100 Brand Names You Pronounce WRONG! | (How to say brands in English)

Dumb American here, but my question: when you differentiate American English from British English, are you using RP? If so, would some of the brand names vary - that would also be interesting.

If you bring money,no matter what is the pronunciation..everything is correct...😄

I appreciate her for saying each word double in three different languages OMG.... It took a lot of effort for her to make this video.....

Hi, I’m a German guy and I’m really impressed how good you pronounce the German Brands. I speak French as well and your pronunciation of the French Brands is formidable! Thumbs up!

As a German, I can say the German pronounciation is on point. Well done! :)

Your voice is so perfect for all this pronunciation, i feel like every time you say a word in different languages you are actually from this country

if i can afford to buy it, i’m calling it whatever tf i want 👍🏾

As a native French speaker I'm quite impressed by the accuracy of your French pronunciation. Kudos to you!
Antoine.

It's like you're an expert at French, Italian and German, and of course your English and American accent! ✨ I love how you point out the difference of pronunciation like a pro 💙✨. I learned a lot... Thank you!

for no.9 it’s actually pronounced “fancy toyota” its a bit tough to say but go ahead and try it!

18: Fun fact, Adidas was founded by a guy named Adolf Dassler who went by the nickname “Adi”. His father was a shoemaker, so he became a shoemaker. Using his 3 letter nickname with the first 3 letters of his last name he made Adidas (properly pronounced like an O or light A sound). His brother didn’t like the shoes that he made so he bought a factory across the river and founded Puma

3:36 Korean here. We pronounce it as "기아 (Gia)". So almost similar, but you gotta pronounciate it a bit less aggressively.
Actually most of "K" sound in Korean words written in English should be sounded as "G", not "K". For example, The most well known Korean family name "Kim" should sounded as "Gim". Just a small tip to pretend to speak an advanced Korean for you guys 😂

Glad to see that you are doing the pronunciations really well! I really appreciate that you are saying the correct pronunciation according to country which these brands are formed👏👏 I had watched so many videos like this and in almost all of them the people are pronouncing the brands in either American accent or British accent and it really gets on my nerves 🥲

i'm impressed at your finesse in pronouncing the subtle differences.

Kia in Korean is Ki -a (like a in art). the name "Kia" derives from the Sino-Korean characters 起 (ki, 'to arise') and 亞 (a, which stands for 亞細亞아세아, meaning 'Asia'); it is roughly translated as "Rising from Asia.

The first english person who speaks out the german words perfectly. I love it

Wow, I didn't knew I pronounce a lot of these names wrong. I learned a lot from this. Thank you! Much appreciated 😃😍

This is incredible how she can switch her accents so easily, this is fascinating!

That's impressive. So clean pronunciation that even my wife understands you, even though she doesn't speak english.

Italian here:
- Lamborghini: perfect.
- Maserati: the S and R are stronger and the A and I are not that long.
- Armani: perfect.
- Dolce & Gabbana: L is stronger, the double B is much stronger, she pronounces it like it's one word but we actually make a little pause between & and Gabbana; many people actually read & in English so they say Dolce and Gabbana.
- Fendi: E is not so long.
- Gucci: perfect.
- Prada: perfect actually.
- Versace: less stress on the A, the stress is still there, but too much stress sounds like you split the word into 2.
- Nutella: perfect.
- Peroni: the O is a bit more open.
I live in Denmark and in Pandora the O sounds more like a U and the R is like in English but the sound is more guttural, Lego is correct, also I'm pretty sure that our neighbour Swedes pronounce H&M and IKEA like in English (I met tons of Swedes and none of them has ever used different pronounciations).

You got therapeutic voice & loved the way you explained each pronunciation

I never realized how much pronouncing an “R” makes you sound so American!!

Thanks for a nice video! Good French pronunciation! (Though different regions of France will have surprisingly different pronunciuations of these words).
Many of the Japanese brands mentioned were specifically created for marketing to the US (Lexus), and some (Mazda) may not even have a standard or natural pronunciation in Japanese.
Coming from Europe, I was completely baffled by the brand, Chick-Fil-A, with no idea how it was to be pronounced, and I'm still confused by Publix, which I tend to say like Publicité.
Shame you didn't know Philips was Dutch, but I'm told many Americans know it mainly from its historic North American distributor; Norelco!

as a french American I've literally never heard citroen talked about overseas in my life

This helps a lot.
For non-native English speaker, who works for credit card customer service, I see these brand names a lot in our customer's charges, and I've been mispronouncing the names incorrectly.

