How To Properly Pronounce Hyundai
Let’s recap: To date, we’ve dropped knowledge on you regarding how to properly pronounce a number of automotive brand names — from confusing German words and names, to Latin-derived words (no, not Stellantis), to Lamborghini’s cow fixation, to indigenous South American words for cats that became British brand names. Now we turn our attention to Asia, where some brand names of the past have become commonplace but one in particular still can be a little tricky: Hyundai.
Related: Cars.com Crowns 2020 Hyundai Palisade as Best of 2020 Winner
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Shop the 2020 Hyundai Palisade near you
Everyone’s more than familiar with Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Mazda — Americans have even adapted to more multisyllabic names like Mitsubishi — but Hyundai’s pronounciation still causes some folks problems. Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. was founded in South Korea in 1947 by Chung Ju-yung, and it added an automotive branch in 1967. The name itself is a transliteration from the Korean word for “modernity.” If you hear Koreans pronouncing it, you’ll hear it as “hyeondae,” with the “y” being clearly pronounced. But for the Americas, the company’s official position is that it’s “Hyundai like Sunday.”
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At least the model names haven’t gotten too tricky. From the earlier days of the Hyundai Excel up through the modern Sonata, Accent, Palisade, Santa Fe and others, Hyundai has always favored naming their models after easy English words. The lone outlier might be Veloster, a three-syllable name that I often hear mispronounced as “Velociter,” a four-syllable word.
As for the company and brand name itself, however, go with Hyundai like Sunday — ’cause that’s my fun day, my I-don’t-have-to-run day.
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