Manilla? Philippine capital is most mispronounced city in the country, study says

MANILA, Philippines — A study by Wordtips found that the Philippine capital of Manila is the most mispronounced city in the Philippines, often pronounced as if it were spelt "Manilla."

Thankfully, it did make the Top 10 list, which saw the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro hit the number one spot with a listen count of seven million on the language website Forvo, the largest pronounciation dictionary in the world.

Rio was followed by the Japanese capital of Tokyo with a 4.1 million listen count, while Chicago, USA and the Irish capital of Dublin tied with a 1.3 million listen count.

Wordtips says cities have some of the hardest names to master, most likely because the correct pronunciation is sometimes translated or simplified — for example, London (the fifth most mispronounced city) is Londres in French.

Another reason is that some city names are just difficult to decipher. The Scottish capital of Edinburgh (the sixth most mispronounced city) has the same last four letters as Pittsburgh in the United States, but the two are pronounced very differently.

Celebrities are also not immune to their names being mispronounced, most prominent among them Irish actress Saoirse Ronan with a listening count of 95,000. Also with high numbers are "Joker" actor Joaquin Phoenix and "Obi-Wan Kenobi" actor Ewan McGregor.

Even singers such as Ed Sheeran, Shakira, Justin Bieber, and Billie Eilish find their names mispronounced a lot, as do athletes like NBA stars Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kyrie Irving; and footballers Sergio Aguero, Kylian Mbappe, and Wojciech Szczesny.

Surprisingly, among brands, it is the search engine Google that is most mispronounced with a listening count of 1.3 million in a list that was dominated by German car brands like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

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