Analysis of Google search data for 2025 reveals the most mispronounced words for South Africa.
South Africa’s most mispronounced words with pronunciations:
1. Schedule (74 400 searches) – SKEJ-ool.
2. Croissant (70 800 searches) – Krwah-SAHN.
3. Charcuterie (69 600 searches) – Shar-KOO-tuh-ree.
4. Aoife (57 600 searches) – EE-fah.
5. Worcestershire sauce (56 400 searches) – WUSS-ter-sheer.
6. Jalapeno (46 800 searches) – HAH-lah-PEH-nyoh.
7. Dachshund (44 400 searches) – DAKS-hund.
8. Acai (43 200 searches) – Ah-SIGH-ee.
9. Quinoa (40 800 searches) -Keen-waa.
10. Chateau (32 700 searches) – Sha-TOH.
11. Qatar (31 200 searches) – KAH-tar.
12. Tuesday (28 800 searches) – Chooz-day.
13. Gyro (25 200 searches) – YEE-roh.
14. Nutella (27 600 searches) – Nuh-teh-luh.
15. Niche (24 000 searches) – NEESH.
South Africa’s most mispronounced words by region with pronunciations:
· Mpumalanga – Worcestershire (WUSS-ter-sheer).
· Limpopo – Croissant (Krwah-SAHN).
· Northern Cape – Persuasive (Per-SWAY-siv).
· Eastern Cape – Nonchalant (Non-shuh-LAHNT).
· Free State – Achieve (Uh-CHEEV).
· North West – Jalapeno(HAH-lah-PEH-nyoh).
· Western Cape – Cocoa (KOH-koh).
· Gauteng – Agile (AJ-ile).
· KwaZulu-Natal – Cautious (KAW-shuhs).
A spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com commented on the research: “Our research about the most searched for mispronunciations gives an interesting insight into South African culture. Exposure to new words through media, music, pop culture and social platforms drives curiosity. People often look up pronunciations if there is a gap between how a word or name is spelled and how it sounds. English language is particularly irregular in this regard (“Colonel” and “Wednesday” defy phonetic expectations). English spelling only matches pronunciation about 75% of the time(University of Oxford research). A Cambridge University linguistics survey found that over 60% of English speakers admit they regularly mispronounce at least one common word. Correct pronunciation is closely tied to perceived intelligence and competence. The desire for correct pronunciation is a mix of avoiding social embarrassment and simple curiosity. No wonder people are searching for how to pronounce words.”
Research was conducted by word unscrambling experts at Unscramblerer.com.
We analyzed Jan 1, 2025 – Nov 03, 2025 search data from Google Trends for “How do you pronounce” and “How to pronounce”.
Methodology: We used Google Trends to discover the most mispronounced words and Ahrefs to find the number of searches. South Africa’s most mispronounced words can be discovered in Google Trends by searching for “How do you pronounce”, “pronunciations of” and “How to pronounce”. Ahrefs shows many variations of pronunciation searches like ‘croissant pronunciation’ or ‘how do you pronounce jalapeno’. We added up 100 search variations of top mispronouncing searches.
