How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

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How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by dbboxkaifan » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:39 am

Sai-yan is a more faithful way of saying it but Sey-un isn't wrong neither as Say sounds as Sey not Say, so both sides are right in their own ways, aren't they?

English dubfans use Tien, Hercule and Cooler for example, and since they've always seen the English dub only to them this is the proper way of saying and writing their names.

Then there's the Spanish who pronounce Frieza's name as Frizer, I personally don't mind Frizer or Cooler (Kuler) in Spanish, but Cooler in English sounds too weird to me, also Tien (Ten or Tenshinhan would've been better than Tien).

Edit: I'm aware of fans on YouTube complaining about the pronunciation of Saiyan in the DBZ Kinect game, but I don't really care about them.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by DBZGTKOSDH » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:47 am

For the FUNi dub, this is the correct version. But for the original & other dubs, it's not.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Piccolo Daimaoh » Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:05 am

English speakers intuitively pronounce the "ai" diphthong "ey" (as in "hey") because of words like "main", "rain" etc. In Japanese, however, "ai" is always pronounced as the "ei" in "height". FUNimation probably went with the anglicized pronunciation of "Saiyan" for the above-mentioned reason (they'd already anglicized the second part of the name anyway). Also, I hate using words like "correct" and "incorrect" in these types of discussions. The Japanese version of a certain thing came first. Can we leave it at that?

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Rukura » Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:08 am

For the same reason that Kaioken pronounced as "Kay-oh-ken" is wrong. It's just not the word.
It doesn't come from an english word, thus doesn't have to follow english pronounciation standards. Unlike characters like Vegeta, Trunks or Kakarrot, that do come from english words.

I wonder how everyone seems to be on the same page as far as pronouncing Saint Seiya.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:02 am

Much like with "Kaio-ken" where the point of the phrase (and therefore its pronunciation) is that it comes from the character going by the name/title "Kaio", the point of "Saiya" is that it comes from the Japanese word "yasai" (meaning "vegetable").
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by dbboxkaifan » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:31 am

Rukura wrote:Unlike characters like Vegeta, Trunks or Kakarrot, that do come from english words.
The one of the first countries to use the name "Vegeta" I remember being France, and in English version while it's written "Vegeta" the way it's said is "Vejita". Two different pronunciations.

Dubs with the said name - Vegeta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3oOyU1pJac 4:46 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7jBqdJby-w 0:52 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg_7ZUEVCxc 2:58 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPOF3_aj27M 2:41 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7VDDas2zlc 0:13 (Beheta)

For the English dub it would have been more appropriate to name him Vejita than Vegeta.

Super Vejita English FUNimation dub - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8zk4nawSjg 0:46 (Vejita)
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Cipher » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:51 am

As others have said, it loses the pun. It's a rearrangement of "yasai" (pronounced "ya-sigh"), so to suddenly switch vowel sounds kind of misses the whole point.

Now, I still say "Say-un" most of the time, just because it's basically a part of English lexicon at this point. But if I could go back in time and change the English pronunciation the first time it was dubbed, I would.

Although that would be a horrible waste of time travel.

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by ricecake » Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:23 am

dbboxkaifan wrote:For the English dub it would have been more appropriate to name him Vejita than Vegeta.
But then that would lose the pun that it's based on the word "vegetable".

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Rukura » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:50 am

dbboxkaifan wrote:The one of the first countries to use the name "Vegeta" I remember being France, and in English version while it's written "Vegeta" the way it's said is "Vejita". Two different pronunciations.

Dubs with the said name - Vegeta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3oOyU1pJac 4:46 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7jBqdJby-w 0:52 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg_7ZUEVCxc 2:58 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPOF3_aj27M 2:41 (Vegeta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7VDDas2zlc 0:13 (Beheta)

For the English dub it would have been more appropriate to name him Vejita than Vegeta.
That one is matter of being more true to it's original use. Since in japanese you don't have single consonant sounds together they can't spell just "vedgtable" (keep in mind that, in katakana, they spell it as they say it...as much as their alphabet allows them to, at least). That's why it's spelled Vegeta like the origin of the word and pronounced "Vejita". Yeah, it's a bit of a double-standard. However, it's much more clear with Saiyan since Saiya comes from a japanese word in the first place.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Kendamu » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:16 pm

Saying that "Say-un" is correct in America is like this:

Imagine for a moment that Batman never got a release in Canada (I picked this at random). Imagine, if Canada finally got a Batman TV show, comic, or film that instead of calling him Batman or some equivalent that keeps the Bat theme, they call him Baitmane. That doesn't make it "correct in Canada" for this Bat-themed guy to be running around with a name like Baitmane. It's just some company in Canada needlessly changing things.

