Different Dragon Ball pronunciations that bother you

[Gaffer Tape]

Are you suggesting Videl should be pronounced "Veedel"?

That's how I've always pronounced it. It also doesn't help that the dub puts heavy emphasis on the second syllable so that it sounds next to nothing like how it sounds in Japanese. Come to think of it, based on the train of thought you're following here, shouldn't you take out the long "e" sound in the middle of Vegeta? Vegetable doesn't have that sound at all...

[ABED]

Then by that logic, shouldn't we call him Begeeta?

Japanese and English have different rules, so English pronunciation is gonna be tricky.

no on here is saying the japanese are mispronouncing Satan, or Mister for that matter.

[VegettoEX]

Then by that logic, shouldn't we call him Begeeta?

You're confusing different logic patterns. We're not talking about the relationship of certain consonant sounds to each other, but the extended vowel sounds and where in the emphasis in a word/name should go.

I used the Vegeta example earlier, as well. If you're going to pronounce "Videl" as "vih - DEL" (lack of an extended "ii/ee" sound, emphasis on the second syllable) because it's a pun and you're changing from Japanese to English and making up your own pronunciation rules, then (as Gaffer is saying) you just as much should be able to say "veg - tuh" for "Vegeta", knocking out that middle "ee" because it's not pronounced or at least heavily emphasized in "vegetable".

But we don't do that, and for most people it's because they always heard FUNimation pronounce the name more or less corretly and it never occurred to them.

But that's not the case with "Videl" and "Dabura", where FUNimation puts a weird emPHAsis on the wrong syllABLe.

[ABED]

I'm not talking about syllabic emphasis. I'm referring to the sound of the "Vi" in videl. It's an anagram of Devil, hence why I believe it makes complete sense to call her Videl. It's not about which syllable gets the emphasis. Piccolo is a real word, hence Piccolo and not Peecolo.

We're talking about Japanese which has very consistent pronunciation and spelling rules vs. English which is very eccentric. I know there's a tendency to want everything to be super consistent, and I can see your logic but I'm not sure it's that simple.

Take Dabura, do you translate it as Dabura or Dabra?

There doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with people when they mispronounce English words. I was reading Mick Foley's autobiography and instead of saying "Cactus Jack" the Japanese fans said something that sounded like "Cock-toos Jock"

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, we do have something of an advantage over them, as they have limited phonemes compared to us, so it's somewhat fair to cut them some slack. But still, as much annoyance as people like to heap onto terms like "Seru" and "Torankusu," it seems to me that about half the Japanese cast ends up saying them with correct or near-correct English pronunciation anyway. For example, Tsuru's version sounds very much like "Torankusu," but Furukawa and Horikawa (especially the former) usually sound like they're just saying "Trunks."

To answer your question, I translate it as "Darbra" because it has that extended "a" (like with Zarbon). And, yes, Piccolo is a real word. Videl is not. And the "Pi" in Piccolo is not heavily emphasized or elongated like the "Vi" in Videl is supposed to be, so, yeah, they do end up sounding different.

[ABED]

But Videl comes from a real word - Devil.

Doesn't Dabura, Dabra, or whatever one wishes to call him come from "abracadabra"?

And the "Pi" in Piccolo is not heavily emphasized or elongated like the "Vi" in Videl is supposed to be, so, yeah, they do end up sounding different.

Could that be because they have "P" and not "V" in their language? It's my understanding that they use B in place of V because that's the closest sound they have to that letter.

[Gaffer Tape]

It comes from a real word, but it's not a real word. Darbra does come from Abracadabra (which is why the duh-BOO-ruh pronunciation FUNimation uses is crazy wrong), but they did choose to elongate the vowel like that, and I feel that's only a minor modification (like Bloomers to Blooma). And, yes, they do have a P and not a V, but I have no idea what that has anything to do with the vowel sounds. They sound different because one is specifically written to be elongated while the other one isn't. It has nothing to do with the consonant sounds.

[ABED]

What reason would they have for elongating the vowel for Videl? The joke gets lost slightly by not using the english sounds.

I know Videl isn't a real world, but it's not that big of a stretch to imagine the anagram wouldn't be that far off from the original word, especially given the name scheme - Satan and Devil.

I know the languages are different and they have less phonemes than we do but they aren't aliens. If we're expected to pronounce Japanese words correctly, I don't think there's anything wrong with expecting the same from them.

[Gaffer Tape]

What reason would they have for elongating the vowel for Videl? The joke gets lost slightly.

Well, you'd have to ask them. They're the ones who wrote it like that.

ビーデル That is how you spell Videl's name in Japanese. That first character is "hi" while the quotation-looking mark next to it transforms it into "bi." The second character elongates the vowel sound it follows turning "bi" into "bii." (And, just for completeness's sake, the third character is "te" transformed to "de," and the last character is "ru," and with your powers combined, it makes "Biideru"!)

[ABED]

Interesting. None of the mis-pronunciations get to me, except for maybe when they used to say "Kayoken" instead of "Kaio-ken". Then there's the occassional Kame and Kami mix up.

[VegettoEX]

One of Toriyama's (and by extension the anime staff's) common pun tactics is to elongate a syllable, to make it an actual pun and not just literally the word itself or a simple anagram. It's why we have "tāresu" instead of "taresu", "bīderu" instead of "bideru", "tōma" instead of "toma", etc.

[ABED]

One of Toriyama's (and by extension the anime staff's) common pun tactics is to elongate a syllable, to make it an actual pun and not just literally the word itself or a simple anagram. It's why we have "tāresu" instead of "taresu", "bīderu" instead of "bideru", "tōma" instead of "toma", etc.

If I'm reading this correctly, you're saying they make the pun more subtle?

[VegettoEX]

In a nutshell, yeah. You have cases like "Trunks" and "Cell" where the "pun" is literally just the word itself (in these cases a "foreign" word), but it seems that in certain other cases Toriyama & co. thought that wasn't really fun/subtle enough, so he/they would adapt the name spelling a little bit, usually by elongating a syllable.

[Adamant]

Fun story, I first learned of Funi's weird pronunciation of Videl's name from that early podcast episode where EX was playing 20 Questions with some Funi dub watcher person whose identity I don't remember. I don't remember if Videl was the correct answer or just a guess, but it took me about a minute of contextual talk to figure out what kind of Dragonball-related word they were trying to say. To that point, it hadn't ever occurred to me someone could read Videl's name and think it would be pronounced like that.

Never knew Funi pronounced Dabra's name wrong before I read this thread, either.

[SilverPlaqueVII]

There goes my two cents on the Videl pronunciation.

As far as I'm concerned, most fanboys tried to call Ginyu Tokusentai as the Ginyu Force in terms of different sayings - no biggie.

• Recoom (Recoome - Rikumuu)
• Burta (Burter - Baata)
• Jhees (Jeice - Jisu)
• Ghurd (Guldo - Gurudo)
• Ginyu (Ginyu - Ginew)

How would anyone keep it genuinely Japanese?

[dbzfan7]

Buff Boo.

Because I prefer South Boo

[Ringworm128]

"Cell, Android 17 Ansorbed" or whatever it is, "Semi Perfect Cell" sounds much better.