I'm impressed how good you prononced french brands (i'm french btw). For non french native it's complicated, but you nailed it. Little accent that makes you more charming (people like french accent when we speak (badly) english, but we like when english speaker speaks french).

CARS
5. *Honda* pronunciation : krplus.net/bidio/fMuLZZN8gp6whXo
7. *Kia* pronunciation (very similar) :
krplus.net/bidio/ndB5aXiZqZC0qXo
9. *Lexus* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/oZmtlZJqia2wpno
11. *Mazda* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/oJ2rd3t1h5idaqg
12. *Mitsubishi* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/dLOtq4R4m42-pqQ
16. *Toyota* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/fatrmXyYe3CVnJQ
FASHION
29. *H&M* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/mbFsnqiTgZHVe3I
35. *Pandora* pronunciation :
39. *Uniqlo* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/fpengWZ6m36topw
TECHNOLOGY
70. *Canon* pronunciation (very similar) :
krplus.net/bidio/kqimpalkc6nTfoY
73. *Huawei* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/ms2Fm3t4gaObfKg
75. *Nikon* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/fs6nanukhY_KdnY
76. *Nokia* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/c9N-lH9np624ioI
78. *Philips* pronunciation :
79. *Samsung* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/ZZWMoJmUaGTbmIo
81. *Sony* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/dKd9aId6iZvJooo
82. *Toshiba* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/m9iSfHyseHrNaYo
92. *Ikea* pronunciation :
krplus.net/bidio/eqagnXRmfpmYqnY
93. *Lego* pronunciation :

Lexus is the western name for "レクサス" (pronounced rekusasu) they brand it as Lexus because it sounds luxurious plus the logo which comes from the レ could also be seen as an "L"

Your pronounce about 3:50 Lamborghini, 4:39 Maserati, 8:21 Armani, 10:41 Dolce & Gabbana, 11:14 Gucci, 13:55 Prada, 15:27 Versace, 21:00 Nutella, 21:47 Peroni is perfect.
I'm Italian 🇮🇹

Just a small thing many might not know: Disney is pronounced that way because it's the americanisation of "d'Isigny" which is a town in Normandy, France (famous for it's cream), Walt Disney family immigrated from there ! :)

Always fascinate me how all anglophones gives the same vibe to the sound when trying to pronunce italian words, you're not just using your native accent (i feel and appreciate the effort) but you're still not quite there, probably due to the vowels sounds. (I'm not considering the "r" sound, i think its probably the most difficult one to make, worst than the doubles, the gn and the gh, because i really struggle when i try to lose it when attempting to pronounce "r" in foreign words).
It fascinates me also because here you usually get told that italian pronunciation is quite simple, since "you just need to read words just as the they are written", sentence that i always found unfair towards the difficulty in a proper attempt of pronunciation.
Digression apart i must say you have a good pronunciation, especially since you came up front from the begining about "not having the best italian", you did quite better than a great part of the people i had to communicate with when i used to be a waiter, people that to be fair were also way less humble.
The only pronunciation that striked me as a little off was the "dolce & gabbana" one, i think you were actually closer with your english one, the way you said "dolce" sounded pretty closer and also the stress on the double b in "gabbana".
Of course this is my opinion, don't want people to get triggered and strike back with harsh tones.
I apologize if i made some mistakes, my written english is a bit rusty.
This said, have a nice day.

Great! Thanks for sharing. Nice to know the pronunciations of different accents.

Much of the confusion is caused by the fact that the English speaking part of translations does not recognise the inflections on letters / words that dictate emphasis being placed in specific ways. Written English is the only language I am familiar with where these symbols do not occur. French (cedilla), Spanish, German, Russian.....they all have them.

Note that Mazda in Japan is actually pronounced “Matsuda”

Budweiser is originally Czech beer with German naming. I think it is worth mentioning.

