Pronunciation

by Jessica Guiton
 The morning after arriving in Cagli I entered a cafe and ordered a cappuccino. I told the woman behind the bar “un cappuccino, per favore.” She understood what I wanted and began making my drink. I noticed an old man sitting in the corner who was laughing at me and when I looked at him he said, “CAP-pu-ccino, CAP-pu-ccino.” He was obviously correcting my pronunciation despite the fact that I said the word clearly enough that the person I was actually talking to understood my request. I smiled, laughed, and repeated the word in the same manner as the old man but this incident really made me think once I sat down to enjoy my coffee. All I could thinking was, “who the heck is that guy and who is he to laugh at me and correct my Italian pronunciation.” I don’t think I have ever observed a situation in the states like the one I experienced in Italy. In fact, in most places in the US if a complete stranger tried to correct another person for something as minuscule as the pronunciation of a word I would say that nine times out of ten a verbal argument would ensue.

 I’ve heard from other classmates who have similar stories from their time in Italy so I find it very interesting how in this country they are so particular about the pronunciation of words and will take the time to correct you, while in the US if we can understand what another person is saying, despite that it might be incorrect, we just let it go. My guess is that a lot of it has to do with the big hurry everyone in America seems to be in. It takes time to correct a person and give them a mini-lesson in English, time most people don’t think they have, so they just forget about the mistake and move on.