Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

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Dragon Ball Gus
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Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by Dragon Ball Gus » Tue Aug 14, 2018 6:56 pm

So as we all know Caulifla's name comes from the vegetable "cauliflower". But the way people pronounce her name on audio seems like they forget about that.

So how do we pronounce cauliflower? Simple. "Caw-li-flower"

So, because of that, how would we naturally pronounce Caulifla? Also very simple. "Caw-li-flah".

But how does the community instead pronounce it? "Cuh-li-flah".

What I'm trying to say is instead of pronouncing Caulifla's name like cauliflower, people are pronouncing it as if they're saying "Khalifa". You know, the rapper, Wiz Khalifla. And I'm just thinking, why? Is "Caw-li-flah" too hard to say repeatedly? Or what?
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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:15 pm

I don't watch/listen to anything else, so I have no idea what you're referring to.

But this is a pretty standard thing for westerners to do, putting a weird emPHAsis on a middle sylLAble. It's how you end up with "nuhROOdo". I'm assuming the same thing happens with "zuhMAsu".

It's not exclusive to Dragon Ball, and it's nothing particularly new. Even Viz's (now old!) English dub of Ranma would pronounce a character's name as "suhSOOkay"; if you're a Naruto fan, you can probably guess what that name is supposed to be.

I do definitely wish people would be a little more thoughtful about how they pronounced things, but bad habits tend to get impressed early on and it can be hard to break.
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Logania
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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by Logania » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:26 am

I pronounce it like Cuh-lee-flah like Wiz Khalifa mainly because when I pronounce it Caw-li-flah like the vegetable, it doesn't roll off the tongue and it just sounds odd to me, I have to force it.

I really don't mind how anyone pronounces the characters as long as I know who they're referring to.
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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by linkdude20002001 » Wed Aug 15, 2018 11:14 pm

I don’t know how it’s written in Japanese, or who this character is, but I can say this: it would either be [KAH-luh-FLUH] or [kuh-LEE-fluh] under most circumstances. Some accents pronounce AU/AW as a short O, however, resulting in [KOL-uh-FLUH]. Also, the ‘uh’ in the second syllable could also be pronounced with a short I if desired. I hope I don’t get spoild by being in this thread. Lol.
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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by Simere » Thu Aug 16, 2018 7:17 am

I would say most of them are doing it on purpose; some because they think it's funny that her name sounds like Khalifa, and some to be intentionally disrespectful by mispronouncing her name because they don't like her character.

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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by Kurakaio » Sun Aug 19, 2018 7:45 am

I pronounce it as Caw-li-fah, mainly because the added f just sounds weird to me.

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Re: Why do people pronounce "Caulifla" so weirdly?

Post by Vegard Aune » Sun Aug 19, 2018 3:26 pm

I personally have never even been in a situation where I've had to say her name out loud, but if I were... I for one looked at her name and just went "How do you even say that?" Not everyone is well-versed enough in Dragon Ball lore (and vegetable names...) to recognize the pun. I, for one, definitely didn't. Of course, I'm not a native English speaker, but then... a lot of fans aren't native English speakers.

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