German Pronunciation of German Camera and Lens Names

Ever wondered how classic German camera names are actually pronounced in Germany? Here's a nice little video of a native German speaker demonstrating proper German pronunciation. 

Of course, brand or marque names don't have a proper pronunciation...even if they are of a particular nationality and even if they're a real word, such as a surname. In Lexington, Kentucky, there's a road called "Versailles Road," and the proper pronunciation is not the French pronunciation even though the name comes from the French. It's pronounced "ver-SALES," and that's correct...in Kentucky. 

We learned this with Nikon. The name is pronounced differently in different languages and regions, and, according to the company, which is the ultimate authority, each one is correct; the variant pronunciations in the U.K. (NICK-on) and U.S. (NIGH-kon), for instance, are both proper—one isn't right and the other wrong. 

A few of these were news to me, especially Voigtländer as "FOTE-lender" (that's not quite it, but close) is not something I think I've heard before. That's a good example of the point above, though...there's an accepted pronunciation in English and it's different than what the name sounds like in German.

The Leica lens names are cool. I think I might try to say them that way in the future. ZOOM-ee-cron. 

Interesting stuff!

Mike
(Thanks to Eamon H.)

Gear o' the Week:

If I could shoot with any 50mm focal-length-equivalent lens, it would not be unobtanium: it would be the relatively modest, relatively older HD Pentax 35mm ƒ/2.8 DA Macro Limited on APS-C (it has recently been revised with new coatings). I don't know how it measures and couldn't care less. If you care first and foremost about pictures, especially prints, it is one beautiful lens. Luverly. As a normal too. This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

B&H Photo also has the Magic Macro, naturally.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Thomas Mc Cann: "Many years back Braun did a little survey in the U.K. asking what was the preferred pronunciation of their name. The answer was 'Brawn' and not 'Brown' so ever since that is what they use in the promotions.

Zyni Moë: "Voigtländer is hard for native English speakers to get right: is a case where the 'v' is /f/ (unvoiced) not /v/ (voiced) which often it is in modern German, which mostly uses 'w' for /v/: 'Wankel' is close to 'Vankel' in English. 'Vater' is then 'fater' (but 'a' is /a:/ not /a/: is a long sound like 'father' in RP English and not a diphthong like 'fate'). But 'v' is in fact ambiguous in modern German: sometimes it is /v/ not /f/. This is because in Mittelhochdeutsch (middle high German: 'middle' is 1000–1300 or so, 'high' means people who lived high up in mountains spoke it, not low down on plains, yes, really, this is true) pronounced 'v' as /v/: after this there was a consonant shift to /f/ (mostly) but the orthography did not change. Is even more funny that I think in Althochdeutsch these sounds were /f/. Approximate but wrong rule in moderm German is that 'v' is /f/ in words which originally were German, /v/ in imported words. And that is the easy bit for Englishers: 'ä' is usually /ɛ:/ and this vowel does not really exist in many English dialects at all. 'Länder' is close to 'lender' but not the same: the 'ä' is longer. You must wrinkle your nose a little as if there was a bad smell, too.

"But it is completely fine for there to be different pronunciation in English: my English friend says /vɔɪtlændə/ I think if he is not trying (and he can speak some German, and could get it right if he tried I think). If you are having a conversation in English with someone English who pronounces 'Paris' /paʁi/ ('paree') you should immediately start having a conversation with someone less annoying. Note I am not native German speaker (my native language derives from latin, so is not even closely related). I did/do sometimes still live in Berlin though."

Chris Dematté: "As a native German speaker I can assure you: the way he is pronouncing 'Voigtlaender' is completly wrong. You have to listen to Austrians anyway because we are the only one who are speaking a decent German...  ;-). "

Charlie Ewers: "Where I live in Maryland, the French name Beauchamp is pronounced 'Beechum.' Where we used to spend summers in Maine, the name of the town Calais is pronounced 'Cal-us.' Seems like French is the easiest language for us Americans to butcher.

Mike Cytrynowicz: "Actually, Voigtländer is pronounced more like 'F$@#ed-lander' imagining the cursing person to be in some parts of the UK where they tend to say 'aw' when we say 'uh.'"

longviewer: "Let it be 'Lowenbrau' beer = Löwenbräu which sounds more like lervenbroi in German. Thanks for letting me say this; clearly it's been simmering inside me since the late '70s when this marketing took place...." 

Mike replies: That's taking the long view!

robert e: "My favorite pronunciation database is Forvo. It's massive, easy to use, and for many words and names you can listen to recordings from a variety of speakers from all over the world. I find it as charming as it is useful. It's crowd-sourced, boasts 'nearly 6 million words pronounced in over 390 languages.' And there's a pending word list if you'd like to help out. Re Nikon, while our (US) way of saying it may be 'correct' per the company (though, really, what else are they going to say? ), it does seem to be an outlier per Forvo (albeit the sample size is still rather small)."

Albert Smith: "Re 'a few of these were news to me, especially Voigtländer as "FOTE-lender" (that's not quite it, but close)...' Wow, I was really off. I've been pronouncing it COSE-EE-NA for the last 15 years.😀"

Rick in CO (partial comment): "One trick for names like Rollei is to remember that when you see two vowels together, the second vowel is 'hard' pronounced—ie. Roll-EYE. Same for Leitz or Leica. However, not true for umlauts like in Voigtländer which is also seen spelled as Voigtlaender. This becomes a 'soft' e like 'lender.' Much fun!"

