People only just realising they’ve been pronouncing major car brand wrong

Only 20 percent of Brits pronounce Mercedes correctly, according to a recent Saga car insurance survey.

The most common error is to call the brand “Mer-say-deez”, instead of using the shorter E vowel sound “dez”, according to the routine German pronunciation. 

The study also acknowledged the brand has two correct pronunciations, with the Spanish one sounding: “Mer-th-eh-des Benz”. 

It revealed French and German car brands are most difficult to pronounce for Brits, making up six of the top 10 most frequently mispronounced names. 

BMW, or Bayerische Motoren Werke, proved the hardest to pronounce with only 3 percent of people taking part in the study being able to say it correctly – perhaps unsurprising as the majority of people never use its full name. 

Respondents also failed to pronounce the popular German brand, Volkswagen. Even though most accurately said “vagen” instead of “wagen”, the beginning is also pronounced differently to the way its spelled, and should be said as “folks-vagen”.

Ferrari, Lamborghini, Toyota, Mazda, Volvo, Audi, Lexus, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Honda, Ford, and Tesla topped the list as the easiest to pronounce, with all respondents managing to say the names.

In the study, 35 participants were asked to pronounce 30 top-selling auto brands, spell them correctly, and draw their logos from memory.

The study highlighted that the Mercedes symbol is the second most identifiable among British people.

More than half of those who took part in the analysis accurately recalling the three-pointed star from memory when prompted to sketch it.

The fairly easy design of the logo allowed 88 percent of those who tried to draw it to recreate it faithfully.