It's a little bit more complicated than that with translating Japanese terms into English, but Mike still pretty well has it right in the idea that you lose the "vegetable" pun when you pronounce Saiyan any other way. I'd say that the pun is rather important considering that everyone under that label has a name based off a particular vegetable.

I'm still not going to go out of my way to correct people on the matter, though. It's generally unwelcome to do so outside of threads specifically talking about it.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by penguintruth » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:20 pm

Look at the word "Saiyan". Take from it "sai" (like Raph's weapon in TMNT), and add "yan", it makes sense to pronounce it "SIGH-AN" and not "SAY-IN".
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Kurillin-Sama » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:07 pm

SAY-UN sounds about ten times better than SYE-AN so this is one case where I'm glad the dub changed it. It's an improvement over the original.

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:21 pm

What sounds "better" about it? How do you even qualify that?

Does "King Kai" sound "bad" to you, too? Should the title "Kai" have been changed "for the better"...?

I guess I don't see how a properly-pronounced "Saiyan" sounds any worse than, say, "senzu".
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Kurillin-Sama » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:29 pm

VegettoEX wrote:What sounds "better" about it? How do you even qualify that?
It's an opinion? Not sure why I need to qualify it. Just like preferring K(o)rin to Karin or Mr. Satan to (H)ercule.

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Rukura » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:31 pm

Kurillin-Sama wrote:SAY-UN sounds about ten times better than SYE-AN so this is one case where I'm glad the dub changed it. It's an improvement over the original.
It's called indoctrination. You only say that because it's what you know it to sound like. It doesn't "sound better" because you can't objectively qualify that in any way.
It certainly not an improvement, as it is just different. (It also just happens to be different from what it should be.)

Do you also think "Kay-o-ken" sounds better than Kaioken? Because even FUNimation went out of their way to fix that one.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:35 pm

I'm certainly open to "I just think it is", but I was kinda hoping for a little more. I don't personally see the logic in it, and I'm inclined to toss out the dirty "indoctrination" word, myself.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Kurillin-Sama » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:35 pm

Rukura wrote:
Kurillin-Sama wrote:Do you also think "Kay-o-ken" sounds better than Kaioken? Because even FUNimation went out of their way to fix that one.
Yes, I like Kay-o-ken better than Kaioken. But for the record Kame-hame-ha sounds better in the Japanese version, the dub used to make it sound like Kameyamaya.

I'm not sure where you get this 'indoctrination' idea from? I prefer some pronunciations from the dub and others from the Japanese version, I'm sorry if that rubs some people the wrong way.

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Tanooki Kuribo » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:41 pm

Kurillin-Sama wrote:SAY-UN sounds about ten times better than SYE-AN so this is one case where I'm glad the dub changed it. It's an improvement over the original.
I think if if that's how you're used to saying it, that's fine as long as you know it's wrong.

I actually say "Say-un" because I'm used to it. I know it's wrong but hey, that's what I'm used to. I'm not gonna say its "better" just because that's how I say it.

I also say "Ox-King" instead of Gynomite (that's his Japanese name, right?).

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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by Rukura » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:43 pm

Kurillin-Sama wrote:I'm not sure where you get this 'indoctrination' idea from? I prefer some pronunciations from the dub and others from the Japanese version, I'm sorry if that rubs some people the wrong way.
It's not that it rubs me the wrong way at all. Many people followed the dub for years and years and went with the terminology (and included pronounciation) that they used. It's understandable that fans of it will go with that over something different (even if it's the original).

The point is that this topic was never about which "sounds better", but rather which is more correct.
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Re: How is Seyun (Saiyan) pronounciation wrong?

Post by VegettoEX » Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:44 pm

Well, "Gyū-maō" literally just means "Ox/Bull Demon King", so...

(It's taken from a Journey to the West character.)
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