How Do You Pronounce PyeongYang?

The 2018 Winter Olympics are here! And what better time than now to review how to pronounce the host city!

City names from language to language are often disconnected by pronunciation. This has a lot to do with spelling, and how we represent sounds in writing is slightly different from one country to the next. So, in this video, I'm not here to tell you what's right or wrong. You don't have to change the way you say anything. It's more of a reminder of how spelling can be a false indicator for proper pronunciation... if you read a foreign name as if it were your in own native language. Assume that will sound different to native speakers.

This city, Pyeongchang, doesn't have much to it, mostly the A-N-G spelling is what we're looking at. The English spelling of A-N-G (sang, language, change) is typically pronounced EING (even on a blog it's hard to write out pronunciations!) but in many MANY languages, especially including Korean and Chinese A-N-G is pronounced AHHng like ANGela Merkel, for example.

So, join me in knowing some new things about the world and languages! Feel free to suggest a pronunciation video of another proper name that you've been wanting to learn more about.

For more How to Pronounce Videos, check out this YouTube Playlist