YA "how do you pronounce..." thread

[Eltigro]

Is there an example of someone mispronouncing Sega. I don't know what you guys are talking about.

 

Here's a vid where the YouTuber, Wood, is from Australian who talks about it a lot. I think he's wrong...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5Bm-bkLy4

[lingyi]

I pronounce Galaga "gal-a-guh". That's how it's *always* been pronounced, not just by me. If someone tells you it's pronounced different, they're being revisionist. The "gala" comes from "galaxy"; and you don't pronounce "galaxy" as "g'lAxy", do you?

 

As for any Japanese titles or names, here's a quick and dirty lesson in Japanese pronunciation that should get you through any situation.

 

They have the same vowels we do. But they are always, ALWAYS pronounced similar to this:

 

a - "ah"

i - "ee"

u - "oo"

e - "eh"

o - "oh"

 

When you put these vowels together, you still pronounce them that same way. You just sort of roll one into the other. Thus, Taito becomes "Tie-toe" if you represent it in English, because it's really "tah-ee-toh". Same with Gaiden, which is "gah-ee-dehn". Say it fast enough and it's "guyden".

 

Japanese is a basically phonetic language, meaning every word is pronounced the way it's spelled (unless it's kanji, but kanji words can all be represented by kana, the phonetic alphabets). So if you just remember the pronunciations of the vowels, you will be able to properly pronounce any Japanese name with only a little bit of practice.

 

Well, ok, you still won't get the "r" sounds right. But that's for another day.

 

Oh, and as for things like "Cait Sith"... yeah, there are purists that will insist it's supposed to be pronounced "Ket Shee" (I'm not sure, but I'm betting it really should be "keiito shiisu" or possibly it is "keeto shii"). But that's wrong; it's assuming it's a Japanese name to begin with, which it isn't. (These are the same people that insist Aeris should be both spelled and pronounced "Aerith" when there is no such spelling or pronunciation possible in Japanese. At most, if you're a purist it should be spelled "Aerith" and pronounced "Aeris", but this makes no sense in English.) In fact, that's kind of like us pronouncing "Taito" as "tey-toe". It's the closest they can really get to pronouncing a name like "Cait Sith" in Japanese with their phonetic alphabet, but it isn't a Japanese name. So the proper pronunciation of that name is "Kate Sith", just like it looks in English. The fact that they don't pronounce it properly doesn't mean we shouldn't. But we *can* attempt to pronounce Japanese names properly in English; we don't have a phonetic alphabet, and we can have more than one pronunciation for a given spelling. We don't have to follow exactly how it looks like something should be pronounced in English, as the Japanese have to do with English words in Japanese.

 

btw, I forgot to add that the name "Cait Sith" is partly a Star Wars reference, just like Biggs and Wedge in all the FF games. You don't call Darth Vader a "Shee Lord", do you?

 

Space Cadet's post reminded me of the sing sing phonetics she learned in Japanese school when she was young. Sadly, this is about as much Japanese as I've ever learned.

 

It's equivalent to the English alphabet song and taught as the basics of learning Japanese. Note that while Japanese doesn't have tones like Cantonese or Mandarin, your emphasis on a word can change it's perceived meaning. For example, the number four (4) and die are both pronounced "she (shi), though written with different characters. If someone asks you, "How many do you want?" and you yell "SHI!", they'll likely think you're telling them to die!

 

ah, ee, oo, eh, oh <pause> mah, mee, moo, meh, moh <pause> kah, kee, koo, keh, koh <pause> sah, she (shi)*, soo, seh, soh, <pause> gah, gee (gi) goo, geh (gay), goh (go) etc.

 

*There's so 'see' in Japanese, instead it's shi.

 

Also, "i / ee" is never silent, though it may sound like it is to Western ears. Taito is Ta ee to and Seiko is Seh ee ko. Growing up I remember hearing about Taiho, the greatest sumotori (wrestler) of the '60's and I used to think they were just stretching out his name, Ta EE ho, for emphasis, but that was actually his proper name.

 

This site gives a good explanation of Japanese phonetics: http://blog.zerocalvin.com/easy-peasy-japanese-pronunciation-guide/

[lingyi]

The irony is that the blade cuts two ways. In Japan, they play games on a Play Sta-shone and drink bee-dru and ko-hee.

[CatPix]

 

It's a schwah sound in the US.

Thanks you. And yeah, never heard someone saying it like that or that Aussie youtuber, which soulds ike he's saying seagull without the ll

[Yakumo1975]

I find it Funny reading what many people think games should be pronounced as. A lot of them are Japanese so I can understand them being difficult to pronounce. I used to have problems too. If you really want to know the real way they should be pronounced then ask someone who can speak Japanese. Like me I've been living in Japan for 20 years now.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Yakumo1975

[lingyi]

The catch is that certain names are appropriated by their country of origin and certain names/phrases are correct in their appropriated form/usage. Atari (the company), Karate Kid (the movie) and Kung Fu (the series) are correct in their Westernized form since their usage (in this context) is English based., even though their origin is Japanese and Chinese and pronounced differently in their original, correct form.

[Cynicaster]

Some pronunciations that get on my nerves:

Zaxxon as ZACKS'n

Preferred: ZACKS-on

Vectrex as VEK-triks

Preferred: VEK-TREX

Robotron as ROH-ba-tron

Preferred: ROH-bo-tron. (You wouldn't say ROH-ba-Cop to reference the 80s film... right?)

