# Pronouncing "Staten Island" and "goulash"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronouncing-staten-island-and-goulash/209070>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 23, 2003, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronouncing-staten-island-and-goulash/209070 "2003-10-23T07:58:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2003, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronouncing-staten-island-and-goulash/209070/21 "2003-10-25T17:21:18Z")

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But true jokes just aren’t funny!

I lived in Germany for a few years when I was younger, and it was there that I was introduced to Goulasch (yummy yummy, gonna make some tonight). I remember always thinking that it was a Hungarian dish, even when eating it in Bavaria, or the Black Forest, or into Switzerland even. The paprika-beef stew was always called “Hungarian Goulash”.

Does anyone know how or why the name is different from what Hungarians consider to be “goulash”? Seems to me that if it was a German dish, it would be advertised as so?

Sorry for the hijack, but I’m curious now - if what I make tonight is actually German, I’ll enjoy it even more for the memories of that country! 🙂

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronouncing-staten-island-and-goulash/209070/22 "2003-11-03T13:30:33Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by mnemosyne \*  
> \*\*But true jokes just aren’t funny!
> 
> I lived in Germany for a few years when I was younger, and it was there that I was introduced to Goulasch (yummy yummy, gonna make some tonight). I remember always thinking that it was a Hungarian dish, even when eating it in Bavaria, or the Black Forest, or into Switzerland even. The paprika-beef stew was always called “Hungarian Goulash”.
> 
> Does anyone know how or why the name is different from what Hungarians consider to be “goulash”? Seems to me that if it was a German dish, it would be advertised as so?  
> \*\*

**Trabi** has explained most of this already, but let me try to clarify a bit for you. What Hungarians call _gulyás_ is really short for _gulyásleves_. _Gulyás_ means something like “herdsman” and _leves_ means “soup”. In Germanic-speaking countries, you can usually find something called “goulaschsuppe” on the menus. This is the stuff which is _gulyás_ in Hungary. (Well, kind of. The Germans and Austrians tend to make their goulash soups thicker and often add herbs which are not traditionally used in the Hungarian version. Sometimes, flour is added to bind the soup – a big no-no in Hungary for goulash soup.)

So, to summarize:

German, Hungarian  
Goulash = pörkölt  
Goulaschsuppe = gulyás

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