

Sudanese

Arabic

English

Uganda

Ugandan

English

Swahili

Iraq or Iraq

Iraqi or Iraqi

Arabic

Kurdish

Ukraine

Ukrainian

Ukrainian

Canada

Candian

English

French

Poland

Polish

Polish

This is spelled the same but  has a different pronunciation  

of the word polish like to shine something.

Morocco

Moroccan

Arabic

Berber

Uzbekistan. You’ll see this written with  a vowel like in push when you look up the  

phonetics but it’s really pronounced  more like ooh, the vowel in Shu.

Uzbekistan

Uzbek

You might also hear it pronounced Uzbek. Uzbek.

Saudi Arabia or Saudi Arabia.

Saudi or Saudi

Arabic

Peru

Peruvian

Spanish

Angola

Angolan

Portuguese

Afghanistan

Afghani

Pashto

Malaysia

Malaysian

Malay or Malay

Mozambique or Mozambique

Mozambican

Portuguese

Yemen

Yemeni

Arabic

Ghana

Ghanaian

English

There are also various recognized national  

languages in addition to  this one official language.

Ivory Coast

Ivorian

French

Venezuela

Venezuelan

Spanish

Well, this was fun. I love journeying the  world with you. What other kinds of videos  

would be useful or helpful for you? Let me know  in the comments and please be sure to subscribe  

to the channel with notifications on. If you  want to study English pronunciation with me,  

check out rachelsenglishacademy.com. That’s it  and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.