“Quinoa is KEEN-WAH”… and other healthy foods you aren’t pronouncing right

Recently, one of us here at Superlife patronised a Subway outlet. When choosing her vegetables, she said, “Lettuce, please.” “What?” said the Server. “Lettuce,” she repeated. “Leh-tes.” The Server blinked in confusion. She sighed. “I mean Leh-teeeus.” “Orhhh!” the Server laughed. “Leh-teeeus ah!” — It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Singaporean English deviates by miles from most versions of English around the world, both in terms of grammar, vocabulary usage and pronunciation. In fact, several of us probably take pride in having a ‘language’ unique to our country. Also, technically, as long as one is understood, it doesn’t really matter whether a certain language is used ‘correctly’, right? However, just for fun’s sake, here are some commonly mispronounced English words for healthy foods. How many of these have you been pronouncing right before reading this article? Score yourself! 1 OF 10 – LETTUCE: Leh-tes, not Leh-teus 2 OF 10 – SALMON: Seh–mehn, not Sell-mehn 3 OF 10 – JALAPEÑO: Ha-la-pee-neo, not Ja-la-pee-noh 4 OF 10 – GUACAMOLE: Gwah-kah-moh-li, not Gwah-cha-moal 5 OF 10 – QUINOA: Keen-wah, not Kwee-noh-ah 6 OF 10 – CACAO: Kah-cow, not Cha-chow 7 OF 10 – AÇAI: Ah-sah-ee, not Ah-chai 8 OF 10 – GOJI: Goh-jhee, not Goh-ji 9 OF 10 – MACA: Ma-ka, not Ma-cha Our last one’s not really mispronounced, but is often misspelt: 10 OF 10 – CHIA: Chia, not Chai — Now, you can educate your friends. How many did you get right? 🙂