Foreign Words in English: Pronunciation

The 7ESL Foreign Words Pronunciation guide covers the borrowed words English uses every day but never quite anglicised: croissant, karaoke, faux pas, schadenfreude, doppelganger. Browse them below or search one, and each opens with an easy respelling, the IPA, audio and a note on the original-language sound where it matters.

Why borrowed words keep tripping us up

English borrows freely and spells reluctantly. A word arrives from French, Japanese, German or Italian keeping its original spelling, so the letters on the page encode the sounds of another language entirely. That is why faux pas drops most of its letters (it is "foh PAH"), why karaoke is closer to "kah-rah-OH-keh" than the common "carry-okey", and why schadenfreude needs its German vowels. Using these words is a sign of a rich vocabulary; saying them well completes the effect.

What actually changes when a word is borrowed

Loanwords are not simply mispronounced originals; they are reshaped by English in three predictable ways, and knowing them tells you how far to go. First, sounds English does not have get swapped for the nearest one it does, so the French U in debut and the German CH in Bach become approximations rather than failures. Second, unstressed vowels collapse into the schwa, the neutral uh sound that dominates spoken English - which is why the second syllable of croissant flattens in casual speech. Third, and most audibly, the stress migrates: French gives every syllable near-equal weight, so English speakers have to invent a stressed syllable, and different English-speaking countries have often invented different ones. That last point is why so many of these words have both a British and an American form, and why neither is a mistake.

What each entry gives you

Open any word to see the respelling first, then the IPA for precision and a Listen button that speaks it aloud from its phonetic form. Where the accepted English pronunciation differs from the original language, the entry lists them as separate labelled rows, each with its own Listen button, so you can sound natural in English or faithful to the source. Pick the English row for everyday conversation and the original only where your listeners will expect it - over-correcting a fully naturalised word can sound stranger than saying it the ordinary way.

The words people search

The guide covers the foreign words people most often look up, and grows as more enter English. Many food and place names are borrowed words too, so the Food and Place Name guides overlap usefully, and the How to Pronounce hub search reaches names and brands as well. For French, Japanese and German terms especially, the original-language row helps you say them with confidence.