Pronunciation of Foreign Words in English
English sometimes uses or 'borrows' a word or phrase from another language when this word or phrase expresses concisely an idea which can only be expressed in English in a more roundabout way. Many of these loan words and phrases are now an established part of English vocabulary and appear in English dictionaries.
Examples are: the German word Schadenfreude, which means the pleasure someone feels at the misfortunes of someone else; the French expression sang froid, which means the capacity to stay calm and not to become alarmed or agitated in difficult, dangerous, or stressful situations; and the Spanish word junta, which refers to a military government that has seized power by the use of force.
These words or expressions are usually pronounced in English roughly as they would be in the language from which they have been taken. So Schadenfreude is pronounced 'shahd'nfroyder' (IPA: /'ʃɑː dən frɔɪ də/), and sang froid is pronounced 'songfrwa' (/sɒŋ frwa/). However, there are some exceptions: in the Spanish word junta the 'j' is pronounced like the 'j' in 'jam' (/dʒ/), at least by English speakers in the United Kingdom - in the United States the 'j' is pronounced as an 'h', as it would be in Spanish.
English also contains many words and expressions borrowed from Latin. Further, because of the influence of the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome on modern European civilisation, it is not uncommon, particularly in the fields of literature, philosophy and history, to come across Greek and Roman proper names, i.e., the names of individual Greeks and Romans.
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