The pastas we’re all pronouncing incorrectly

Whether it’s gnocchi, lasagna, pappardelle or a myriad other pastas, chances are you’ve been pronouncing their names incorrectly. Here’s an easy guide to getting your tongue around the tasty morsels.

Think you know your pastas? Think you can name your pastas? Think again.

It’s a rude shock – the realisation that your dormant Italian roots have failed you and that in fact, you cannot pronounce most of the pasta names in the Italian culinary dictionary.

Yes, I’m looking at you.

Gnocchi

Sure, we know ‘gnocchi’ can trip some of us up (it’s ‘nyohk-kee’ not “noc-kee” or ‘geh-nyohk-kee’), and of course, we all know ‘spaghetti’ is not even worth an explanation (alrighty can’t help myself, it’s ‘spug-get-tee’ – such fun, just rolls of the Italian tongue), but there are a few others, lurking mysteriously below their pasta sauce, waiting to make fools of us.

10-minute cheesy gnocchi and meatball bake

Penne

The first: ‘penne’. You’d think it’s ‘pen-nay’. Well nahh-aaah. It’s actually ‘pehn-neh’. Yes – neh! Not nay! There’s a play on words that’s due here, but then it gets confusing. Nah, neh, nay.

Creamy French onion chicken pasta bake

One-pan lasagne.

Lasagne

How about ‘lasagne’? You’d think that’s fairly straightforward. As straightforward as those gorgeous sheets themselves are. But no, it’s not ‘la-zahh-neh’, it’s ‘la-zahn-yay.’ Yay! Didn’t see that one coming either. Small mind blown.

One-pan lasagne

Orecchiette with silverbeet pesto.

Orecchiette

Some more brain benders for you. ‘Orecchiette’ – it could trip up the best of us, and it does. No, it’s not ‘oh-ree-eh-chett-eh’, it’s ‘oh-rek-kee-ett-ay’. (Meanwhile it’s a delight to picture all of us taste.com.au tasters bending down to our screens, phonetically pronouncing words out as if we are toddlers learning our ABC’s. Go forth – expand thy pasta mind!)

Orecchiette with silverbeet pesto

Slow-cooked lamb ragu with pappardelle.

Pappardelle

And finally ‘pappardelle’. Once could be forgiven (I forgive you) for going with ‘pah-par-del-lee’, but in fact it’s ‘pah-par-del-lay’. A small difference, some might say, but the mispronunciation of a pasta varietal is like a butterfly effect. Who knows, it could upset world balance and shift tectonic plates. So let’s get it right, eh?

Slow-cooked lamb ragu with pappardelle

Creamy curried beef stroganoff.

All of this culinary intel is thanks to online language learning platform, Preply, who have analysed Google search data to see which popular pasta names had the most searches about their pronunciation. Some nuggets of info:

‘Gnocchi’ is the most commonly mispronounced pasta name, with a huge 153,000 people searching for pronunciation guidance on Google each year.

‘Spaghetti’ and ‘penne’ follow in second and third place with 101,460 and 33,890 searches each year from people looking for pronunciation help.

And if you’ve ever wondered what else you might be pronouncing incorrectly, we’ve got a great round-up for you here.

So there you have it. They taste great, but we’re saying it wrong.

How’s the appetite now, then? Of course. Say no more.

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Originally published as The pastas we’re all pronouncing incorrectly