Many car brands (and sometimes even individual models) have become household names across the globe. Just think of a Chevy Corvette, a Porsche 911, or a Jaguar E-Type. While many of these brands are known to many, their authentic pronunciations can be tricky. But we’re here to help!
Obviously, how a German will pronounce things is very different from an American, for example, due to language barriers. While it’s not necessarily wrong to pronounce something in a localized way, it can never hurt to really understand how it’s pronounced the original way.
Outside of your personal appearance, the way you speak will set the biggest first impression. Understanding how to pronounce a car brand will be impressive to native speakers and car enthusiasts alike. They will immediately have more respect for you and perceive you as more knowledgeable. This would also be invaluable when you’re networking or when you’re just befriending someone because it shows an immediate interest in someone else’s culture and they often welcome that.
Knowing how to properly pronounce luxury car brands will give the impression that you’re knowledgeable.
With that being said, there will be times where pronouncing brands in a localized way is much more advantageous because it may come across as arrogant. As so often in life, the key is to know who your audience is.
Outside the car world, we cover more brand speech tips in our guides 52 Luxury Brands You’re Mispronouncing and for watches, specifically, 31 Luxury Watch Brands You’re Mispronouncing.
Knowing how to correctly pronounce these brands will also show a native speaker an immediate interest in their culture.
Personally, I love Korean food, especially kimchi. I love their technology as well as the sense of style a lot of people display, but they also produce a bunch of cars. Kia is one of the big ones but it’s not difficult to pronounce it.
Raphael loves Korean food, especially kimchi.
One Korean car brand that a lot of people have issues with is Hyundai. Some people also say Hiyun-dai or Hun-dei. The way Koreans pronounce it is cHYUN-DEH. So, the first part Hyun it’s not just like an h, it’s almost like a ch and the back part is not like day in English but DEH. Hyundai.
Hyundai is pronounced by Koreans as cHYUN-DEH.
Japan has lots of great food, whiskeys, manners, and also a bunch of car brands. The one most commonly mispronounced one is Subaru. You can tell Americans or English speakers will put the emphasis on the first syllable and say SU-ba-roo. A Japanese would say SOO-ba-RROO. The r is rolled on the r and the emphasis is more in the middle. It’s not Su-BA-roo or Suba-roo, it’s Soo-ba-rroo.
Subaru, a Japanese car manufacturer, is pronounced as SOO-ba-RROO.
As many of our regular viewers will know, I’m originally from Germany. Yes, I can speak English with a German accent too, that’s right. Let’s start with the most common car brands and the mispronunciation which drives most car enthusiasts crazy–Porsche. Many, especially in the English world, simply call it Porsh; they use it as a silent e. Some people call it Por-sha because the e sounds more like an a to them but ultimately, that’s not how Germans would say.
Interestingly, if you watch the brand’s youtube videos, you can see that sometimes there they also pronounce it Por-sha which is a very American way of saying it. You could argue that if a brand pronounces the brand in a certain way, why should you care? Well, here at The Gentleman’s Gazette, we like to dig a little deeper and give you the full version.
Raphael can also speak English with a German accent.
So, unlike in English, we have accents such as Welsh or Scotch, in Germans, there are dialects. We call it dee-ah-lect and oftentimes, it’s not just a pronunciation but people use entirely different words. In Porsche’s home state of Baden-Württemberg, most people speak Schwäbisch, which would mean Swabian, and sometimes you even have sub-dialects.
For example, my best friend who comes from Western Germany can’t understand my mom when she speaks Schwäbisch with him. Why on Earth am I telling you all of this? Well, the purest form of German is the so-called Hochdeutsch, and Porsche themselves made a video about how to pronounce their brand name now just listen to it here.
Porsche 911 (pronounced por-sche noin elva) Image Credit: Porsche
The traditional German r comes from the back of the throat, however, if you shorten it, you just say Por-szeh. It’s a slight r in the back of your throat and the e sounds like an actual e. If you actually go to the hometown of Porsche in Stuttgart and you ask people how to pronounce it, they will likely say POHr-szeh. So, for some people that may sound like there’s no r there at all, but it’s still there–it’s just very silent.
Porsche is pronounced differently all over the world but the German way to pronounce it is por-sche.
Another German car brand often mispronounced is Volkswagen. Folks? No, Voax-wagen? It’s called VW in the US. Even I am having a hard time with this. In German, we call it FOLKS-VA-GEN. The v sounds like an f and the w sounds like a v. However, when you shorten it, it becomes fow-vey. It’s not f anymore, it’s a different sound. Fow-vey. Weird, I know, but that’s the way Germans are.
Volkswagen (pronounced as folks-va-gen) is a German car manufacturer founded in 1937.
In German, it means as much as people’s car. It was actually a brand founded in 1937 with the support of Adolf Hitler. He wanted a basic car for two adults and three children that would make it to 100 kilometers per hour or 62 miles per hour. Also, it was supposed to cost only 990 German Reichsmark which was about the price of a motorcycle. He also wanted financing plans.
