Quebec City was the most commonly mispronounced Canadian city, having 240,000 Google searches for its pronunciation every year, according to a study conducted by online gambling platform CanadaCasino. Quebec is the only province in Canada whose official language is French, which might be where some of the confusion lies, according to the study. CanadaCasino said the correction pronunciation for anglophones is kwuh-bek, and francophones would say keh-bek. Toronto was the second most commonly mispronounced Canadian city (172,920 Google searches). The right way to pronounce Toronto is tuh-ron-tow, but Torontonians will often say tuh-runno. CanadaCasino went on to say Ottawa came in third place (138,000). It added Ottawa’s correction pronunciation is o-tuh-wuh. After Ottawa was Cambridge, ON (kaym-brij) at 135,960. This was followed by Niagara Falls, ON (nai-a-gruh-fawlz) at 82,440, Regina (rej-eye-na) at 79,320, and Mississauga, ON (mi-suh-saa-gah) at 73,920. CanadaCasino continued by saying Edinburgh was the most mispronounced global city (28,880). For anyone wondering, it said the correct way to say Edinburgh is ed-in-burgh. Oaxaca, Mexico came in second place (23,520). The emphasis on Oaxaca falls on the second syllable, so the correct pronunciation is wuh-haa-kah. Rounding up the top three was Kyiv (17,280). Kyiv’s proper pronunciation is kee-yiv. After Kyiv was Cannes, France (kan) and Reykjavik (rayk-yah-veek) at 11,040. This was followed by Gloucester, UK (glo-stuh) at 10,920 and Tucson, AZ, (too-sun) at 10,680. When it comes to most mispronounced cities by province, Toronto came in the top spot in Ontario (4,520) and Nova Scotia (960). Quebec City held the top spot in Quebec (3,360). While some provinces had Canadian cities, Oaxaca had the top spot in BC (5,280) and Edinburgh was first in Alberta (3,840) and Manitoba (1,200). Regina came in first in Saskatchewan (1,560). To determine which Canadian cities were most commonly mispronounced worldwide, CanadaCasino pulled together a seedlist of 2,298 global cities. Using Google Keyword Planner, the global monthly search volumes were calculated for various phrases for each location and multiplied by 12.
