Pronunciation of names?

[Sajomir]

why is faux pas pronounced "foe pah"? Because it's not English, that's why.

Shizune would be Shizun if that last syllable wasn't intended.

Apologies if I'm coming off as elitist or some crap, but people who ignore the truth bugggg me rawr >:E

[Wrench Wench]

To get somewhat back on topic, I can empathise about mispronounced names. My last name is slavic and when my great-grandfather emigrated to America his name was "Americanized" by some helpful imigration official. Ever since then it has been spelled phoneticly acording to standard American pronounciation; but an amazing number of native speaking and educated people still manage to screw it up.

Those dam yanks. They ruin everything they touch it seems.

[Leotrak]

Great job on the thread necromancy, by the way - this one had been silent for almost a year before Xybaro posted in it

[Scarlet Fox]

It actually does use Latin pronunciation, which made learning Japanese very easy for me since my high school offered Latin.

Great. I've taken three years of Latin but my teacher never ever taught us the pronunciation (partially because no one really speaks it anymore, partially because the class was a joke and they only had it because they needed a foreign language class, and maybe partially because she didn't really know). Oh well, I've known the pronunciation thanks to watching some guy called tofugu on Youtube.

Also, isn't it alright to 'blend' sounds together? Like for 'ai', isn't it acceptable to say 'eye' when speaking fast? Or say 'ay' for 'ei'? (sorry if any of this has been posted, too lazy to read through a dead thread)

Learning Japanese is going to be interesting (starting a class in a couple of months). Had a little French, Spanish, and Latin, and I know a little Thai from my mom... Though finally I'll be taught language I'm actually interested in (I'd be interested in German as well).

[Csihar]

Also, isn't it alright to 'blend' sounds together? Like for 'ai', isn't it acceptable to say 'eye' when speaking fast? Or say 'ay' for 'ei'? (sorry if any of this has been posted, too lazy to read through a dead thread)

Yeah, pretty much. The only time you'll really be able to tell that they're technically separate syllables is in songs or if somebody's sounding it out slowly. I.E. "Nakai" would be sounded out as "nah-kah-ee" but would be normally just be pronounced "nah-kye."

Also, as a nitpicky sidenote, if you're putting a lot of emphasis in the middle of Shizune's name ("shi-zune-ey") you're doing it wrong. Every syllable has similar stress in Japanese but to our ears there would seem to be a slight emphasis on the first and third syllable, like with the word "anime." Nobody will misunderstand you if you mess something like that up, but your accent will sound kind of goofy (think Simon from Durarara!!).

Finally, as has been mentioned before, vowel sounds in Japanese and Spanish are basically identical, so if you know any Spanish, there you go.

[Caesius]

Great job on the thread necromancy, by the way - this one had been silent for almost a year before Xybaro posted in it

Xybryo posted a new thread and someone merged it with this one.

I considered linking him to this thread but figured it would be too old to bother. Plus I didn't want to go digging for it.

[Xybaro]

Anyways, I've always said Shizune's name as 'She-Zune'.

That's what I've been doing, so I just wanted some clarification, heh.

[Sajomir]

Also, isn't it alright to 'blend' sounds together? Like for 'ai', isn't it acceptable to say 'eye' when speaking fast? Or say 'ay' for 'ei'? (sorry if any of this has been posted, too lazy to read through a dead thread)

Yeah, pretty much. The only time you'll really be able to tell that they're technically separate syllables is in songs or if somebody's sounding it out slowly. I.E. "Nakai" would be sounded out as "nah-kah-ee" but would be normally just be pronounced "nah-kye."

Also, as a nitpicky sidenote, if you're putting a lot of emphasis in the middle of Shizune's name ("shi-zune-ey") you're doing it wrong. Every syllable has similar stress in Japanese but to our ears there would seem to be a slight emphasis on the first and third syllable, like with the word "anime." Nobody will misunderstand you if you mess something like that up, but your accent will sound kind of goofy (think Simon from Durarara!!).

Finally, as has been mentioned before, vowel sounds in Japanese and Spanish are basically identical, so if you know any Spanish, there you go.

Great example Everyone here understands anime isn't "an-eye-m" or "aneem," and Shizune not only rhymes but the number and stress of the syllables is the same too.


