# VW pronunciation



## Hakro

We have recently learned how to pronounce BMW, short for Bayerische Motoren Werke, in different languages.

There's another automobile brand name that is even more complex: VW, short for Volkswagen.

The original *German* pronunciation is 'fau veh' ('fow veh).

In *Finnish* we are used to pronounce it 'veh veh'.

How is it pronounced in your language?


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## Lemminkäinen

In *Norwegian* we say 'volkswagen', with the German pronounciation ('folksvagen').

I've never heard anyone just say the abbreviation.


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## elroy

In colloquial Palestinian Arabic, we say either "volksvaagen" or "vols" for short.

The sound "v" does not exist in Arabic, but we usually use it for foreign words.  

We do not use the VW abbreviation.


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## Talant

Hi,

In Spain you hear "volswaguen" (Spanish) or, typing it in German, "bolswagen"

Bye


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## jazyk

In Brazil I've heard vohksvahgen and fohksvahgen.


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## pizzi

Lemminkäinen said:


> In *Norwegian* we say 'volkswagen', with the German pronounciation ('folksvagen').
> 
> I've never heard anyone just say the abbreviation.


 
So do we in Italy


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## ElaineG

In Am. English, we say VW "Vee Double-you", as in the beloved "Vee Double-you Bug."

If we say the whole name, it's very Americanized: Vokes-wagon.


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## olivinha

jazyk said:


> In Brazil I've heard vohksvahgen and fohksvahgen.


 
Sometimes just vohks or fohks.
O

PS: Volkswagen = wagen for the folks, right?


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## elroy

olivinha said:


> PS: Volkswagen = wagen for the folks, right?


 The people's car.


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## roh3x2n

olivinha said:


> Sometimes just vohks or fohks.
> O
> 
> PS: Volkswagen = wagen for the folks, right?


no wrong! it is wagen for people.Or VW ( fau - Weh)


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## Anatoli

*Russian*: Фольксв*а*ген - follows the German pronunciation [folksvaagen], only the accent is on "vaa" and L is palatalised. Of course "das Volk" [follk] means people, not folk, "der Wagen" [vahghen] means both a car and carriage (wagon). Usually not abbreviated.

In *Chinese* it would be a big article describing various pronunciations, some have nothing to do with the original (literal translation) - 大众汽车 dàzhòng qìchē (used in mainland China) or a phonetical transliteration 沃尔夫斯堡 wò'ěrfūsībǎo - only remotely reminding the original

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%97%E6%B1%BD%E8%BD%A6

I think some people use the VW abbreviation

*Japanese:*
フォルクスワーゲン forukusuwaagen (all u's are almost silent) and r is light - something between a lightly rolled r and l.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/フォルクスワーゲン


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## olivinha

roh3x2n said:


> no wrong! it is wagen for people.Or VW ( fau - Weh)


 
And "folk" means...

By the way, how do they pronounce it in Mars? 
O


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## Honour

In turkish
it is read "volkswagean", "ve ve" (veh veh) or "vos vos"
I have to say that "vos vos" is a special acronym for vw beetle.
(btw, we call vw beetle as vw kaplumbağa which means turtle  )


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## optimistique

"Volkswagen" could just as well be a Dutch word, and it is pronounced that way. The abbreviation (VW) is pronounced like 'Vé Wé' (v is voiced, w is not rounded, unlike the English 'w' ).


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## jadzia

Mexico is "volchito" (mostly when referring to the beetle). The rest are usually referred to using just the model. Some people I've heard pronounce the American way the best they can or just ve-doble-u.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Lemminkäinen said:


> In *Norwegian* we say 'volkswagen', with the German pronounciation ('folksvagen').
> 
> I've never heard anyone just say the abbreviation.


 
Same here in Slovenia.

(I'm hardly waiting that somebody starts a thread about Mercedes.)


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## DrWatson

There's also another word for Volkswagen in Finnish, *volkkari.* Not an acronym, though, but a kind of a nickname.


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## Outsider

In Portuguese, apart from the German name which has already been mentioned above, there is also the affectionate nickname *carocha*, which means "bug".


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## olivinha

But carocha is for a specific kind of VW, right? 
O


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## Outsider

Yes, the "Herbie" type.


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## betulina

I was unfamiliar to the abbreviation. In Catalan we say the full name and it is pronounced more or less as "bolsbaguen" (silent "u").


