Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proudly and embarrassingly declared that he only "speaks American" while in a room filled with leaders from Latin America.
i don’t speak/read/write Spanish…
i do speak two other languages that are not English, and i am not a fucking idiot, therefore, i can read text in a foreign language, and still get the joke.
@bdonvr@thelemmy.club explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
English does the same with most vowels, it’s called diaeresis though the only place I commonly see it is in the New Yorker (funnily enough googling what it is called led me to a New Yorker article about it.
Fair enough point, I also see it in normal English usage for proper nouns but basically nowhere else.
Wikipedia agrees with you (and also calls out the New Yorker vehemently disagrees which I find oddly comforting and hilarious)
In British English this usage has been considered obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is now considered archaic as well.[3] Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazine The New Yorker.[4]
Sabes cómo se llama uno que habla tres idiomas? Trilingüe.
Sabes cómo se llama uno que habla dos? Bilingüe.
Sabes como se llama uno que habla un sólo idioma? Americano. Se llama americano.
This fucking moron made himself the punch of the joke that we invented to mock those like him.
Shitgeth = puta merda.
i don’t speak/read/write Spanish… i do speak two other languages that are not English, and i am not a fucking idiot, therefore, i can read text in a foreign language, and still get the joke.
As an American, I laughed.
Then I cried some more.
It’s an American joke too but from satire so Pete probably didn’t get it… I wonder if Pete was a fan of The Boys
Why is there a ü in the answers?
Because you are smiling at the fünny joke
@bdonvr@thelemmy.club explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
In Spanish in the syllables gue and gui the u is silent
When the ü is used it means the the u makes a sound like pingüino, cigüeña, vergüenza, güero, antigüedad, etc.
It distinguishes the consonantal u from the vowel u.
Because that changes how it is pronounced
Let’s say- Penguin
In spanish it is Pingüino
“Pingüino” is pronounced “pinguino” (“gui” just like in english)
While “pinguino” would be something like “pingeeno”
And without the diaresis, the silent u is there because gi on its own would have a soft g like English “gee” rather than a hard g like “ghee.”
Because that’s how it’s spelled.
Spanish uses ü, although relatively rarely. I’d signifies that you should pronounce the u and not merge it into nearby vowels.
Can ü get pregante?
No, that would make you feel embarazada
English does the same with most vowels, it’s called diaeresis though the only place I commonly see it is in the New Yorker (funnily enough googling what it is called led me to a New Yorker article about it.
I mean at this point it seems that English doesn’t do this, but maybe at one point it saw limited use.
Except “naïve”, that still happens. But English is nothing if not wildly inconsistent.
Fair enough point, I also see it in normal English usage for proper nouns but basically nowhere else.
Wikipedia agrees with you (and also calls out the New Yorker vehemently disagrees which I find oddly comforting and hilarious)
It’s because naïve is a french word
Oh shit it’s in French too? I’ve been under a rock.
Diaeresis? Try Pepto Bismol.