Man, not only does English screw up half the world's vowels, but it makes the ugliest sounds, too. (not to mention the most awful for singing properly) WTF is up with this language >.<

[Wrench Wench]

Man, not only does English screw up half the world's vowels, but it makes the ugliest sounds, too. (not to mention the most awful for singing properly) WTF is up with this language >.<

As the saying goes. The French speak in music, the Germans speak in measurements and the English speak in insults.

[Guest]

Every time I see an R in a Japanese name romanized as L or it ends in a consonant other than N, I feel like I'm being patronized. I mean, it's actually offensive to me. If someone here can put this practice into some kind of context I'd be grateful.

I'm not sure if this counts as "context," but bear in mind that Japanese doesn't have an "R" any more than it's got an "L" or a "C." It's not an alphabet. It's got r-like sounds, sure, but those are part of syllables (ru, ro, ri, etc.). Personally, I don't mind seeing what would've been pronounced as an R sound by a native Japanese speaker done as an L, if it falls into one of two circumstances: The intent was obviously a reference to something NOT Japanese (see: Alucard in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Hellsing, though IIRC, they romanized with an R in Hellsing), or the L is the original Japanese intent, even if it doesn't exist in their language (see: CLAMP, or Holo from Spice and Wolf--the original light novel publishers confirmed it should be romanized with an L, and in the anime, it's written in cursive in a signature with an L).

On the whole, anglicizing Japanese any more than necessary makes me feel patronized too, so I get where you're coming from. But I kind of feel like it's patronizing the creator to assume that they couldn't POSSIBLY have wanted to use an L sound just because it doesn't exist in their language.

[Csihar]

Every time I see an R in a Japanese name romanized as L or it ends in a consonant other than N, I feel like I'm being patronized. I mean, it's actually offensive to me. If someone here can put this practice into some kind of context I'd be grateful.

The only time I can think of it being somewhat justified is when it would obviously be a lot easier for an English speaker to pronounce with an L -- again, Durarara/Dulalala is a good (if atypical, since it's just a made-up word) example. The fact that らりるれろ are halfway between R and L make it technically not the wrong way to transliterate it, just non-standard. I agree it does seem a little patronizing though, since most people who are familiar with Japanese to any extent already know how that stuff works.

There also seem to be situations where a native speaker clearly uses either an R or L sound -- for example, it seems like Kansai dialect has a lot of Spanish-style rolled R's, whereas the singer from the Pillows tends to use pretty strong L's. I don't know a lot about how that works though, and I'd still use R anyway.

[G3n0c1de]

I don't know anything about reading Japanese, but from listening, anything that is romanized as either L or R is pronounced with a single rolled R. I'm probably generalizing, but it seems to hold most of the time.

[Scarlet Fox]

Great example Everyone here understands anime isn't "an-eye-m" or "aneem," and Shizune not only rhymes but the number and stress of the syllables is the same too.

I had a friend that would say 'ahn-ee-mee'. But that was 5 or so years ago.

I wonder how hard the Japanese work on English pronunciation, because it rarely seems right. They usually add an extra vowel sound at the end, since that's what they're used to, I guess. Like... Red would be 'REDDO' or something, ice would be "AISU", and stuff like that. Though that's what I like about Japanese, a lot of vowels. And conversely I like how German has a lot of consonants.

[Csihar]

I wonder how hard the Japanese work on English pronunciation, because it rarely seems right. They usually add an extra vowel sound at the end, since that's what they're used to, I guess. Like... Red would be 'REDDO' or something, ice would be "AISU", and stuff like that. Though that's what I like about Japanese, a lot of vowels. And conversely I like how German has a lot of consonants.

Well, it's sort of the same problem English speakers have when learning Japanese -- just like there's no way to write a consonant halfway between L and R in the Latin alphabet, there's no way to write a word ending with a consonant (except N for some reason) in Japanese, so it takes some extra practice to get used to dropping the final vowel. Of course, the fact that English is basically just a subject to get through in school (with little emphasis on correct pronunciation) and then promptly forget for most Japanese kids doesn't help.

[Wrench Wench]

Well, it's sort of the same problem English speakers have when learning Japanese -- just like there's no way to write a consonant halfway between L and R in the Latin alphabet, there's no way to write a word ending with a consonant (except N for some reason) in Japanese, so it takes some extra practice to get used to dropping the final vowel. Of course, the fact that English is basically just a subject to get through in school (with little emphasis on correct pronunciation) and then promptly forget for most Japanese kids doesn't help.

I found it generally stuck with them well enough to at least get a very basic conversation going. We could at least get an idea of what each other was trying to say.