For those who dont understand the difference, a lot of english speaking people say it as if you had the cra part from lucrative and then an s sound and after that the word ant. So it sounds like this cra-s-ant(not totally but its hard to describe in a way that someone without ipa knowledge would understand). While the actual french pronounciation is like(once again quite hard to describe) kwah-sah(the sah is kinda like when you pronounce balsa) and the important part is that theres a release of air from the nostrils when pronouncing the sah part, almost like if the a and an n merged. This is often written with a tilda(~) written on top of the vowel(ã in this case) which literally comes from and n that was shoved on top of the preceeding vowel.
This reminds me of when I worked in a café years ago. We had this smug woman that would try to correct our pronunciation of French words but say them wrong herself. Croissant for her was “quasant”. Cafe au lait was “Caf ah light”. She would do that until we hired a Quebecois student from the local college who responded to her corrections with fluent French.
How can english-speaking people say “CRUcifix” or “CREscent” but can’t say “CROAsan” ? (the final ‘t’ of “croissant” is mute. So is the final “t” in “Bon appétit”)
Totally different R sound in English crucifix and French croissant.
as a yuropean: how else do you pronounce it?
Croissant
Am French, can confirm this is the right way to pronounce it.
Fun Eiffel Tower fact: for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Eiffel offered to build a duplicate of his Parisian tower built four years earlier, but twice as tall. Chicago went with the Ferris Wheel instead, saving us from Eiffel Bueller’s Day Off.
Awwww.
You need to rrrrroll the arrrr, bro.
How else would you pronounce it? Is there a state between being aware of croissants and knowing how the word is pronounced where the accepted pronunciation is “kroy-sent” or something?
Crescent roll
If you are speaking English the correct pronunciation is different than if you are speaking French.
Similar to Paris, information, service, raisin, journal, and many, many other words that are used in both languages.
The English word croissant is pronounced something like krə-sänt, though I’m sure there’s plenty of regional variation.
“Cruzzant” out in regional Australia
Big ol cruzzi
In American English, its usually something like cruh-saunt (including the t)
US would say something like Criss-ant, UK would say something like Criss-ont
My family in the Pacific Northwest settled on Crah-saunt (both ah and au being long A’s, like in raw)
It’s arguable that the only difference between that and the French pronunciation is the accent, and that, unless one holds that one has to convincingly affect a French accent when saying French loanwords, “crah-saun” would be correct. (Though pronouncing the trailing ‘t’ may sound a bit gauche.)
Yeah, PNW pronunciation is “cross-aunt” with that pnw thing where you just imply the t instead of actually saying it (as in ‘accent’ or ‘that’)
There’s a term for that, I think, such as substituting “d” in place of “t” is called “t-flapping”. Damping or muting, maybe.
Checked with quora and they say it’s T-glottalization, where the “t” is replaced by a glottal stop (the hitch in the back of your throat when saying “uh oh”, for example), and apocope or deletion, where the sound is omitted entirely.
Oh how cool, thank you!
You’re welcome!
bonjernuh
Where I live (Canada, not Quebec) we mostly either do a mocking pronunciation similar to the OP or “cruh-SONT” if we’re pronouncing it normally.
Krussant
kroissantti🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮
KROIssanttti
Crows Aunt
CrawSahnt is hor I would transliterate the American pronunciation. With the emphasis on the second syllable. I would not usually order one by saying Kwasahnt.
I do order the chocolate ones by asking for pan chocolat, though. Pain Chocolate!
The have a whole thing about doing their own pronunciations because using the original one from the language they are borrowing from is apparently either pretentious or racist depending on how superior they feel to the region the word originates from.
When you grew up in suburban North Carolina and your high school French teacher was a southern belle and self-proclaimed “chauvinist piglet” so to this very day you perley vew freyansay.
Omsterdom
Where the hell did the “Rrrrrr” go? That’s the key!
This picture is giving my an aneurysm. The cat looks like it’s walking toward me and to the left, the wall is on is going away to the left, and the tower is again going to opposite.
And the wall looks to narrow to stand on
Cats don’t care about your feelings.
El fronsch!
Je suis un ananas.
Cheese du fromunch
I only eat croissant from the supermarket. The only way I’m ordering one from a real place is if I pretend im deaf, point at what I want and then hand them money.
Pronounce it right? Pretentious twat. Pronounce it wrong? What a moron.
Guess I’m eating donuts again.
That’s why I don’t interact with people. No matter what your say or do, or how you say or do it, they’ll judge you for it.
In my mid-twenties I decided to stop giving a fuck. People only judged me harder until I was forced to acknowledge their judgement and comply with their scripted behavioral norms, and then they judged me for that too.
I got tired of it, so lately I don’t go anywhere there’s people. I need something, I order it. Groceries delivered. The shut-in life is the life for me.
You need to learn the power of not caring what people think of you, right to their face. It’s great. I treat everyone in a friendly way unless they get physical, then I treat them like a rambunctious toddler. In Australia, that works pretty well, ymmv.
The friendliness (and my white tall male privilege) means they almost never do get physical btw. Obviously if you’re tiny, it’s a different story, but I do know tiny women who follow the same strategy and get by pretty well.
It’s weird at first, staying friendly with someone who shouts at you, or calls you a dumb cunt, or insults your physical appearance, etc. But it gets more natural over time, and it seriously confuses some people in an entertaining way.
The overall advantage is that you don’t have to dress to expectations, or act according to most of the arbitrary rules of a particular situation unless you want to. You can just be your own person, treat people simply as people, and exist.
I don’t know how it is in Australia, but around here where I am people will get really passive aggressive if you don’t care what they think of you. It’s as if they find it personally insulting that you don’t place so much importance on their opinion that you feel bad when they don’t like you.
So they stop insulting you to your face, yes. They just go behind your back and make shit up about you where you can’t even defend yourself, and then no one confronts you about it or asks if it’s true, you just see the light fade in people’s eyes as they recognize you as that person that they heard some shit about without ever confirming the validity of it.
And you can never find out exactly what the rumors say, or exactly who’s spreading them. You just find that one space after another is no longer a warm and friendly place, until all you have left is your own home with the blinds drawn shut.
And no, I’m a short guy so if I stand up for myself people call it a Napoleon complex, but if I just roll over and take it then I’m a push-over and for some reason that’s seen as blanket permission to double-down on me.
or calls you a dumb cunt
I thought that was a term of endearment in Australia?
Yeah, that sucks, that is toxic behaviour. I wouldn’t enjoy hanging around people like that either. If that’s all I had to choose from, I’d probably learn to enjoy solitude more.
It’s all about the context. Dumb cunt is an insult, because of the dumb part. Can be meant with affection, if you say it right. But it may get you a punch, from someone other than me. 😄
Giving real Princess Donut vibes
Franz Hose