As a German, I can say the video is great the german and danish Brands are pronounced almost perfectly everytime and I only heard a small difference in "Nivea" (to how its pronounced in Germany) because I would emphasize the "I" a little bit more

No-one pronounce them wrong it's just according to their country accent ✨✨✨

Hi max,
I am French and I have been living in Florida for 3 years.
The way you pronounce the French brands is awesome!
Generally speaking, I hear an American pronunciation more than a UK one when I listen to your lessons.
Anyway, I am really greatful for the free lessons you give us.
Keep on teaching us. You are so great!!!

Mazda in Japanese would be something like "Mat-Zu-Da". Reference is MightyCarMods video on it where they have some Japanese people pronounce the car brands there.

H&M in Sweden is MOST COMMONLY pronounced as:
* The H in H&M is pronounced as "who" is in the english word "Wholesome".
* The M is pronounced the same as in english.
* The &-sign is not pronounced
* The acronyms H and M are sounded separately (two sounds).
= Who M
Sounding out the full name "Hennes & Mauritz" is also a common.
* Where "Hennes" is pronounced as: Henes ("Hen" as in the bird, with the suffix es, as the word "Less" without an L).
* & is pronunced as O is in the english word "Old"
* Mauritz is just the name Mauritz. Probably best explained as Mou-reets, Mou as in "Mountain" and then hard pronounciation on R and the last two letters T and S.
= Henes O Mou-ReeTS

I just want to say that having a severe hearing loss, I find your pronunciation very clear and you make it easy to read your lips. I just wanted to say thank you for trying to help us speak more clearly. One thought is in America there are many distinct dialects and that has an impact on pronunciation as well. The southern accent is most difficult for me, but when spoken fast, it's really hard to keep up. Thanks again you are really easy to listen to. Blessings.

Very interesting and helpful! I always pronounced Lamborghini wrong.
As a german, i missed HARIBO.

Hi! I discovered your channel yesterday and I immediately subscribed. I am italian and I love your pronunciation of the italian brands, it sounds always very clear and even natural in many cases. I speak french and german too - as you probably do - and I think that your pronunciation of these languages is also exemplary. 🙂

I saw a comment saying about Kia.. so I'm adding Hyundai to the list.
This is pronounced very differently in Korea with the foreigners saying it.
Also, K and G are actually standing for the same component ㄱ in Korean, but it depends on where the component goes inside the letter. (For example, 각 is pronounced 'gak')

Thank you so much for your teaching... 🙏🙏 Appreciated ❤️

trivia for fun: Häagen-Dazs doesn't mean anything in any language and was made up

Im from Germany and im amazed of how well you pronounce the german car brands... Good Job

Wow! What great talent you’re showcasing with all the different accents. Kudos.

Thank you soooooooo much Max! All your videos are so helpful. I really appreciate it. God bless you richly!

I'm an ESL teacher and just got back from teaching Adult English in China for 10 years. This is a great video!

Very helpful! Thank you so much!

In Korea we pronounce Kia like "Gi-A" with a hard "G" sound (ㄱ) and the "ee" sound isn't as long. Most of the time the hard "G" sound in the Korean language is romanized with a "K" just like how the last names "Kim" and "Kang" (and basically all Korean last names starting with a "K") are spelt with a "K" when it's actually pronounced like "Geem" and "Gahng"

It amazes me how you can go from a British accent to a perfect American accent. Never knew that was possible..

I like that thing.. you repeat the pronunciation to make it clear..
Sooo nice...

I can’t stop chuckling every time she says “in American English, the R is pronounced” 😂 because wow I didn’t realize how much we emphasized R with zero rolling of course!

an interesting thing is that volkswagen translates to "folkvagn" in swedish(english direct translation peoples-cart) its interesting that some german words are easy to translate if youre scandinavian(norway, denmark, sweden) even if you dont speak german at all.
EDIT: *False* thank you comments, beetle was not designed by hitler
In swedish H&M is pronounced Håå *pause for a millisecond* M since you dont have Å as a letter in english its hard to write how it sounds but its sounds like a drawn out O, (how owls sounds, "hoo" but with a shorter lenght) so H&M is pronounced ho-m so the &(and) is not pronounced in swedish.
As its written in swedish its H och("och" means "and" its pronounced as "ock" in swedish) M but swedes dont pronounce the "och(and)" we just say the two letters but with a slight pause between H and the M.
Ho, M the beetley

I’m from suburban New York & I enjoyed the video. Although we are mostly Rhotic, we don’t pronounce everything the same.

