Can you say "Casa Batlló" correctly? These are the world's most mispronounced tourist spots

Can you pronounce “Casa Batlló” correctly? How about “Champs-Élysées”?

Have you ever visited a place and thought you had the pronunciation of a tourist site perfected, only to realize you were messing it up the whole time? Turns out you’re not alone.

HawaiianIslands made a list of the most mispronounced tourist attractions in the world, and many spots have fallen victim to pronunciation errors.

The website first narrowed down the most popular tourist attractions in every country and US state to compile the list. It also included each country’s most popular beaches, beach resorts, landmarks, museums, and nature spots.

HawaiianIslands then searched every destination on Forvo, an online pronunciation tool, to establish how often people looked up each site.

From there, it could rank each tourist destination and attraction by how often they were mispronounced, based on the results from Forvo.

So, what is the most mispronounced tourist spot?

Champs-Élysées in Paris, France, took the first spot. Even though it’s one of the world’s most famous streets, tourists struggle to pronounce its name correctly. HawaiianIslands found that Champs-Élysées was looked up 223,000 times on Forvo.

“The proper pronunciation — shohnz·eh·lee·zeh — is fairly unintuitive for non-French speakers, with the ‘champs’ half boasting several silent letters and a soft ‘ch’ sound,” writes HawaiianIslands.

Second on this list is Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain, which got 128,000 listens on Forvo.
The correct pronunciation should be caza·bad·yo, notes the website.

Chichen Itza in Mexico, Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, and Montmartre in France rounded up the top five most mispronounced tourist sites.

HawaiianIslands

Regarding the most mispronounced nature spots, Torres del Paine in Chile took first place with 34,000 listens on Forvo.

In second place is Canada’s Niagara Falls, which also spans into the US. It raked up 31,000 listens on Forvo, with HawaiianIslands noting that “instinctively you might say ‘ny·ah·gara,’ but according to Forvo… it’s nahy·ag·ruh, with the emphasis being placed on the ‘uh’ sound.”

Another Canadian destination — Mont Tremblant– also made the list with 9,000 Forvo searches.

HawaiianIslands

As for most mispronounced beaches, first place goes to Peregian Beach in Australia, with 4,000 Forvo searches. Pronounced puh·ree·jee·uhn, it is both a small town on the coast and a beach on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

Strandbad Wannsee in Germany came in second with 2,800 searches, followed by Mexico’s Bucerias with 2,600 Forvo listens.

HawaiianIslands

HawaiianIslands concluded that France had the most mispronounced tourist sites, with six landmarks in the report.

“Likely because many of the names have silent letters, liaisons and complex vowel sounds that differ from what learners may be accustomed to in their native languages,” noted the website.

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This article was originally published on September 8, 2023