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## Maja

In Serbian: folcvagen (*ks* in folksvagen became *c* in speech). I am not sure though if it is the  same in a written form!


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## Hakro

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> (I'm hardly waiting that somebody starts a thread about Mercedes.)


There's no pronunciation problem with Mercedes. The idea of this thread (in case you didn't get it) is the pronunciation of the German letters v (fau or veh) and w (weh or double-u) in different languages, not the word Volkswagen.


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## olivinha

Hakro said:


> The idea of this thread (in case you didn't get it) is the pronunciation of the German letters v (fau or veh) and w (weh or double-u) in different languages, not the word Volkswagen.


 
Oopsie, I had also misunderstood it. Sorry.


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## Outsider

Ah, then! In Portuguese:

V - _vê_ (The letter "v" is pronounced as in English, French, etc.)
W - _dáblio_ (based on the English name), or _duplo vê_ (literally "double ve")



Hakro said:


> There's no pronunciation problem with Mercedes. The idea of this thread (in case you didn't get it) is the pronunciation of the German letters v (fau or veh) and w (weh or double-u) in different languages, not the word Volkswagen.


Honestly, did _anyone_ get it?


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## Maja

Outsider said:


> Honestly,  did _anyone_ get it?


I didn't!!! 


Hakro said:


> The idea of this thread (in case you  didn't get it) is the pronunciation of the German letters v (fau or veh) and w  (weh or double-u) in different languages, not the word  Volkswagen.


In that case I can't help because I don't speak German  and do not know the rules of transliteration regarding German letters.
But I  can tell you that we don't use the abbreviation for  Volkswagen!


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## olivinha

Outsider said:


> Ah, then! In Portuguese:
> 
> V - _vê_ (The letter "v" is pronounced as in English, French, etc.)
> W - _dáblio_ (based on the English name), or _duplo vê_ (literally "double ve")


 
In Brazil, it would be similar to the above even though people there hardly ever (if not never) refer to a volkswagen as a VW.
 
O
Out, o teu carocha é o nosso fusquinha (de fusca).


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## samanthalee

Anatoli said:


> In *Chinese* it would be a big article describing various pronunciations, some have nothing to do with the original (literal translation) - 大众汽车 dàzhòng qìchē (used in mainland China) or a phonetical transliteration 沃尔夫斯堡 wò'ěrfūsībǎo - only remotely reminding the original


 
Volkswagon's name in China means Motor of the Mass, which is a literal translation and has no pronunciation issue.

Its name in Taiwan [Fu Si Motor], Hong Kong [Fu Shi Motor], and Malaysia/Singapore [Fu Shi Wei Gen], are phonetic translation.

So "Volks" sounds like "Foose" (ie. subsitute the G in Goose with F)

And "Wagen" sounds like "Way-gan" (gan is pronounced like the last bit in "Ronald Reagan")

By the way, 沃尔夫斯堡 wò'ěrfūsībǎo refers to Wolfsburg, not yet another chinese translation of Volkswagen


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## spakh

In Turkey you can hear 'woswogen'. A quick pronunciation of volkswagen.


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## Anatoli

samanthalee said:


> Volkswagon's name in China means Motor of the Mass, which is a literal translation and has no pronunciation issue.
> 
> Its name in Taiwan [Fu Si Motor], Hong Kong [Fu Shi Motor], and Malaysia/Singapore [Fu Shi Wei Gen], are phonetic translation.
> 
> So "Volks" sounds like "Foose" (ie. subsitute the G in Goose with F)
> 
> And "Wagen" sounds like "Way-gan" (gan is pronounced like the last bit in "Ronald Reagan")
> 
> By the way, 沃尔夫斯堡 wò'ěrfūsībǎo refers to Wolfsburg, not yet another chinese translation of Volkswagen



Thanks, why don't you use the standard pinyin for transliteration? Different ways to transliterate only make it more confusing, IMHO.

I found 福斯 (fúsī) and  福士 fúshì for Volks- but not the rest. How do you write it in Chinese characters?

I am sure there is another - phonetic version in mainland China (different from dàzhòngqìchē) but I couldn't find it.


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## samanthalee

Anatoli said:


> Thanks, why don't you use the standard pinyin for transliteration? Different ways to transliterate only make it more confusing, IMHO.
> 
> I found 福斯 (fúsī) and 福士 fúshì for Volks- but not the rest. How do you write it in Chinese characters?
> 
> I am sure there is another - phonetic version in mainland China (different from dàzhòngqìchē) but I couldn't find it.


