# Hyundai, bloody Hyundai **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702 "2016-01-10T17:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/41 "2016-01-13T18:41:57Z")
I haven’t been able to converse in Japanese since I was four or five years old. ISTM though, that the ‘u’ is often dropped from Japanese pronunciation. For example, ‘desu’ sounds like ‘des’; and IIRC, ‘sukiyaki’ is more like ‘ski-yaki’. Now that you’ve brought up Matsuda-san’s name, I can see how it could be pronounced like ‘Mazda’. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/42 "2016-01-13T18:58:03Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I haven’t been able to converse in Japanese since I was four or five years old. ISTM though, that the ‘u’ is often dropped from Japanese pronunciation. For example, ‘desu’ sounds like ‘des’; and IIRC, ‘sukiyaki’ is more like ‘ski-yaki’. Now that you’ve brought up Matsuda-san’s name, I can see how it could be pronounced like ‘Mazda’. Well, again, IANAJS, but as I understand it, Japanese traditionally doesn’t have consecutive consonants, so when pronouncing a loan-word that does have them a vowel gets added between them. So “Mazda” would become “Maz-u-da” which with the Japanese “z” sound just so happens to sound like the Japanese name Matsuda. Until the advent of the floating diamond logo, Japanese-market Mazdas had the word “Mazda” in roman script as a badge, so it was definitely a different word from the name of the company which gets romanised as Matsuda. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/43 "2016-01-13T19:04:05Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > The first syllable is “hyuhn”, rhymes with the English word “sun”. Second syllable is “da”; the vowel is somewhere between the vowels of English “dab” and “Deb”. Like many Korean names that were first written in the Latin alphabet not very recently, the spelling is somewhat haphazard. This. The second syllable sounds a lot like trying to say the word “devil” and leaving off the “vil” But if you if you pronounce it to rhyme with Sunday, I don’t think you would offend anyone. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/44 "2016-01-13T19:12:04Z")
Mazda was chosen as the English name for Matsuda because it sounded _similar_, but the Japanese pronunciations are still distinct. For one thing, Matsuda is pronounced with the 2nd and 3rd syllables pitched up. I’m pretty sure Mazda would be pronounced with the opposite pitch. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/45 "2016-01-13T19:30:37Z")
Right, but my point is that with brands like Hyundai where the name is derived from the language spoken in their home market, the pronunciation used there can be thought to be definitive so we can go back and see how Koreans pronounce it to decide whether “hi un die” or “hee un day” is closer to right. With Mazda, though, the name isn’t native to the home market and the way they pronounce it is very different from the way the word was pronounced in its original language. So we can’t really look to the Japanese to solve the “mahhhzduh” versus “mazzzzdah” conundrum. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/46 "2016-01-13T20:21:46Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Mawzduh? Who would say that? 😕 > > BTW in the UK I’m sure the more recent ads say “Hyun-day”. I remember thinking it sounded odd but was probably more accurate, as I remember them being called High-un-dies in the 1980s. > > How do Americans say Nissan then? Is there even another way? Rhymes with “Kiss and” (tell). > Now I’m really confused. “Hahn Da” sounds nothing like “Gone Tab”. Surely you mean Honn, not Hahn? Honn rhymes with Gone. Hahn rhymes with Barn or Calm. In US: Knee-sahn, basically the same as the Japanese. Hon in Honda rhymes with gone. The Japanese syllable is more clearly an I but otherwise the same. Dont know what Gone Tab is either, autocorrect? Toyota is commonly pronounced toy yoda or toy yota. Really should be 3 syllables. Mazda’s first syllable is a as in car, not as in cat, but as noted some speakers may use the latter. Datsun in Japanese was dattosan, NOT da-tsu-n as the English spelling suggests. > [@GreasyJack](#): > > Until the advent of the floating diamond logo, Japanese-market Mazdas had the word “Mazda” in roman script as a badge, so it was definitely a different word from the name of the company which gets romanised as Matsuda. They haven’t used the floating diamond for the last 19 years. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/47 "2016-01-13T20:27:55Z")
Missed the edit window. Honda has more of an O sound than an A sound in Japanese, the I was a typo. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/48 "2016-01-14T13:50:15Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > Well, I guess maybe more of a “Mahhhzduh.” The important part is the soft A’s, unlike the hard A’s the rest of the English-speaking world uses to pronounce it. Yes, Mahz-duh I can understand. Like how some people say “pah-sta” for pasta\*. But Mawz-duh was really puzzling me. - Yes I know it’s not pronounced with a short British-style “a” in Italian. But, certainly to my ears, the British pronounciation is closer to the Italian than the American/Australian drawn out paaaah-sta. John Torode on MasterChef, I’m looking at you! ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/49 "2016-01-15T22:39:48Z")
