As in That’s not my forte.
How do you pronounce it?
Like the Italian homograph forte, meaning “strong” (for-tay or for-tee)? Like the English word fort? Or with the French pronunciation (for)? Some other way?
I almost always hear it as for-tay, but I just say fort.
I know it’s fort, but I say for-tay because nobody would understand me otherwise.
Same here.
It’s pronounced ‘for-tay’, the way regular people say it.
When I read the word the Italian pronunciation is the one which comes to mind, but I never speak the word so its actual pronunciation doesn’t matter.
I don’t think that there’s any one “right way” to say it. I do seem to recall being told by a teacher in my youth that it was properly pronounced fort, and I guess that imprinted because that’s how I’ve said it ever since.
Me too.
Yep, same here.
I never had a clue it would be pronounce any other way than For-Tay as in Pianoforte. I learned it via Latin and Italian. Most people seem to use For-Tay.
Who exactly says it is suppose to be fôrt? I see both listed in Dictionaries.
I learned the word through music, so it’s always been /ˈfɔɹtɛ/ to me.
Sorrry, for those who don’t know the International Phonetic Alphabet, that’s an unvoiced labiodental fricative consonant, a rounded open-mid back vowel, a voiced alveolar approximant consonant, an unvoiced alveolar plosive consonant, and an unrounded open-mid front vowel.
Those are, I believe, different words. The musical forte is always pronounced for-tay or something similar (as near as I can tell).
Here’s Merriam-Webster’s take on it:
This. I know it’s not “correct” but it also doesn’t have people trying to correct me or thinking I’m talking about military bases.
I’m surprised everyone doesn’t know that.
On the off chance that’s not sarcasm, I’ve long advocated for IPA being taught in elementary schools.
Pleonast’s IPA basically says “for-teh” with an “eh” at the end, not an “ay.” In Italian, it would be an /e/, which is like an “ay” except with the second half lopped off, so it’s not a diphthong.
For all practical purposes, the pronunciation of “forte” is “for-tay” in at least American English, because that’s how we say it here. It may originally have been “fort.” “Fort” may be more proper and the pronunciation you might use when speaking in higher diction situations and wanting to sound more academic, I suppose, but most everyone says “for-tay,” so “for-tay” it is, as far as I’m concerned. (And the dictionaries reflect that, giving it as the primary pronunciation.)
I say “for-tay”. According to Oxford languages, both that and “fort” are correct.
How about “niche”? I think “neesh” is more correct but sounds too pretentious, so I say “nitch”. Again according to Oxford languages, both are correct.
Since we live in a smart phone era, I’ve advocated for just having an audio sample that you can listen to. Best all around.
Yeppers.
I’ve never had to say the word in public, but this is probably what I would do, too (depending on the audience).
Depends on whether I mean strong point (fort) or loud, musically speaking (for-tay).
In truth, I don’t find myself being called upon to pronounce it very often. If I encounter the word in my reading, my internal voice will be guided by context.