My favorite is Kraft. It sounds so much more expensive in British English!

Fun fact as someone who works for the company, the American pronunciation of ‘Toyota’ is the most accurate to the founding name of ‘Toyoda’ where the one letter change was made for writing purposes and not speaking

Its relaxing to hear Italian and france pronounciation

I kept sitting here and thinking she was going to mess up the American English version of everything, but I find it hilarious how well she does our pronunciations. It's also really attractive for some reason when she switches from saying it the "proper" British English way to American English.

The spade ♠️ is stunningly beautiful, and thanks for the video!🙏🏻🌹🌹🌹🤍

thank you for helping me become a better educated consumer

Thank you so much, learnt a lot. You got all apart from some of the Asian brands. God bless you.

I'm so impressed of your italian, german and french pronunciation! Realy a great effort!!! ❤️

My distance running team started wearing Nike Shoes in 1974. They were very hard to find and they were an alternative to Adidas, which we considered "sprinter shoes" and Onitsuka Tiger, which later became Asics. The Tigers were very similar to Nike, but when Nike came out with its first waffles, everyone switched to those because they were basically the only shoes that had padding and it was nice not to feel the rocks when we ran down gravel roads. Nike did offer a basketball shoe, but I never saw anyone wearing them. Nearly every basketball player worth his salt in those days wore All-Stars. Were those Converse? I can't remember, but I sure remember everyone wearing suede All-Stars in the color of their school. I got a T-shirt that said "Nike" on it with their then unknown Swoosh. Everyone would come up to me and say, "HI, Mike!" (My name is not Mike). Then they'd say, "Oh, your shirt says Mike but you're not Mike. I get it." During those days we called them Nikes, with one syllable. Then at a meet we heard a college kid call them Nikes, with two syllables, and we thought it was slang, but it was cool nonetheless. I was still a few years before any television or radio commercials were tell us how to pronounce it. I broke my leg skateboarding in 1977, and I painted a Swoosh on my cast. Nobody got it.

prop·er noun's are a mirror of ones com·pre·hen·sion

Thank you for this interesting and useful video. I am Japanese. As far as Honda, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Uniqlo and Canon are concerned, Japanese people pronounce them just as you do, and they pronounce "Nikon" and "Toyota" exactly in British accent. On the other hand, they pronounce "Mazda" like "Mats-da", and "Toshiba" like "Toe-she-ba."

Thanks Max! I've learnt a lot of new words from you

This lady has the best eye makeup and coolest smirk on You Tube

I always love it when my wife says Volkswagen because her South African pronunciation is so close to German. I've not yet scoured your channel properly, so you may have done this, but I'd love to hear your comparison between South African English and Australian English some day! Most folks here in North America don't know the difference.

I am surprised you can pronounce all of different brands perfectly. I am wondering where you gathered all information.
Thanks!

Your Italian pronunciation is great 😍

Thank you so much, you are really very helpful.

I can listen to you pronounce all day

Ah, lovely accents all…you are perfect!

Well, strictly speaking, "Audi" is Latin. It's founder, August Horch, had originally founded a company under his name, "A. Horch". After a fallout with the management, he left the company and founded a new one - but the old company still held the rights to the name "Horch". So a friend of his pointed out that "Horch" could be seen as an imperative form of "to hear" - similar to the word "hark!" in English. And so they translated that imperative of "to listen" into Latin - which is "Audi" and used that as a brand name.

