No that’s on the wrong side of The El Camino Road, go north on See,pull,the,duh or La Seeneegay boulevard, take the freeway all the way past Los Bun-nyos, turn left around San Djoaqueen County line, go through Dooblin and go south when you hit the bay. You’ll be in Sun-dzhozie in no time 
*I know I got some of the geography a little wrong but there is only so many ways you can give driving directions using only commonly mispronounced places, y’know
I think the worst example of this has to be New Orleans, because it is not only are the street names an Anglo attempt at French, but also an Anglo attempt at a French attempt at Indian. Tchoupitoulas street is a good example. While I’m not sure if was named that by the French or the English, Tchoupitoulas is an Indian word. Anyone wanna guess how it’s pronounced?
CHOP-i-TOO-lass
First time I saw that one I had no idea how to say it.
I had that issue when I saw “Chimacum Cowboys” mentioned in some local newspaper in Washington. There’s just no good way of saying those two words together.
If you’re an American and want to get the “proper” Spanish pronunciation of Los Angeles, try saying the phrase “close on hell ace”, but subtract the beginning “c” from “close”.
Er… that’s close enough, I guess.
Shelley Berman pronounced it with a hard “g” in his airplane routine from his 1959 album “Inside Shelley Berman”.
Here’s a Question I always wanted to ask:
The full official name of Los Angeles, as noted upthread, translates to:
The Town of Our Lady Queen of The Angels of Porciúncula
Like every other early California settlement, the town was built up around a Mission built by Spanish priests.
The Spanish priests were of the Order of Franciscans, who’s patron saint is Saint Francis of Assisi, an Italian.
“Our Lady Queen of The Angels of Porciúncula” refers to a statue of Mary, refered to as Our Lady Queen of The Angels- one of her many illustrious titles. The statue was famous for crying tears, or some other miraculous something.
The statue was located in a Franciscan church in Porciúncula, Italy.
So, here’s the big question:
What would have been the the Nuevo España / early Mexico pronunciation of “Porciúncula”???
Would they have used the Italian pronunciation (as it is an Italian place name)?
Something like (guessing with limited knowledge of Italian):
por-CHI-UNK-oo-la
Or would the Italian have been bastardized into a Spanish pronunciation?
Something like:
POR-see-uhn-KOO-la
IIRC, in the 1950s some people call it “loss AING gless.”
On a related note, I was speaking with a friend from Michigan and he was talking about a member of Metallica named Trujillo. He pronounced it Tru-hillo. It struck me as odd that he said the J as spanish but the ll as anglo.
In any case, y’all are forgetting (unless I overlooked it) the intro to Tombstone: “…with murder rates higher than modern day Los An-gel-eez.” (hard G).
Weird, I figured that was the pronunciation the second I read the word in your post. Just lucky I guess.
-FrL-
From this link from above http://www.laalmanac.com/geography/ge13c.htm
They say the “original spanish pronunciation” of “Los Angeles” goes “loce angh-hail-ais.”
What the hell kind of crazy spanish is that?
Seriously, I’m asking.
-FrL-
Why do I think, apparently incorrectly, that the way “los angeles” is pronounced in spanish is simply “los an-he-les”? Where each “e” is pronounced like a sound midway between an enlish short i and long e, and were the “a” is pronounced as in “ball”?
That’s how I learned it in High School Spanish. Was I misinformed?
-FrL-
Us Vallejo natives pronounce it “Vuh-LAY-oh”, no Spanish “j”, or at least they did way back when I grew up there. Only newcomers and out-of-towners pronounced it “Vuh-lay-ho”.
And my recollection is that the same people who said “Loss Angle-eze” also said “Valley Joe”, leading me to agree with the joke pronunciation theory for the hard “g”.
Are there *any *California place names still pronounced like in Spanish?
One Lp I own (of a Benny Goodman broadcast from 1936) contains a station break with the announcer identifying “KHJ, Los Ahng heh less.” Ie: more or less the legit Spanish pronunciation.
The clip advertises Meyer Beer in the “new sanitary Cap-Seal Can.” !!!
The Don Lee Network was a string of West Coast radio stations. Because of the time difference and the lack of transcontinental lines in the 1930s and 40s, NBC and CBS were minor players in the west, and the Don Lee Network assembled powerhouse entertainment programming from San Francisco and Los An-guh-les. After CBS and NBC built up their West Coast presence, the Don Lee stations couldn’t compete. Eventually the network became just another chain of radio stations.
Me too. That strikes me as a pretty weak example of a word that is hard to pronounce from its spelling. Try reading some Welsh words outloud sometime.
Porziuncola is the town in Italy where St. Francis of Assisi died in 1226. The name means little portion (of land) and dates back to the year 1045. Located in northern Italy in the region of Umbria just outside Assisi. Francis took a little chapel there hundreds of years old that was in disrepair and restored it. The chapel is also called Porziuncola.
Pronounced ports-YOONG-koh-lah.
Twoflower:
San Diego.
Not quite. English speakers pronounce “San” with an “a” as in “sand” rather than the true Spanish pronunciation which is more like “sahn”. As far as I can recall, “San” in all California place names is pronounced this way.
I’d like to know the idjit who thought it was a good idea to reverse “hard” and “soft” in the first place. G’s with a J sound (george, ginger, gerrymanding) is a HARD sound to me. G’s with a guh sound (going, gopher, game) sounds SOFT to me. That J g’s were considered soft and guh g’s were considered hard confused the hell out of me for years when I was growing up.
And Democrats do NOT suck! I want to reach in the screen and smack that google (with …soft, to me, g’s) ad upside its pin-brained head.
I remember that, too. He also pronounced the first syllable of the second word as “Ahn” and not “Anne,” IIRC, and drawled it a bit. I thought he was putting on airs and trying to sound sophisticated, in context.