Grazie, jahoulih; that's what I thought.<BR><BR>I don't think the narrator was British, but he may have been Canadian, as he had a slight (to my ears) accent.

It isn't any British quirk - we pronounce pasta to rhyme with "hasta" (la vista) too, just like the Italians, although with a slighly different emphasis.<BR><BR>I got confused by this post for a while as many British people (northerners especially) would also pronounce "fast-a" to rhyme with "hasta". I presume you were meaning "farst-a"?<BR><BR>And Maren - how else does one pronounce Mazda but to (almost) rhyme with "hasta". Am now most confused....

AnnaC, the British (in my experience, and according to the Oxford English Dictionary) tend to pronounce the first vowel in "pasta" the same as the vowel in "can" or "pan"--while the Italians (and Americans) pronounce it to rhyme with "hasta". I think this is the same distinction that Maren was getting at with regard to Mazda.