In 1933, Ferdinand Porsche, yes, the namesake of the Porsche car brand designed a car that was supposed to have a bigger mass appeal but there was no private company that was willing or able to do it so with the support of the Nazi Germany government, they were able to realize the VW Kaefer or the VW beetle car.
Ferdinand Porsche designed the “people’s car” in 1933 with the support of the Nazi government.
Next up, we go to Bavaria and we look at BMW. While it seems straightforward, it actually isn’t. It is short for Bayerische Motoren Werke which means Bavarian Motor Works. The Germans pronounce it BEy-Em-VEY. You can see it’s like a v sound but slightly different than in English BMW. It’s not Bee-en-vey or Bee-em-way.
The BMW X6 M (Image Credit: BMW)
Going back to Stuttgart, we have Mercedes Benz–that is the way Americans say it. Germans would call it Mer-tsey-dess-Bents. Again, you hear there’s a slight r from the throat that sometimes is quite silent but it’s there. Benz at the end sounds like a ts, as in Bents.
White Mercedez Benz C-Class
So, how exactly does a German car brand end up with a Spanish female first name? Well first, there was a Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft which was a merger between Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. In the early years of the 20th century, this company was very successful with race cars. Very successful Austrian salesman for the company Emil Jellinek also had a keen interest in marketing and named the winning cars after his daughter Mercedes Jellinek. Because of that, the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft trademarked the name Mercedes for cars in 1901. 25 years later, the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft merged with Benz’ own company and it became Mercedes Benz with the three-star logo.
Mercedez Benz started with a merger between Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach and then later on, with Benz’ own company.
As you might have noticed related to Mercedes-Benz is Maybach and a lot of Americans would call it Mai-bak because it sounds like a k to ch but in German, it’s KH. Everything that’s ch is a kh sound and it means as much as may creek. Mai-BAhk. Yeah, I know, you may have to practice a little bit but that’s German for you.
The proper Gerrman pronunciation for Maybach is Mai-BAhk.
Another related company is AMG which is the performance subsidiary of Mercedes. The proper German way to say it would be Ah-Ehm-Gey. Ah-Ehm-Gey. I know, some Americans have told me it sounds like I am gay. I don’t agree with them because I’m German, but it’s called Ah-Ehm-Gey.
AMG, (pronounced as Ah-Ehm-Gey) is also a performance subsidiary of Mercedes Benz. (Image credit: AMG)
Let’s go back to Bavaria to cover another German brand–Audi. I know a lot of Englishmen call it O-di but the German way to say it is ow-dee. AW-dee. Au is always ow. Maybe a bit like when you hurt yourself and you say ow, as in ouch. My little three-year-old loves to say Ow-dee A6, which is the car we drive.
The German way to say Audi is ow-dee. (Image Credit: Audi)
Next, let’s take a quick stop in England. In the US, we call it Jaguar E-Type, for example, but in England, it’s called Jag-you-are. So, the u is much more pronounced and the r is very soft. So it’s not Jag-war but Jag-you-are. Just FYI, Germans would pronounce it Hyag-wah which is totally off the mark.
Pronounced as Jag-you-are in England. (www.jaguar.com)
Now, it’s time to go to America. One of the hottest American car brands at the moment is undoubtedly Tesla. So, what’s the catch, you might wonder? Well, Tesla was actually a Serbian- American immigrant and scientist and they use a harder s like Tesla. Americans oftentimes use these softer s. Tesla versus Tezla.
Tesla is one of the hottest car brands in America at the moment.
How it’s exactly pronounced is quite controversial but Elon Musk pronounces it Tez-la, and when I listened to him, to my ear, it sounds like Tesla with a softer s.
Tesla is pronounced with a z, similar to how Nikola Tesla’s name is pronounced.
Americans don’t get that one wrong but a lot of Germans or people from outside the US often call it maybe Shev-ro-let or they want to say the ending, but it’s kind of French-inspired and it’s called SHEV-ro-LEY. For shot, Shevy.
The proper pronunciation for Chevrolet is Shev-ro-ley, which is French-inspired. (Image credit: Chevrolet)
Italy is home to the world-famous architects, good food, craftsmanship, and of course, wonderful cars. Let’s check out the brand Alfa Romeo. as Americans might say but the proper way to say it’s Ahl-fa Ro-meh-yo. The r is rolled in the front of the tongue and it’s not Alfa Romeo, it’s Ahl-fa Ro-meh-yo.
Alfa Romeo, an Italian luxury car brand, is pronounced as Ahl-fa Ro-meh-yo.
Next on the list are the red cars from Enzo Ferrari. Here, there’s a double rolled Italian r – FEH-Rrah-ree. A lot of Americans may say Fuh-rari or Germans may say Fehk-rra-ree but the proper way to say it is feh-rrah-ree. Double r. Ferrari.
