It’s most obvious when we are drinking German beers.
There are so many breweries in a smallish country.
A favorite to try and pronounce correctly is Köstritzer.
Two favorites in Bamberg are Spezial and Schlenkerla.
Märzen gets butchered here to an extent it’s unrecognizable. 
When borrowing words from other languages, you can either preserve the orthography and thereby obfuscate the pronunciation or modify the orthography and thereby obscure the etymology.
English tends to keep the original spelling and accept the resultant mispronunciations.
I just had an old friend (30+ yrs) and his family from Germany visit. It was refreshing hearing the language spoken again.
We don’t get to choose if we live or die. Death is certain. We only get to choose how we live before we die.
I try to use the commonly accepted pronunciation for the US rather than the original (German) pronunciation. But some, like Hefeweizen, seem to vary depending on who you’re talking to, so it’s hard to know what the accepted pronunciation is. I go with the German in that case. Brewing terms can be the same way - vorlauf, trub, etc.
Could probably clarify that and say “American English tends…”
You spent a lot of time over there?
Hefeweizen I hear pronounced correctly the majority of the time. Not sure why that is. But when it’s wrong, wow… The sky’s the limit.
I always issue a caveat that I’m using the Iowa pronunciation.
I’ve been homebrewing for over 20 years adn I still don’t know how to pronounce Saaz
I lived in Germany and Italy three years each (six total). I’ve been back for short visits several times since.
We don’t get to choose if we live or die. Death is certain. We only get to choose how we live before we die.
I’m told it’s “zotz”
I’m off two minds on this.
On the one hand, I’m totally on-board with learning how to pronounce things “correctly” (i.e., in the pronunciation of the original language). Particularly when talking with speakers of that language – both to smooth communication and as a sign of respect–or if it’s a standard pronunciation that is critical to professional communication in a professional setting.
On the other hand, too much worry about this can come across as off-putting and a bit gate-keepy, and at the very least can hinder communication. “Correct” pronunciation may also vary greatly by region and dialect (I’d be curious to know beer-specific examples; most of the examples I have in mind are in non-beer-related languages). I also accept that many words have been ported into English (and vice versa), with the accompanying change in pronunciation. I don’t lose too much sleep if it’s pronounced “trub” or “troob” or whatever, especially because many homebrewers have only read the word rather than had to speak it.
I experience this a parallel situation in my profession as a paleontologist. Is it pronounced “Parasaurolophus” or “Parasaurolophus”? :D Ultimately, there are often multiple acceptable ways (even if some are not technically “correct” by whatever semi-obscure rules). When I was a young college student who had only learned many scientific terms from reading them, I was very pretentiously corrected on my pronunciation of “Aves” (the scientific name for birds) by a senior person in the field. Sure, I had perhaps mispronounced it, and the result was 1) I pronounce it slightly differently now, but not exactly the way they corrected me (hey, I’m stubborn); and 2) I knew I wanted nothing to do with them as a potential academic mentor, because their attitude was condescending rather than genuinely helpful.
I wouldn’t have come up with that… Interesting.
@Andy Farke,
[/size]I’m with you on the ‘respect’ part. I think saying words correctly, or at least giving the impression I’m trying to, is worth something. I have absolutely no issue with being corrected, and in fact I welcome it. I’m guilty of butchering pronunciations in the past and I’d prefer to have someone correct me so next time I don’t look so much like a dolt. I recall years ago talking about getting a sandwich at the fair, and I said a “Gy Ro”. I was told, it’s pronounced “Yee roh” (Gyro)… I thought about it a moment, yea, I guess it’s Greek… Hmmm, makes sense. Looked it up and yep, that’s the correct way to say it. Ok, I’ll move forward with the newfound knowledge! 
[/size]
[/size]We don’t have umlauts in the English language, so it’s no surprise we are not great with those words. But given that English is possibly the most difficult language to master (because of all the crazy rules and words with identical spellings but different meanings and different pronunciations), I find it odd that so many people are perfectly fine with saying words wrong simply because they’re too lazy to take the time to say it correctly. And imo, that’s about all it amounts to.
People can pronounce them however they want. I’ll never hear it because I’m on the other side of the world.
It’s the spelling that sometimes gets to me: hef, heffe, kolsh, shwartzbeir, pilz, maltz, etc. I majored in German so it’s like fingernails on the chalkboard to me.
Here’s one that I hear several different pronunciations: Weihenstephaner.
I try to say “Vine stefner”, because I heard it pronounced that way by a German speaking person who said it that way, but I butcher it as often as not.
I once told a German guy I know that I made a heffeweisen. I pronounced it “American” heff uh wise en. He said “a what? And I said “ you know, a cloudy wheat beer” he immediately said “ ah! a hafe a vizen!”
Ok, weird, I am quoting myself, but I thought of a follow up. When they have a heff on tap at the local brewery I pronounce it in as correct German as I can and some of the servers take a second before they know what I mean. Also, they play into American pronunciation and call it a heifer Weisen because they are also a dairy farm.
Living near Frankenmuth Michigan I guess I guess I take for granted German names and hearing them being spoken. Frankenmuth was settled by German immigrants and their influence is still strongly felt. The architecture is all Bavarian, the family names and place names are unmistakenly German. I don’t know how many Oktoberfest celebrations in the US are officially recognized by German authorities these days but in 1996 Frankenmuth’s Oktoberfest became the first to be sanctioned by the German Parliament and also received the blessing of the Lord Mayor of Munich (Christian Ude at the time). The Hofbrauhaus brewery became the official beer sponsor and if I remember correctly there was a big deal made at the time about it being the first time Hofbrauhaus had imported beer into the USA. Living so close to Frankenmuth is probably one reason I don’t make many German style beers…its so damn easy to get. Hofbräu and Paulaner are just as prevalent on store shelves here as MBC.
Per the first quote, if someone is even in the ballpark, I wouldn’t think of correcting it, unless it’s someone I think cares about getting it right.
Per the second, I think a lot of times people know the correct pronunciation but choose to say it wrong as a way of attracting attention. Those I ignore.
I still struggle with the pronunciation of diacetyl. [emoji23]
We don’t get to choose if we live or die. Death is certain. We only get to choose how we live before we die.