Is it that hard to pronounce "Carrefour" correctly?
>> 4 July 2008 –
commentary,
indonesia
"So where did you buy it?" he asked.
"Carrefour (pronounced: CA-Foo)", I answered.
"What?"
"Carrefour (still pronounced the same way)"
"Ca-foo? what is that? is it a new shop or something?"
"Carrefour (pronounced: CARE-FOUR), for God sakes", I finally relented to his brain limitation.
"Oohh... CARE-FOUR! Why don't you just say so from the beginning...?"
"You want me to kill you or what?" I showed an annoyed look.
Till today, most people who are familiar with English language find it so damned difficult to pronounce that French hypermarket correctly.
If pronounced accurately, it should rhyme with the Sudan capital of Darfur, and not Care-Four like 80% of the globe population (who don't speak French) have always thought.
I don't know how do the Carrefour management elsewhere choose to connect with the public, but the Indonesian branches of Carrefour have apparently chosen to also relent to the general public's unawareness.
Their famous catchy slogan as advertised on the TV and radio is "Ke Carrefour aja, ah..." by using the Care-Four spelling instead of CA-Foo.
No wonder the public could never be educated about the accurate French reading.
omigod. this bugs me too!!!!
i hate it when people say care-four. i desperately try to correct them, but they just wont budge.
the same with Hermès, indonesians always pronounce is herme, while it's pronounced 'ermez'.. oooh and printemps.. they will read it like it's an english word, while it's pronounced as pratong..
but really, 'care-four' really pisses me off.
yep, the frustrating thing is when every Indonesians seem to deem all Europe-ish names as English names.... That's why i wrote this post :D
Aha, yesterday I went to a bakery and wanted to buy some meringue. I kept asking the sales assistant but she only stared back at me blankly. Until I pointed it out in the counter and she said, "oooooh, me-RENG".... I couldn't help but laughing.
me-reng...? lol
btw u're in surabaya now? :)
annoying me: baby sitter use to call as baby sister. astaghirullah, maybe it's because our mother tongue too strong apa ya?! :D
fyi: meringue IS pronounced as me-reng (indo pronouciation) or if you want to really pronounce it francais-style it's me-rang-ge (short 'ge' at the end)
Great I'm from Malaysia everyone including my school teachers pronounce it CARE-FOUR! Once I told my friends to write carrefour- they wrote "carefour" they didn't even ever realize how it is actually spelled! Even the advertisements and when in carrefour everyone will so CARE-FOUR how stupid of them!
I'm from Malaysia, and this bugs me too!!
I hate it when people say care-four. and when i try to correct them, they say that i am wrong. Because apparently, all their English teachers pronounce it as care-four too.