Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proudly and embarrassingly declared that he only "speaks American" while in a room filled with leaders from Latin America.
Edit: Thanks for explaining everyone. I have no idea how I missed that my whole life. I had no idea. It could be because I’m in Western Hemisphere but not sure.
English does the same with most vowels, it’s called diaeresis though the only place I commonly see it is in the New Yorker (funnily enough googling what it is called led me to a New Yorker article about it.
Fair enough point, I also see it in normal English usage for proper nouns but basically nowhere else.
Wikipedia agrees with you (and also calls out the New Yorker vehemently disagrees which I find oddly comforting and hilarious)
In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well.[3] Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazine The New Yorker.[4]
@[email protected] explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
Why is there a ü in the answers?
Edit: Thanks for explaining everyone. I have no idea how I missed that my whole life. I had no idea. It could be because I’m in Western Hemisphere but not sure.
Because that’s how it’s spelled.
Spanish uses ü, although relatively rarely. It signifies that you should pronounce the u and not merge it into nearby vowels.
Can ü get pregante?
No, that would make you feel embarazada
English does the same with most vowels, it’s called diaeresis though the only place I commonly see it is in the New Yorker (funnily enough googling what it is called led me to a New Yorker article about it.
Diaeresis? Try Pepto Bismol.
I mean at this point it seems that English doesn’t do this, but maybe at one point it saw limited use.
Except “naïve”, that still happens. But English is nothing if not wildly inconsistent.
It’s because naïve is a french word
Oh shit it’s in French too? I’ve been under a rock.
Fair enough point, I also see it in normal English usage for proper nouns but basically nowhere else.
Wikipedia agrees with you (and also calls out the New Yorker vehemently disagrees which I find oddly comforting and hilarious)
In Spanish in the syllables gue and gui the u is silent
When the ü is used it means the the u makes a sound like pingüino, cigüeña, vergüenza, güero, antigüedad, etc.
@[email protected] explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
Because that changes how it is pronounced
Let’s say- Penguin
In spanish it is Pingüino
“Pingüino” is pronounced “pinguino” (“gui” just like in english)
While “pinguino” would be something like “pingeeno”
That’s an easy to understand answer. I got it now! ;)
Because you are smiling at the fünny joke