My Hyundai did not start the other day and what I called did not start with H ---
**Author:** ![foopyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3e96dc/32.png) [@foopyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foopyx)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/50 "2016-01-16T01:46:25Z")
현대 Two syllable word that means modern. First character is pronounced Hyun, rhymes with Sun, one syllable. smashing the H + Y sound together might be a little odd for an english speaker. Best example I can think of is the “HYUK HYUK” laughing sound. but ending with an “N” sound instead of a “K” Second character is Dai, but that is terrible… the sound is much closer to the word “DEBT” but without the “BT” portion. “Deh” as in Debt. haha, I’m bad at this. Source: Born and raised in NYC to two Korean parents, raised by Korean aunts and granny, who didn’t speak a lick of english. I’m not quite fluent in Korean, but definitely enough to accurately pronounce 현대. ETA: [[Korean Pronunciation Guide] Samsung, Hyundai, and Daewoo in Korean [TalkToMeInKorean] - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UovyM8Ni0) In case my explanation made zero sense. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/51 "2016-01-16T08:48:26Z")
For those familiar with the Korean writing system, it’s quite clear how to pronounce the word: 현대. Aspriation-yeo (as in the first part of the English word “young”)-n-dai (pronounced like the English word “day”). [Here](http://dic.daum.net/word/view.do?wordid=kkw000291326&q=%ED%98%84%EB%8C%80&supid=kku000371318#kku000371318) (click on the little speaker icon) is an online Korean (Korean\<-\>Korean) dictionary’s recording of the correct pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/52 "2016-01-16T08:54:28Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I lived in Korea pretty recently and we just heard “HUN-day.” If 'twere a native Korean speaker saying the word, then what they actually said and what you heard were different. That’s nothing against you since it’s a commonly-known phenomenon in linguistics for a people to believe they’ve heard the sounds they’ve been primed to hear, so to speak, by the sound inventory and phonetics of their native language. ---
**Author:** ![foopyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3e96dc/32.png) [@foopyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foopyx)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/53 "2016-01-16T10:30:57Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > For those familiar with the Korean writing system, it’s quite clear how to pronounce the word: 현대. Aspriation-yeo (as in the first part of the English word “young”)-n-dai (pronounced like the English word “day”). I feel bad correcting the above poster, but this is SD. I’ve enjoyed innumerable threads going back and forth about rather insignificant and ultimately silly nuances. Having said that, I’m right, and these non-Korean speakers are wrong. Many posters are close, but keep making minor (completely understandable to an untrained non-Korean ear) mistakes. Sorry Monty, but you aren’t correct. It’s not like “the first part of the English word ‘young’”, however small the subtle difference may be. It’s “Hyuon” (to borrow your example of ‘young’ sans ‘G’). I’m 100% NYC accented, but I can tell the difference between “youn” and Hyoun". (Hyuk-hyuk laughter vs yuk yuk.) Furthermore, it’s not “day”. It’s “deh” as in “debacle”, without the “bacle”. I feel silly being so pedantic about such a trivial point of difference! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/54 "2016-01-16T11:33:51Z")
> [@foopyx](#): > > I feel bad correcting the above poster, but this is SD. I’ve enjoyed innumerable threads going back and forth about rather insignificant and ultimately silly nuances. Having said that, I’m right, and these non-Korean speakers are wrong. > > Many posters are close, but keep making minor (completely understandable to an untrained non-Korean ear) mistakes. > > Sorry Monty, but you aren’t correct. It’s not like “the first part of the English word ‘young’”, however small the subtle difference may be. It’s “Hyuon” (to borrow your example of ‘young’ sans ‘G’). I’m 100% NYC accented, but I can tell the difference between “youn” and Hyoun". (Hyuk-hyuk laughter vs yuk yuk.) > > Furthermore, it’s not “day”. It’s “deh” as in “debacle”, without the “bacle”. > > I feel silly being so pedantic about such a trivial point of difference! You should feel bad. You obviously missed where I typed “aspiration”. That would be the ㅎ. Of course there are dialect differences. Standard South Korean has the second syllable as 대 (“day”), just as the woman speaking the word in the link I provided. Now, you may or not like Daum for whatever reason, but you cannot say that they’re not authentically Korean. One of the more fascinating, to me at least, differences in dialects is between that of the standard speech back in the “old country” and that of the immigrant community overseas, especially with the speech of the “old language” by the immigrants’ children and grandchildren. One of my professors said that a good deal of the overseas community speech was, essentially, “stuck in time”. He point was that the overseas community used the language the way it was when they left the old country. Just so you know, not only did I major in linguistics, I have lived in Korea for a decade and am a Korean speaker. Speaking of dialectal differences, just this past Thursday evening, I went with some friends to a North Korean restaurant here in Beijing. The dialect they spoke was interesting, mostly due to vocabulary differences. The pronunciation was a bit different than Standard South Korean, but they managed to say the 대 as “day” also. Imagine that! ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/55 "2016-01-16T11:40:19Z")
