Pronounciation of "Bulma"?

[Piccolo Daimao]

What is the correct pronounciation of Bulma? Is it "Boolma", so it sounds closer to the name it's supposed to be a pun on, "bloomers"? And no, this is not a thread for speculating whether or not "Bulma" is the correct term to use.

[Silver Sinspawn]

I always pronounced it bul-ma, which with my accent would sound like ball-ma.

[Olivier Hague]

What is the correct pronounciation of Bulma?

I think the best "solid" answer you can get is that it's pronounced "buruma" in Japanese... See how the Japanese "u" and "a" sound, and go from there?

[The Time Traveller]

I always say Bull-mah but sometimes switch to the dub pronunciation...

[Dayspring]

What is the correct pronounciation of Bulma? Is it "Boolma", so it sounds closer to its name pun, "bloomers"? And no, this is not a thread for speculating whether or not "Bulma" is the correct term to use.

Bulma. Buruma is the pun on ''bloomers'', not the transliteration. So the proper pronunciation would be which of two is closer to Buruma. So like Olivier said, figure out which you feel works best the Us and the A.

[linkdude20002001]

If her name is "Bulma", you can't pronounce it "Blooma". Instead, you could try to pronounce Bulma as close to bloomers as possible. Bool-mah? I know it's odd pronouncing the U like that, but people do that with Luffy, so why the Hell not for Bulma too?

[Dayspring]

Here's a thought: if it were meant to sound like 'Boolma', wouldn't the original be Buuruma instead?

EDIT
And another thing: what if part of the pun was that he placed the L in the middle of 'OO' sound, so actually it could read 'Buluma' (well, 'Boloma,' but that doesn't preserve the pronunciation, so we'd stick with the Us).

[linkdude20002001]

Luffy also has a short U sound. Buruma. Rufi.

I don't get what you mean by writing it as "Bulma" being part of the pun.

[Dayspring]

Luffy also has a short U sound. Buruma. Rufi.

I don't get what you mean by writing it as "Bulma" being part of the pun.

''Buluma''. So take the ''OOL'' sound, put the L in the middle. To avoid ''OLO'' as the sound, you'd transliterate the Os as Us.

[Amigo Ten]

Is there actually a correct pronunciation of "Bulma"? As far as I know we only hear "Bulma" pronounced in the English dub. Just pronounce it how you want.

[Vegeta Jr]

I say it as it is spelt, Bull-Muh.

[VegettoEX]

The problem with "Bulma" is the same problem with "Bulla", and I am entirely guilty of it with the former -- that's not even close to how the name is pronounced in Japanese.

It's difficult to get across without audio samples, but I'll do my best.

It's not supposed to be "BULL - muh", that's for damn sure. Almost all English speakers are guilty of it, though, since it was romanized out that way from the very start right from the author. To keep it wildly far away from other threads about spellings and "correctness" ('cuz that's not what this is about, since this is pronunciation and not spelling), "Bulma" isn't a very good guide for how to say the name -- you would read that as "BULL - muh".

But that's not how you say her name. Listen to how any single darn character in the show speaks it. ブルマ (bu - ru - ma), when spoken natively (or even non-natively, and just understanding what the damn characters sound like) comes out sounding very much like our English word "bloomer". In fact, there's a good argument for romanizing the name out as "Bluma" (instead of "Bulma"), but again... this ain't about spellings, but rather pronunciations. The "u" in the first "bu" syllable gets slightly lost in the native pronunciation, which really leaves it sounding like "blooma".

Think about it with "Bulla". Sure, you can romanize it that way, but without understanding where the name is coming from, there's no really good pronunciation guide for it, and you'd be tempted to say it aloud as "BULL - uh", rather than "bu - LA" or "bu - RA" or something more appropriate/closer/accurate.

In these cases, it's somewhat about the American tendency to toss a random emphasis on the middle syllable, but it's not entirely just that.

Again, I don't mean to keep bringing it over to spellings, but I'll kinda have to.

The reason why "Tullece" actually works as a pretty good adaptation of the romanization is because it preserves the intended Japanese pronunciation almost 100%. "Tales" could be mis-pronounced as "tails" (like the Sonic character), while "Tares" could be pronounces as "tears" (like something you'd do to a sheet of paper). "Bulma" isn't really that great, since it really misguides you with the "English pronunciation" of the Japanese name. But hey, that's the "standard" ever since the very beginning!

Any of that make sense...? :/ Long story short, we're all very bad fans for saying "BULL - muh" . I'd be like calling me "Mee - KALL" instead of "Michael"... sorta... not really...

[Amigo Ten]

I never pronounced it Bull-ma. I always say the "bul" like it's pronounced in "bulb". Probaby because hat's how it's pronounced in the dub as far as I can remember.

[Vegeta Jr]

Wow, I feel ashamed Meek, so very ashamed

Seriously though I knew Bull-Muh was wrong, but it just comes out naturally in my voice. It's not something I do on purpose, I guess a lot of people are guilty of that.

EDIT

Bull and the Bul in bulb is pronounced the exact same way. I think the dub pronounced it as Bowl-Mah.

[Amigo Ten]

I've never heard in pronounced the same. Bull, as in the animal, is pronounced... Damn, it's hard to explain. Imagine how you'd pronounce "ugh", and how you'd pronounce "uh". Bull is b-ugh-ll, in my experience (it's how I've always said it, and heard it said). Bulb is b-uh-lb. So Bulma is b-uh-lma.

[Vegeta Jr]

Maybe it's an American thing but here in England Bulb is just Bull but ending with a beh sound.

[Amigo Ten]

I'm English too. Although maybe it's a north/south thing, since I see you're in Manchester. I'm down in Dorset, and I've never pronounced them the same. Bulb, bulk, bulge, and so on always have a slightly different sound than bull to me.

Bull sounds like the "ba" in balloon.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I always pronounced it "Bowl-ma" like in the dub, I could start pronouncing it "Bool-ma" but the other pronounciation is too ingrained in my head to change it.

[Gaffer Tape]

*snip*

Golly gee darnit, Mike, I wish you could have chimed in with this two days ago when I was lobbying this idea in the "Why is FR IEZA wrong" thread! I was beginning to feel like one of those "end of the world" guys on a street corner!

[TenshinFan]

I ignore the fact that "Bulma" is sometimes written on her clothes and usually just go with "Blooma"