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Woman explains we have all been pronouncing ‘Ibiza’ wrong

Woman explains we have all been pronouncing ‘Ibiza’ wrong

Ibiza is a fantastic holiday destination, but apparently loads of people have been butchering the pronunciation of the island's name

A woman has explained that British people have a nasty tendency of pronouncing the name of Spanish island Ibiza completely wrong. You can learn the truth in the video below.

Obviously, British people – and people from lots of countries – love to head on down to Ibiza during the summer months.

For people who like music, it’s a must-visit destination, and the combination of beach, beats, and booze is pretty formidable.

The Balearic island also boasts a whole heap of beautiful scenery and lovely spots to pitch up with a beach towel and a hangover for a bit of rest and recuperation with another big night out ahead.

However, one thing that must annoy the locals – and a few other people it turns out – is the way that Brits pronounce the name of the island.

Go on, what have you been calling it?

If you’ve been going for ‘eye-beeth-ah’ you’re totally wrong.

The same goes doubly if you’ve been giving it ‘eye-beef-ah’ too.

Ibiza really is lovely, isn't it?
incamerastock/Alamy

Even ‘eye-beets-ah’ is way off too, as the South American woman in the video explains.

TikTok user Jaidy Paola Madrigal is a Colombian woman who has been living in the UK for a few years now, and she took a moment to correct the citizens of her adopted nation on their pronunciation.

So, if you’re wondering what the truth is, it’s all in the I at the beginning of the word.

In Spanish, it’s not pronounced like ‘eye’ but like ‘ee’.

That means that the pronunciation of Ibiza in reality is ‘ee-beet-tha’ or something like that.

You should probably just watch the video – she says it better than it sounds written.

In that video, she also explains how people in her home continent tend to pronounce it differently as well, but that’s just a linguistic difference to do with how people in South America pronounce the letter Z, which tends to be more like an S than a TH sound.

However, some have taken umbrage with this impromptu language lesson.

One person commented: “But we're not trying to pronounce it in Spanish...if the whole country agrees it's ibeefa, then that's what it is.”

Not in Ibiza it ain’t.

Another said: “We don’t say Pa-ree either for Paris. What’s your point?”

Quite rightly, Jaidy responded: “It’s only an observation.

“You’re free to pronounce it however you want”

To be fair, you do hear it mispronounced a lot.
TikTok/@jaidy.madrigal

There were many other comments beneath claiming that they’ve known how to pronounce it correctly all along, and whilst that’s probably true, we’ve all heard people say it the other way, right?

Someone else chimed in: “Imagine if in the UK we made a video of every place pronounced wrong, especially in Wales”

OK, that’s a really fair point, but Ibiza is only five letters long, and we’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that at least 95 percent of people in the UK can’t pronounce Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Feel free to prove us wrong.

Featured Image Credit: @jaidy.madrigal / TikTok

Topics: UK News, World News, Travel, TikTok