#pronunciation

Unfortunately, English native speakers have a hard time making the "ão" sound correctly since the sound doesn't exist in English, so instead of saying "pão de açúcar" (literally, bread of sugar), she said "pau de açúcar." Now, "pau" technically just means "wood," but it's also, unfortunately for her, slang for "penis."

So to the driver what he heard was "Look at the sugar dick! it's so big!" and he almost crashed the car from laughing so hard.

Let's talk phonics!

Every English vowel can make two basic sounds: what's called a short sound, and a long sound. Take the letter E, for example. A short E can be found in the words met, bet, and set. A long E can be found in the words meet, seat, and treat. (You might notice the two vowels in a row in these words; double vowels in English almost always make the vowel sound long!)

In standard American English, "coffee" is pronounced with a short O sound, such as in the words dog, log, and cough. The IPA symbol for this vowel sound is ɒ. An easy way to spell this sound without using IPA is "ah" -- as in when the doctor asks you to stick out your tongue and "say 'aahh!'"

This is not to be confused with the short A sound, as in the words apple, cat, and axe. The IPA symbol for this vowel sound is æ. An easy way to spell this sound without using IPA is simply "a" (with no "h" after it).

Accents will slightly (or largely) alter our vowel sounds and how we might think to spell them; "coffee" sounds different with a British accent than an American one. But now that we know how to talk about vowel sounds, let's rephrase:

Does "ko-fi" sound identical to "coffee" (typically, for Americans: a short O followed by a long E)?

Or does it rhyme with lo-fi (typically, for Americans: a long O followed by a long I)?

I can't find the post where I talked about this before, but basically there are two ways.

1) Because Latin transitioned from a living language (in the Roman Empire) to the language of scholars and clerics (in the Middle Ages) without a gap, the pronunciation was passed down from teacher to student. It almost definitely shifted a bit over time though, due to human error and the lack of recording devices. This handed-down version is called Ecclesiastical Pronunciation.

2) In the early 20th century (iirc) scholars attempted to compensate for shifting pronunciation by reconstructing how Latin might have been pronounced in Ancient Rome. The version they came up with is called Classical Pronunciation.