“He point” in my post above should be “His point”. ---
**Author:** ![foopyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3e96dc/32.png) [@foopyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foopyx)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/56 "2016-01-16T14:06:04Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > You should feel bad. You obviously missed where I typed “aspiration”. That would be the ㅎ. Of course there are dialect differences. Standard South Korean has the second syllable as 대 (“day”), just as the woman speaking the word in the link I provided. Now, you may or not like Daum for whatever reason, but you cannot say that they’re not authentically Korean. > > One of the more fascinating, to me at least, differences in dialects is between that of the standard speech back in the “old country” and that of the immigrant community overseas, especially with the speech of the “old language” by the immigrants’ children and grandchildren. One of my professors said that a good deal of the overseas community speech was, essentially, “stuck in time”. He point was that the overseas community used the language the way it was when they left the old country. > > Just so you know, not only did I major in linguistics, I have lived in Korea for a decade and am a Korean speaker. Speaking of dialectal differences, just this past Thursday evening, I went with some friends to a North Korean restaurant here in Beijing. The dialect they spoke was interesting, mostly due to vocabulary differences. The pronunciation was a bit different than Standard South Korean, but they managed to say the 대 as “day” also. Imagine that! I stand corrected about the aspiration. Your description of 현 was accurate. I apologize for not reading your post more carefully. However, I’m surprised you hold steadfast to your “day” pronunciation. I’m far from a linguist, I have an american accent when I speak Korean. But I know 대 is not “day”. You have Korean friends, ask any of them to write “Sunday” or “Monday” in Korean. I’m sure you’ll see that none of them would write “선대” or “먼대”. They would write the “day” portion as “대이”. Thank you for providing that Daum link, it shows how easy it is to mistake “deh” for “day”. Perhaps you and I differ on the proper way to say “day”? I see the vast majority of Koreans saying “day” as “대이”, meaning “대” is simply “deh”. Please ask a Korean how they would write “day”. If they all agree on “대”, then you are right, and it’s “Hyun-day”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/57 "2016-01-16T23:54:13Z")
**foopyx** : Thanks for the PM. Mighty decent of you! Check your in-box. ---
**Author:** ![Grey\_area](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Grey\_area](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey_area)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/58 "2016-01-17T11:32:00Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UovyM8Ni0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UovyM8Ni0) > > So, not exactly Hun-day, but that pronunciation is closer than Hi-un-die. On the flip side, a couple of Koreans guessing how Americans pronounce Korean brands. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/YahXlojqdwg/maxresdefault.jpg "데이브 [브랜드 이름 미국 발음으로 해보기] Brand names according to the American accent //with 유준호/안재억") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YahXlojqdwg) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/59 "2016-01-17T13:05:02Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I asked this as a ‘piggy back’ question six years ago and didn’t receive a reply. > > As I said, I pronounce it ‘hunday’, which rhymes with Sunday, which explains the thread title. But I still think it _looks_ like it should be pronounced ‘hyoon-dye’. > > What is the correct pronunciation of Hyundai? I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘high-unn-dye’, as Cal Worthington used to pronounce it when they were new to the States. I beg to differ. Cal Worthington very clearly pronounced it “HUN-day” the first time he featured one in one of his commercials. He actually appeared to be amused that the “Y” was silent. “Those wacky Koreans!” (He didn’t actually say that, but you could tell he was thinking it.) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702/60 "2016-01-17T16:14:31Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I beg to differ. Cal Worthington very clearly pronounced it “HUN-day” the first time he featured one in one of his commercials. He actually appeared to be amused that the “Y” was silent. I remember differently (though he may have said ‘day’ instead of ‘dye’). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hyundai-bloody-hyundai/742702.md?page=2)