Ferrari Roma
Another well known Italian car brand is Lamborghini. It is not Lam-bor-jee-ni or LAHm-bor-gini, it is Lahm-bor-gee-nee. Funny story, the brand started as a manufacturer of tractors and you can still buy Lamborghini tractors to this day. Once the founder had made it in life, he decided to buy two Ferraris–one for his wife and one for himself. According to the Lamborghini test driver Valentino Balboni, Ferruccio was a guy who liked to make a show but who was in fact a bad driver of cars and because of that, his clutch had to be replaced frequently.
After the third or fourth visit to the Ferrari workshop, he decided to have his own mechanics take a look at the clutch issue. It was at that time that he discovered that the commercial clutch Ferrari used, which was also used in many other Italian sports cars at the time, was exactly the same clutch that he used in his small tractor line.
Lamborghini started manufacturing sports cars after Ferruccio Lamborghini’s unpleasant experience with Ferrari.
Now at this point, Ferruccio got mad and he yelled: “I paid 10 Lire for my tractor clutch and you charged me a thousand for this Ferrari clutch but it’s in fact, the same clutch!” So, one day thereafter, Ferruccio Lamborghini met Enzo Ferrari and said, “You built your beautiful cars with my tractor parts.” Enzo Ferrari replied, “You’re a tractor driver… You’re a farmer. You shouldn’t complain about driving my cars because they’re the best cars in the world.” Naturally, Ferruccio replied, “Oh yes I’m a farmer, I’ll show you how to make a sports car and I will do a sports car by myself to show you how a sports car has to be.”
So, ever since 1962, Lamborghini has a car manufacturing division and as you might have guessed it, the two companies are still rivals to this day.
Because of an argument between Ferruccio Lamborghini and Enzo Ferrari, their two companies have remained rivals up to this day.
Next up is Maserati or at least that’s how many Americans would say it. A friend of mine told me that the dealership charged him over a thousand dollars to get an oil change done for one of those cars. Ouch! The proper way to say it is Mah-Zeh-RAH-Tee. Again, you have the rolled r that it comes from the tongue. It’s not like a soft s like Maseh-rah-tee.
Maserati was founded by Alfieri Maserati in December 1914.
Another car brand with a long history is Lancia. When you see it first, you may think it’s Lan-see-yah or Lanch-ya but the Italians call it Lan-cha–very soft.
Lancia (pronounced as lan-cha) is an Italian car manufacturer, was founded in November 1906.
Moving to the French territory, we have Peugeot and they’ve been making cars since 1896. When you look at the name first, you may think of it as Pew-got or German would be Poi-gee-oht, but it’s called PEOH-ZHOH. In French, the e and t are silent unlike in German, for example, and the g becomes soft.
French car manufacturer Peugeot’s name is properly pronounced as “PEOH-ZHOH.”
Another brand that seems simple Bugatti is actually called Boo-gah-tee because it was founded by the Italian, Ettore Bugatti. even though it’s considered a French company today, it was originally founded in the Alsace Region of France which became German-French-German and back and forth, and now it’s French once again.
Bugatti is pronounced as boo-gah-tee, the same as how the last name of its Italian founder Ettore Bugatti is pronounced.
In the late 80s, the brand was brought to Italy, but then VW or Fow-Vey bought the brand rights in the 90s and brought the brand back to Molsheim in the Alsace Region in France.
Bugatti was originally founded in the Alsace Region of France before being brought to Italy then back to France.
This brand looks scary at first because it has two dots on the e but it’s actually rather straightforward. It’s called Sit-roh-en and the two dots on the e just mean that it has to be pronounced separately from the o and the n.
Citroën, a French automobile manufacturer, was founded in 1919 by the French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën.
Motorsport fans are probably well acquainted with the name Renault. It’s not Re-nolt, it’s just like Chevrolet–Ren-Oh. It’s a silent lt.
Renault Koleos
For the last 2 brands, we’re off to the Swedes. The first one is the Swedish hypercar brand Koenigsegg named after its founder Christian Von Koenigsegg. It’s called Kou-nig-tseg. You could think it might be called Konig’s egg but it’s a little softer. An oe in German or Swedish is pronounced uh, and if you listen to him himself saying the name it sounds quite softer on the g’s. It sounds like Kou-nig-tseg. Again and not very pronounced g at the end.
Koenigsegg is pronounced with a softer “uh”
Finally, we have a brand that most people don’t think they pronounce incorrectly and that’s Volvo. What’s wrong with that, you might wonder? Well, it’s the end of the o. The Swedish pronunciation is Vohl-voh. It’s a shorter o and it’s not that Vol-vow. It’s just Vohl-voh. Again, not Vol-vow but Vohl-voh.
Volvo is actually pronounced with a shorter emphasis on the last syllable.
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