Surprised that no fellow native korean commented here.. Kia in Korean is 기아, pronouned Gi-a (Ghee like the butter Ah like you figured something out), Similar but not the romanticized K instead of the closer G sound.
Also other korean car brands you might know is Hyundai, or 현대, pronounced “Hyuhn Dae”. The hyun part people usually get wrong, which become the subject of mockery amongst koreans, but the best way i can explain is to start with “uh” like youre thinking of something, then add a y in front, to get yuh, then add an n at the end to get yuhn, then add the h in front to get hyuhn. Latter part is dae, pronounced “de” with a short e sound.
Hope that helps :)

You are so very good at the different pronunciation. Enjoyed the video

When I was in Japan, my hosts had a hard time pronouncing 'Ford', and after I taught the to say something I could understand, they taught me to pronounce Mazda as 'mah-stda'

Hi Max! Thanks for the class! I was looking for the correct pronunciation of some brands, and I am happy you made such a lesson :)
I have always respected your taste (yes, your sense of style is obvious even through the screen!), and if you do not mind, may I ask for your opinion, please? I would like to buy a pair of jeans for my friend's birthday, and I am choosing between Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands. Both pieces of clothes look fine, and their prices are also comparable, so I am in doubt.. Which would you prefer, if you were to go for one? Thanks anyway, Max!

Im french and Your french pronunciation is excellent 👌🏾

very interesting!! love it!!

34: Nike derives from the Greek godess of victory. Her name is actually pronounced as ''Ní-kè''. So technically the pronounciation of ''Ní-kee'' is also wrong, but it's somewhat more correct than ''Nike'' (no pronunciation of the e).
50: I'm Dutch and I have to say your pronounciation is almost perfect to how we pronounce it. It's just that the ''ei'' in Heineken is a little bit shorter/flatter than the American and British way. So in English it's like ''Haijneken'' (it's like there's some sort of a ''j'' pronounciation at the end of the ''ei'') while it's closer to ''Hyneken'' (no ''j'' pronounciation''). The ei is pronounced differently than the American/English ''y'' or ''i''.
65: If I may ask: how would you pronounce the W otherwise? If you talk about the Wright brothers you also pronounce that as ''Right brothers'', right?

You pronounced IKEA very accurate:D Also, in Sweden we usually just say HM, pronounced håämm..:P

The contents are comprehensive. I can learn the brands' original and English pronunciations at the same time, as well as the origin countries.

Fun fact: LEGO is in fact in danish short for ‘leg godt’, which means play well, and they started off selling wooden toys.

An extremely useful lesson, Max. I couldn't help admiring your great German and Italian accents. Lovely earrings, too. I appreciate your help and your effort to make your lessons so interesting and fun to watch.

I need to do a southern version of this.

For no. 29, in Norway we say Hennes for H&M. Since the brand has been here since before they rebranded to just H&M. Still hear older people use the full name, Hennes & Mauritz, sometimes.

18:47 Scandinavian? That’s the most Dutch sounding name ever.

It was great to watch how to pronounce all of them correctly. Thanks for your video, Anyway will be great if you share a short video how to pronounce correctly all shipping liners name in the world. (such as Maersk, Hapag Loye, etc.) It's all doubt here in Thailand. LOL
Thank you :")

I know in japan they love to abbreviate or convert names to be able to pronounce them. Like the game Dark Souls is pronounced Dāku Sōru. The Japanese pronunciation for Lexus is Rekusasu, rek-sa-su.

I'm pretty impressed with your German pronounciation 🙂

Budweiser was founded by a German who moved to the US, so it’s probably pronounced like a German word.
The same kinda goes for Haager-Dasz aswell, but not really either, it’s a company founded in the US, by a Polish man who just made up the name. It literally doesn’t mean anything.
Philips is pronounced more like feelips.

As from Denmark, can confirm your pronunciation pressures on "Pandora" though we don't have the rolling R in our vocabulary, more a throat-y R, and your danish pronunciation on Lego is also correct. 👍 Didn't know Nutella was Italian though, actually thought it was German. 😅 Great video! Thank you! Cheers from Denmark ✌️😊

What a passion!

The way you warn about mispronunciations I would guess you have experience teaching english in a spanish speaking country.
I just watched the entire video while eating dinner. Your face and voice are mesmerizing. Also, cuteness overload in the bloopers.

Not only some of the names but the countries too surprised me.

Personally, I believe it is chic when someone is capable to pronounce the name according with the language the brand belongs.