Hacker News Reader

I'm sure that table omits languages in which it looks nothing like "ananas". In Brazilian Portuguese it's "abacaxi". The second response in that question seems to address this.

View on HN

It may look nothing like it, but the only letter that really differs is the -c-. The -x is pronounced as -sh and -b- isn't that far removed from -n-, especially in a language with a nasal -a- like Portuguese.

Etymology for abacaxi: Borrowed from Old Tupi ibakatí.

Is Portuguese your native language? I can’t see how one would pronounce abacaxi in a way that sounds like ananas.

They might be mistaking it with "bananas"

To be fair: in Portuguese this is phonetically not to far away from ananas.

At least for me the following are close phonetically in Portuguese: Abacaxi Anacaxi Ananaxi Ananashi Ananasi

You can keep the small changes until you reach "inconstitucionalissimamente".

Actually in Portuguese the 2 words are phonetically very different.

Abacaxi is pronounced ah-bah-kah-SHEE, whereas ananás is pronounced ah-nah-NAHS (depending on the region, the tailing "s" takes the sound of "sh" which is slightly closer but still pretty far). Note that in Portuguese proper pronounciation of the tonic syllable is very important, and in this case the tonic gives each word a very distinct sound.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com