 
Hi Anatoli, I have been pondering on how to make the Mandarin pronunciation understood by all on this thread. Pinyin is a learned romanised form of Mandarin and is understood only by learners of Mandarin.

The person who started this thread asked to know how "Volkswagen" sounds like in other languages. I believe Pinyin isn't going to help him know how it sound like in Mandarin.

We called it 福士伟根 in Singapore and Malaysia.

P.S. actually I think I kind of did give use Pinyin in my original msg. I write [Fu Shi Motor] and [Fu Shi Wei Gen]...okay, I didn't specify the tone...


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## Anatoli

Thanks, samanthalee. Here's a bunch of linguist/semilinguists. A person who has interest in Chinese will understand or look up. "Way gan" is more confusing than "wei gen", since you're trying to adjust to English unphonetical and ambiguous spelling.


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## MarX

Hakro said:


> We have recently learned how to pronounce BMW, short for Bayerische Motoren Werke, in different languages.
> 
> There's another automobile brand name that is even more complex: VW, short for Volkswagen.
> 
> The original *German* pronunciation is 'fau veh' ('fow veh).
> 
> In *Finnish* we are used to pronounce it 'veh veh'.
> 
> How is it pronounced in your language?


In Indonesian it is _fè wè._


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## sokol

Hakro said:


> There's no pronunciation problem with Mercedes. The idea of this thread (in case you didn't get it) is the pronunciation of the German letters v (fau or veh) and w (weh or double-u) in different languages, not the word Volkswagen.


Well, the problem with that is: it seems in some languages the abbreviation VW is not used when referring to the car; see Maja's post:


Maja said:


> In that case I can't help because I don't speak German  and do not know the rules of transliteration regarding German letters.
> But I  can tell you that we don't use the abbreviation for  Volkswagen!


In Serbian it is just "volcvagen" (where "c" = "ts", thus "foltsvahgen" in near-English spelling).
And for the question concerning VW there's no answer - or if a Serbian native would pronounce VW he or she would use the pronunciation of those letters according to the Serbian alphabet, but this still would not be the idiomatic way for referring to a VW car.


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## Hakro

Thanks, MarkX and Sokol, for assisting this ancient thread!


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## salander

pizzi said:


> So do we in Italy



Well, in Italy not everybody is aware of the different sound of the German V and W so I've often (very often) heard it pronouced like this: WolksWagen


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## apmoy70

In Greek:
We do not use the abbreviation VW. When we see VW we pronounce it Folksvagen


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## phosphore

Maja said:


> In Serbian: folcvagen (*ks* in folksvagen became *c* in speech). I am not sure though if it is the same in a written form!


 
I have never heard anyone saying _fol_[ts]_vagen_: we say _fol_[ks]_vagen_, we do not use the abbreviation.


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## enoo

In French:
Something like "Volsvagen", (the "v" are the same as the english "v", and the k is not pronounced.)
I never heard anyone use the abbreviation. 

I guess that's because Vols-vag-en  is 3 syllables long, and VW (Vé-dou-ble-vé) is 4 syllables long ... 
However, it's almost always written VW.

(I'm not sure that I cut the syllables in the right place, but that gives an idea)


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## Grop

enoo said:


> In French:
> Something like "Volsvagen", (the "v" are the same as the english "v", and the k is not pronounced.)



This, with -gen having often a different vowel from the German. It is pronounced like French gaine.


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## Nanon

French: ... and that would be "vol*z*vagen", because the l and the v are voiced.
-gen can be pronounced as Grop said, or closer to the German original vowel.


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## kusurija

In Czech we say it without abbreviation: [folksvágen], sometimes we say "Brouk" (beetle), but this is only for historic types of VW.

In Lithuanian we say it also without abbreviation: [folksvagenas], sometimes we say only second part of name; i.e. "Golfas", "Polo" and so on.


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## Encolpius

Hungarians do not use the VW. 
I say *volcvágen *similar to the Serbian pronuncitaion. But it might be regional.


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## Aleco

Lemminkäinen said:


> In *Norwegian* we say 'volkswagen', with the German pronounciation ('folksvagen').
> 
> I've never heard anyone just say the abbreviation.


Around here, we've translated it though.

We always say "*folkevogn*". 

/"fOr`k@PONn/


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