Steve Rosenblum: "I would like to see a similar video for Japanese photographic terms."

Comments

[DB]

Very cool!

[Parkylondon]

UK pronunciation is "KNICK-ON"....

[Stan B.]

Reminds one of Dr. Winkel (ie- Vinkel) in The Third Man...

[Christopher May]

It's interesting that the video presents the "German" pronunciation of those names. It feels like it should feature the "Deutsch" pronunciations.

There were a couple of big surprises for me. The Leitz lens names and Voigtländer being the most notable. Rolleiflex is still the most fun to say, or at least attempt to say correctly, though.

[Rick in CO]

So...since Voigtländer is now Cosina-owned in Japan, how do the Japanese pronounce it? By the way, it is more of a very subtle soft "V" for the pronunciation in German. One trick for names like Rollei is to remember that when you see two vowels together, the second vowel is "hard" pronounced - ie. Roll-EYE. Same for Leitz or Leica.
However, not true for umlauts like in Voigtländer which is also seen spelled as Voigtlaender. This becomes a "soft" e like "lender".
Much fun!

[Craig]

I have always pronounced "Zeiss" to rhyme with "mice", which sounds like what this German fellow said. I'm a little pleased to have my intuition confirmed, as I know a Ukrainian who insists that it rhymes with "mace".

[Roger Bradbury]

Here's some of my local place names that trip visitors up, because they are all spelt much the same but all pronounced differently. There's less than four miles between them.

Loughton "Lowton"
Broughton "Brawton"
Woughton (on the Green) "Woofton"

In the next county twenty or so miles away is Cogenhoe, which of course is pronounced "Cucknoe".

Why are they pronounced like this? I don't now, I just live here.

[c.d.embrey]

I've watched many non-dubbed foreign films, so no surprises here.

When Richard Neutra died in 1970, the Network News Reader called him Richard NEW-tra. After they came back from commercial, she corrected her error 8-)

[Dave_lumb]

KNEE-kon in the UK?

Everyone I know says NICK-on.

[Bridgett]

Ponce de Leon

[Jeff]

Just when I thought Leica didn’t have any M ‘zoom’ lenses (beside the WATE).

[Jeff]

Oops...besides, not beside.

[Dan Khong]

When I said, "Pass me the FOTE-lander and the Arg-Far fee-leem", only Herr Zoomeelooz understood.

[Gordon Buck]

Please explain the Affiliate link to Amazon and why there is no longer a general link. I used the general link for several years whenever shopping on Amazon.

[Amazon cut me off last summer, effectively cutting my income by a third, which was a disaster for me. They did it because Amazon Canada had demanded I make some changes and then report the changes I had made, which I was not able to do because all the lines of communication had been shut down because of COVID-19. I have been reinstated to Amazon US and (ironically) Amazon Canada now, but Amazon UK and Amazon Germany will not even communicate with me. One of the things Amazon Canada objected to was the general link, which it said went against the Operating Agreement. They told me I could only link to specific products. So now I am.

I'm just trying to be a good Amazon citizen, which is all I've ever tried to be. --Mike]

[Bernhard]

Funny to read the comments as a German one :-)

Best regards
Bernhard

[James]

..... They told me I could only link to specific products. So now I am.
I'm just trying to be a good Amazon citizen, which is all I've ever tried to be. --Mike]
American / Amazon = interchangeable during lockdown.

That does not prevent us from buying other things after clicking the link for that lens or whatever. Even though I did once remove the linked item from the cart after adding several Lego sets for my grandchildren.

[Christer Almqvist]

It works the other way round too. One would assume the news readers on public radio and public television in Germany to be fairly well educated compared to those on private networks, but generally they cannot pronounce the simple word "live" correctly. So they say "life Sendung" when they mean "live Sendung". Drives me bananas. Every day ;-)

[My pet peeve in English is "loose" and "lose." Lose is misspelled "loose" so often that people are actually beginning to believe it's correct. As with you and your peeve, it drives me bananas every time I encounter it, which is often. --Mike]

[Patrick]

Oddly enough - not once did I wonder.

[Mike Plews]

You can reliably spot new newsreaders hereabouts by how they pronounce:
Papillion, Nebraska
Pierre, South Dakota
And Buena Vista County, Iowa.

[Mark Kirkpatrick]

In Texas, the Anglo pronunciation of local Spanish place names is somewhere between hilarious and surreal, e.g.

Bexar -> "Bear"
Guadalupe -> "Gwadloop"
Refugio -> "Referio"

[G Geradts]

Leicester: How many syllables? The number you hear or the number you see?

Why pronounce the “s” in Islington, but not in island?

There are many more that are confusing for non native English speakers.

[Joe Rukenbrod]

Bahama, in northern Durham county, North Carolina, is pronounced Ba-HAY-ma.

[Eric B]

In Japan, "Voigtländer" is pronounced as フォクトレンダー (fokutorenda-), which approximates the German pronunciation.

[Chris Stone]

AND ... I understand that in Japan "Nikon" is pronounced like Nee-Kon (or Knee-Kon).