Jaguar as Jag-wire. (how the hell anybody sees "wire" here is beyond me)

Preferred: JAG-wahr or the British Jag-you-ah.

Atari 2600 as Atari Twenty-Six-Hunnerd / Twenty-Six-Hudderd / Twenty-Six-Hunrit

Preferred: Atari twenty-six-hun-dred

Mario as Marry-O

Preferred: MAR-e-oh (in accordance with how the character pronounces his own name)

Not so much a pronunciation thing, but related to word usage: when people refer to "arcade cabinets" as "arcades" (e.g. "The bowling alley had a row of 15 arcades"). Above all, this one makes me want to punch things.

[Duke75]

The catch is that certain names are appropriated by their country of origin and certain names/phrases are correct in their appropriated form/usage. Atari (the company), Karate Kid (the movie) and Kung Fu (the series) are correct in their Westernized form since their usage (in this context) is English based., even though their origin is Japanese and Chinese and pronounced differently in their original, correct form.

 

Well, technically the Karate Kid in Japan is known as "The Best Kid"

[Duke75]

Gradius was "GRADE-ee-us" and I'm still not sure if that's correct, or "GRAD-ee-us". I still use the first.

 

Seriously, wtf was up with some of those NES titles? Astyanax, Xexyz, Faxanadu.

 

I think your first is correct for Gradius. Maybe I'm totally wrong but I get the impression that the game is "supposed" to be named Gladius, in reference to the short sword used by ancient Roman soldiers, but the interchanging of L's and R's in Japan got everyone confused.

 

For Faxanadu, at least, it's a portmanteau of Famicom Xanadu, since Xanadu was already a popular series over there and they were just doing a Famicom-specific version.

[VectorGamer]

Robotron as ROH-ba-tron

Preferred: ROH-bo-tron. (You wouldn't say ROH-ba-Cop to reference the 80s film... right?)

Mario as Marry-O

Preferred: MAR-e-oh (in accordance with how the character pronounces his own name)

 

 

It's Robot-Ron

 

My favorite hockey player when I was a kid was Mario Lemieux. And I always heard his name pronounced "mary-o" so that's how I pronounce Mario and it drives my kids up the wall.

[Duke75]

 

My favorite hockey player when I was a kid was Mario Lemieux. And I always heard his name pronounced "mary-o" so that's how I pronounce Mario and it drives my kids up the wall.

 

Heh, that reminds me of how people pronounce Conan as Co-NAN when they're referring to the barbarian hero. They sometimes get irritated when you remind them that Conan is an actual Irish name usually pronounced as CO-nan, and it's supposed to be pronounced that way because Robert E. Howard was very enthusiastic about his Celtic ancestry.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Duke75

[mr_me]

 

It's Robot-Ron

 

My favorite hockey player when I was a kid was Mario Lemieux. And I always heard his name pronounced "mary-o" so that's how I pronounce Mario and it drives my kids up the wall.

It's definitely Robo-tron or maybe Roba-tron would be acceptable. There was a time when, for a second, I mistook a nintendo commercial for a pittsburgh penguins promo. They have the same name.

[digdugnate]

is that like ro-bot versus roe-butt?

[lingyi]

 

Well, technically the Karate Kid in Japan is known as "The Best Kid"

 

Shouldn't that be "The Bes-too Kee-doo"?

 

I love the way English words are unintentionally 'cute-sified" when they're transliterated into Japanese,

 

Off topic, but here's hilarious clip of two native Japanese Kpop idols (Kangdam from M.I.B. and Sana from Twice) arguing on a Korean variety show (Happy Together) about how to properly pronounce the show's name. Jump to 4:00 for the start of the conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuExV3LTbL4

 

Here's another of my favorite clips and idols. It features Kpop idols Kim So Hye (demonstrating the dance) and Kim Chung Ha of IOI. So Hye explains the dance in near perfect English, then answers shes from Ko-ree-ah which everyone finds hilarious! BTW, the girls in the back are some of the other members of IOI and most of them probably don't know what So Hye's saying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgBhrj-Itps

 

BTW, if you can find the Hiragana or Katakana a particular game and drop it into Google Translate, it does a pretty good job of the correct pronunciation. I've noticed some words, particularly iKorean and Chinese are a bit different from what I usually hear in TV shows and movies, but that could be attributed to dialect differences across the countries.

 

Here's Gradius: https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B9 and Ikari https://translate.google.com/#en/ja/%E3%81%84%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8A

 

If you enter the characters and choose English translation in the same box, you get some ummm..."interesting" pronunciations!

Edited November 9, 2018 by lingyi

[CatPix]

The catch is that certain names are appropriated by their country of origin and certain names/phrases are correct in their appropriated form/usage. Atari (the company), Karate Kid (the movie) and Kung Fu (the series) are correct in their Westernized form since their usage (in this context) is English based., even though their origin is Japanese and Chinese and pronounced differently in their original, correct form.

Reminds me, on non-related videogaming stuff, that (probably) everyone in Western Europe pronounce the Czech brand Škoda as Skoda - "Sco-Dah" when the "Š" indicate a different sound - Škoda should be pronounced as "schoda".

But of course, on advertising (at least in France and the UK) it's said "Scoda"

 

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Cs-Skoda.ogg

 

It's true for many brands, if you think about it.

[Flojomojo]

LUMINES

 

Of course it's supposed to be "LOO min us," like luminous. Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter.

 

So wouldn't they just call it that? Looks like LOO-MINES to me.

[Eltigro]

I've never even considered pronouncing it like luminous.