Rachel's English

  • Home
  • Videos
  • Courses
  • Lessons
  • Book
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Contact
  • Resources
    • Sound Chart

American English Pronunciation: How to Pronounce Countries and Languages

Let’s travel the world together! I’ll teach you exactly how to pronounce each country name in English…and each country’s language, too! 

Tagged With: English Pronunciation ////  YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video.

Video Text:

Remember last year when the World Cup was hosted in Qatar, and people in the US were scrambling on how to pronounce this country name in English?  

How do you pronounce my country?  

Qatar might be a tiny gulf country 

The nation of Qatar  

Stop saying Qatar. It’s Qatar.  

Qatar  

Qatar 

You are right there. How are the locals pronounce.. 

Actually heard it three different ways.  

It’s Qatar, Qatar and Qatar.   

It got me thinking, wouldn’t it be useful to have a list of country names, nationalities, and languages in English with American pronunciation? That’s what you’re getting today. We’re starting with the most populous countries, and in most cases we’re listing the official languages, though sometimes not all of them.  

First up, China. China, first syllable stress, but, Chinese, second syllable stress. Languages: Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese.  If you’re wondering what these symbols are, they’re the international phonetic alphabet and they represent the sounds. They’re really helpful and I’ll show you later why.  She’s Chinese, from China, and she speaks Mandarin. Or, he’s Chinese, from China, and he speaks Cantonese.  

By the way, if any of these words or sounds are tricky for you as non-native speakers, I totally get it. Recently I was just experimenting with Chinese, trying to get some of the sounds and intonation, and I was practicing saying “America” in Chinese.
 

Very tricky. Next, India.  Look at the sounds here, this is where the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA, is really handy. We have the letter I twice, but they don’t make the same sound. So having unique sound symbol can help us get the pronunciation. The first one is IH, IHN, India-. The second one is ee, eee, -ia, -ia. IH and EE.  India. I do have a free cheat sheet that teaches the mouth position and IPA symbol for each sound in American English so be sure to download that if you haven’t already, here or in the video description.  

Country, India. Demonym, Indian. Demonym is a noun used to denote the natives or inhabitants of a particular country, state, city, and so on. India, Indian, and the official languages are Hindi and English.
 

The United States, or, United States of America. American and English or American English. I’m from the United States, I’m American, and I speak English. Though I would like to speak many more languages. And you probably noticed the country of the gets shortened to the US.
 

By the way, if any of these words are especially tricky for you, use the video player to slow down the pace and listen several times. This might help. Ok let’s keep going. We’ll go over the 50 most populous countries. If you like this video and want to see more countries, let me know in the comments.  

Indonesia and we have Indonesian. Both have third syllable stress.  

Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesian.  

Pakistan or sometimes Pakistan.  

Pakistani or Pakistani.  

English and Urdu or Urdu.  

I didn’t point this out earlier when we were going over the word English but let me say it now when you look this word up in a dictionary you will see the I as in sit vowel as the first sound e. However, because it’s followed by the NG consonant, we do change that and make it more like e. This is how Americans actually pronounce this word, English.  

Nigeria 

Nigerian 

And actually, the only official language in Nigeria is English although there are lots of other languages spoken there.  

Brazil. Second syllable stress.  

Brazilian or Brazilian  

Portuguese. The word ends in e s e and we’re making that last syllable stressed just like Javanese and Sudanese. Portuguese.  

Bangladesh or Bangladesh.  

Bangladeshi 

Bengali  

Russia 

Russian  

And the language also Russian.  

I’d like to thank all the channel members here on Youtube. Your ongoing support helps me make these videos. It helps make everything possible. Click the join button on Youtube today to support the channel and get some great perks including exclusive monthly audio lessons.  

Mexico 

Mexican 

Spanish  

Japan  

Japanese  

The language is also Japanese. And notice ese ending last last syllable stress.  

The Philippines 

Filipino  

Filipino, English  

Ethiopia  

Ethiopian  

Amharic or Amharic.  

Oromo  

Egypt  

Egyptian  

Notice the T now makes the sh sound as part of the ending.  

Arabic  

Vietnam or you might hear Vietnam.  

Vietnamese  

Ends in e-s-e last syllable stress.  

Vietnamese  

Democratic Republic of Congo  

Congolese  

French 

Iran or you might hear Iran  

Iranian  

Persian also called Farsi 

Turkey  

Turkish  

Turkish or Kurdish  

Germany  

German  

German  

France  

French   

French  

United Kingdom 

British  

English  

English  

Welsh  

Gaelic 

Scots  

Thailand  

Thai  

Thai  

Tanzania 

Tanzanian  

Swahili 

English  

South Africa  

South African 

You can really connect these two words to make it feel like one word. The th going right into the vowel. South African, South Africa.  

English  

Africans. They also have nine other official languages.  

Italy. Notice the flap T.  

Italian. Now it’s a true T because it starts a stressed syllable.  

Italian 

Myanmar also pronounced Myanmar formerly known as Burma.  

Burmese 

Burmese  

South Korea 

Korean 

Korean  

Colombia 

Colombian  

Spanish  

Kenya 

Kenyan  

English  

Swahili  

Spain 

Spaniard  

Spanish  

Argentina  

Argentine  

Spanish  

Algeria 

Algerian  

Arabic 

Berber 

Sudan  

Sudanese  

Arabic 

English  

Uganda 

Ugandan  

English  

Swahili  

Iraq or Iraq 

Iraqi or Iraqi 

Arabic 

Kurdish  

Ukraine  

Ukrainian  

Canada 

Candian 

English 

French  

Poland  

Polish  

Polish  

This is spelled the same but has a different pronunciation of the word polish like to shine something.  

Morocco 

Moroccan  

Arabic  

Berber  

Uzbekistan. You’ll see this written with a vowel like in push when you look up the phonetics but it’s really pronounced more like ooh, the vowel in Shu. 

Uzbekistan  

Uzbek  

You might also hear it pronounced Uzbek. Uzbek.  

Saudi Arabia or Saudi Arabia.  

Saudi or Saudi  

Arabic 

Peru  

Peruvian 

Spanish 

Angola  

Angolan  

Portuguese  

Afghanistan  

Afghani  

Pashto  

Malaysia  

Malaysian  

Malay or Malay  

Mozambique or Mozambique  

Mozambican  

Portuguese  

Yemen 

Yemeni 

Arabic  

Ghana  

Ghanaian 

English  

There are also various recognized national languages in addition to this one official language.  

Ivory Coast  

Ivorian  

French  

Venezuela  

Venezuelan  

Spanish 

Well, this was fun. I love journeying the world with you. What other kinds of videos would be useful or helpful for you? Let me know in the comments and please be sure to subscribe to the channel with notifications on. If you want to study English pronunciation with me, check out rachelsenglishacademy.com. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.  

 Video: 

https://07f1c47b71c75472a3cc-b7eea9689205a6672fd1aa00be922d89.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/837.mp4

Filed Under: Videos Tagged With: English Pronunciation

Rachel’s Academy

https://youtu.be/Bg0FemjFdos

STUDY WITH RACHEL

Join Rachel’s Academy to instantly access all 15 courses, including access to personalized teacher feedback.

See What Rachel’s Students have to Say

https://youtu.be/GCjZzcpWPRM

© 2023 Rachel's English