What is the correct way to say 'jalapeno'. As in the pepper.
I always pronounce the J as an H but here in Hull the lovely folks in Subway and other sandwich shops always say the J and my asking for Halapenoes always confuses them.
Surely pronunciation depends on what language the word comes from. I don't know the etymology of 'llama' but I'd guess that the native speakers of it's mother language pronounce 'LL' simply as L.
And you can't give American celebrities as examples as they often seem to use weird spellings for the simplest of names.
Why not just use the common pronunciation? How many times have you heard people say that they are going to Tenerife with out the accent on the final e? How many people say Landudno instead of Clandidno? Doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things!
Even if the subway staff were Spanish (or from Latin America), they wouldn't be happy with your pronunciation as 'halapenoes'. There should be a tilde over the letter 'n'. i.e. the correct spelling is 'jalape�o'.
Thus, the correct pronunciation is closer to 'hal-a-pain-yos.
Click here and - once on the new page - click each of the red loudspeaker symbols in turn. You will hear the two acceptable pronunciations of the word. The site is American, as it happens, but these two are also the commonest in British usage, too.