BRITS are only now realising they have been pronouncing car brand BMW wrongly – do you know how to say it correctly?
In fact, research indicates that the vast majority of people have been saying it the wrong way.
It seems that British drivers have being pronouncing a number of car brands incorrectly for years.
Coming in for some verbal butchering from UK drivers as well are Porsche, Hyundai, Lancia and Volkswagen, the research shows.
A survey by Select Car Leasing of 1,000 UK respondents, 95 per cent of people do not know how to pronounce BMW correctly.
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The company, Bayerische Motoren Werke, revealed that the correct way the brand should bepronounced is “Bee-em-vee”.
Hyundai was found to be the second most mispronounced car manufacturer by Brits, with the correct pronunciation being “Hun-day”.
The survey found only six per cent of those asked could say the name correctly.
At the other end of the scale, Brits found Renault the easiest motoring firm to pronounce correctly, with 56 per cent of Brits saying correctly “Reh-noh”.
A common mistake for Brits seemed to be pronouncing the brands the way it appeared to be said in English.
So, 89 per cent of people were unable to pronounce Skoda correctly as “Schkoda”.
The most difficult brand to pronounce correctly was Volkswagen, with just nine per cent of people saying it correctly.
The V should be pronounced like a “F”, making the correct pronunciation “Fokes-vah-gun”.
Mark Tongue, director of Select Car Leasing, said: “For all the exposure that car manufacturers are subjected to in the digital age, there's still a gap in understanding when it comes to how they're pronounced.
“Many of them have become household names across the globe, but according to our research, that doesn't make mispronunciations any less likely.
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“Thanks to Friends' Joey Tribbiani in part, it's perhaps unsurprising that Porsche features on our list, but the same can't said of BMW - a huge 95 percent of people are unaware it's actually pronounced bee-em-vee.
“We've found that even the automotive stars are being caught out, with Jeremy Clarkson and James May mispronouncing the likes of Koenigsegg and Dacia for years.
“Our survey reveals the car brands that are most confused and, for the avoidance of any doubt, the proper pronunciations via professional, regional voice actors.”
