# That "A" as in "apple" sound **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2008, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144 "2008-03-29T04:57:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144/41 "2008-04-01T21:37:53Z")
[QUOTE=BwanaBob] In a nutshell, I don’t think your friend corrected you because you didn’t need correcting. And of course, you could always ask . [/QUOTE] We did. She just shrugged it off and said people pronounced it both ways. Potayto potahto. FWIW, she was from Eastern Germany, and she said that, from both the Polish and Russian influences, you also had people pronouncing “Vodka” both ways–sometimes with a hard “v”, sometimes as “Wodka.” ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144/42 "2008-04-03T19:28:56Z")
When speaking English I usually change my pronounciation of names. It’s a different set of phonemes and it feels clunky to switch to my native Norwegian set for a single word in a sentence. Not that it’s what **toadspittle** observed, but it’s a possible explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144/43 "2008-04-03T20:36:17Z")
[QUOTE=Phase42] Do any other languages have that same “A” sound that English has in words like apple, cash, mat, pad, etc.? [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Wakinyan] The Swedish Ä. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=auRa] Really? I would pronounce the Swedish ä as the vowel sound in the words “let” or “metal”, for example in words like “människa”, “äventyr” and “hjält”. [/QUOTE] Being Swedish, one of the few things I know is how to pronounciate Swedish vowels. There are different dialects, needless to say, among which one is the beautiful _finlandsvenska_, “Finland-Swedish”, which presumably (judging from your Location) is the one you’re the most familiar with. The majority of the Swedish speaking population would by the way pronounciate the “e” in English metal much the same way as the “e” in Swedish \*metall \*(though with the stress on the second syllable, as indicated by the double-L). \*Mätall \*would sound different, as in English pad, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144/44 "2008-04-03T21:27:13Z")
[QUOTE=Wakinyan] The majority of the Swedish speaking population would by the way pronounciate the “e” in English metal much the same way as the “e” in Swedish \*metall \*(though with the stress on the second syllable, as indicated by the double-L). \*Mätall \*would sound different, as in English pad, for instance. [/QUOTE] The Wikipedia article on [Swedish phonology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology) seems to suggest that the first sound is equivalent to a short [e] and the second sound has two allophones, [ɛ] (as in English _metal_) and [æ] (the latter preceding _r_). When trying to compare the phonological inventories from one language to another, it can be tricky, and a lot of it might be a matter of perception. I’m not saying I know for sure that you’re wrong and **auRa** is right, but I suggest that it’s possible that you might be perceiving an [ɛ]-[æ] difference when a “neutral” listener might judge it an [e]-[ɛ/æ] difference between \*metal \*and _Mätall_ ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144/45 "2008-04-03T21:35:04Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] French? _Sac_, for example, is not pronounced “sahk”. The A is pretty much like in “sack”. [/QUOTE] The French _sac_ and Italian _pasta_ both use [ä], which in British English is usually transposed to [æ] and in American English to [ɑ], so Brits and Americans are pretty much equally wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-a-as-in-apple-sound/443144.md?page=2)