Have I been pronouncing "Broli" wrong?

[B-kun]

Admittedly, Shaman King does have me slightly confused (Is it Shay-man? Or Shah-man?).

[SaiyaJedi]

Admittedly, Shaman King does have me slightly confused (Is it Shay-man? Or Shah-man?).

The katakana reads "Shaaman Kingu." The first pronunciation you mentioned used to be quite prevalent in English, but has gradually given way to the latter. So when in doubt....

...And as a side note, has anyone else noticed that when you type the kana for "Shaman King" into Google and do a search, one of the results is the FOXBOX site...? Clever bastards.

[Jerseymilk]

But it doesn't even matter if it's written, as opposed to spoken. It's Japanese. It's entirely phonetic.

There's only one way to pronounce "Naruto," and it's sure as Hell not "nuh - ROO - do".

It's even *WORSE* if you're watching it (and therefore listening to it spoken every episode!), and STILL getting it wrong .

But don't forget too, people are used to the English pronunciations of letters, so just reading it won't always work even if Japanese is a phonetic language. Ya in Japanese the "a" is always pronounced "ah", but not in English. Same with all the other vowels. Watching it yes, then you can hear the correct way to say it, but just reading it, it's easier to mess up, despite phonetics.

Exactly what I was thinking. It's especially easy to mess up if there's an English word in the title with more than one way to pronounce it.

If there's an English word in the title, I pronounce it the way I would in English. It's an English word after all, therefore that's the correct pronunciation. I think that's got to be the most retarded thing I've heard fans do. Say something like "Seru".

[tarsonis]

It's because some people don't understand the difference between pronouncing a word and pronouncing the transliteration of a word (like Seru, which is NOT anyone's name, but merely the way the Japanese pronounce Cell due to their accent).

[SaiyaJedi]

It's because some people don't understand the difference between pronouncing a word and pronouncing the transliteration of a word (like Seru, which is NOT anyone's name, but merely the way the Japanese pronounce Cell due to their accent).

It's not so much an "accent" when you're dealing with the character of the language itself, but rather, the limitations of the Japanese syllabary. It's the same reason English-speakers have trouble pronouncing Chinese names (among other things): we simply don't possess a knowledge of all the sounds needed to reproduce the words accurately, so we fudge them so they're as close as we can get them while still being able to wrap our tongues around them.

[Fuujin]

Now that you mention it, pronouncing "Luffy" like Japanese do is frighteningly similar to all those "Torankusus" you see on sub-par forums.

[SaiyaJedi]

Now that you mention it, pronouncing "Luffy" like Japanese do is frighteningly similar to all those "Torankusus" you see on sub-par forums.

Eh... not quite. I'd make a bigger deal about it if they were saying "Roo-fwee" (a more-or-less literal reading of the kana, plus the Japanese difficulty with saying the "fi" combination outright). Luffy's name is just... well... having heard the Japanese version, it's hard to imagine it said any other way (to contrast, hearing "Trunks" instead of "Torankusu" doesn't bother me in the slightest).

To me, it's pretty much the same reason that the swordsman of the group doesn't have his name spelled "Zorro" (and let's not get into the r/l controversy): it's how the author intended. If Eiichirô Oda wanted Luffy's name to be pronounced the same way as the word "luff," He would have spelled it "Rafi" in Japanese (and everybody would call him "Laughy" instead). But anyways... that's where I stand.

[Jerseymilk]

Just because we pronounce it "Loo-fy", doesn't mean that that's a totally Japanese pronunciation. Think about words like "lube" and "lunar". Those certainly aren't Japanese and they are pronounced the same way.

[SpaceKappa]

On the note of Americans always pronouncing things with the American pronunciation in mind:

I like to watch the Olympics, and when I turned it on it was Men's Gymnastics. They were introducing the contestants, and one guy on the Japanese team was named (I believe) Daisuke Watanabe. They pronounced his name "Die-soo-kee Wat-ah-nah-bee." I kept saying "It's Dai-skay! DAI-SKAY Watana-BAY!"

Personally, I think in an international competition they'd at least try to pronounce things correctly. What does this have to do with the topic at hand? Hell if I know. Maybe you can tell me.

[*PINHEAD*]

It, ugh, is related to how English-speaking people tend to pronounce other things the way their language has it. I guess.

Really, I don't think anyone should get pissed off at someone for mispronouncing a foreign name/term. Unless that person knows and is familiar with the correct way. I don't get annoyed when foreigners mispronounce my name, and believe me, many have. People pronounce things the way they're used to.

[Michi]

.... it's really not "ry-yoo" OR "ree-yoo".. Ree-yoo is closer, but it's just Ryu. Pretend it's one syllable and stop trying to separate the r and the yu. It's a bit hard to say at first if you aren't Japanese, but you can do it. Or maybe just try saying "ree-yoo" a lot faster instead of trying to make it a two syllable word. The r and y should kinda meld. It's hard to explain. But aaah I hate hearing "rye-you" so at least "ree-yoo" is easier to handle. =/

x_x


So. Yeah. VegettoEX, I feel your pain. I have been to too many cons and have constantly overheard fans saying "Nah ROOT toe" to the point it makes me want to smack them. "Sa KUR ah" is almost as bad. Stupid Cardcaptors. Oh, and I've also heard "Sah SOUK" for Sasuke. The pain.


It isn't your personal choice or accent for pronounciation. Japanese's alphabet is made up of sounds that are said the same no matter what word they're in. Every syllable is pronounced the same way every single time. The end.


...this kinda reminds me of back when I used AOL, some Evangelion fan was trying to convince me that "Osca" was a perfectly acceptable way of writing Asuka. It's how they had her name in their little RPG. She was Osca Langley. I wanted to hit him somehow.

[Super Sonic]

Now that I think about it, remember in the 28th Budokai there was that gay guy in black leather named Otosuki? They pronounced his name correctly in the dub, though if you turn on the dub captions, they spelled his name "Otoski".

[SpaceKappa]

His name was "Otoko Sukii," which means "I like men." Otoko is pronounced just like it's spelled, and "sukii" is pronounced like ski, the activity you do in the snow.

As for "Ryu," back in grade school a buddy I had at the time had spent time in Japan, and he said a lot of people he had known pronounced it as "Roo." I've said it that way since then.

He also had ALL KINDS of cool Dragon Ball stuff he had saved, like juice bottles, pogs(!), and other knick knacks. It was awesome.