Katawa Shoujo Forums

Deimos wrote:The best or "easiest to understand-" English comes from Scandinavia although I can not be certain if their pronounciation is always right the words normally seem very clear to me.

Unlike most languages, if you for whatever reason find yourself listening to Swedish pop music, it will sound very phonetically close to English -- it'll just sound like they're speaking in gibberish.

Likewise, I'm sure there are some European languages (Portuguese maybe?) that sound phonetically close to Japanese.

Gontolmon wrote:Hello everyone. I have a question for you guys that has been bothering me. I'm not all entirely sure how to say some characters names correctly. I searched the forums a bit but to avail found a pronunciation guide. If this has already been asked, I'm sorry.

This is how I think they are supposed to be said:
Hisao: (His-ow)
Emi: No problem with this one
Hanako: (Han-ack-o)
Lilly: No problem with this one
Rin: Seeing as how close to my name this is Im sure I am saying correctly.
Shizune: (She-zoo-nay)
Misha: (Me-sha)
Yuuko: (You-co)

Well did I fail miserably? Thanks for reading.

Well, as a overseas-born Japanese, this is the best I can do.

I don't think "Emi" is pronounced "Amy".

You will have to explaim the "ae", as it has warped into a ton of different sounds.

Caesius wrote:Likewise, I'm sure there are some European languages (Portuguese maybe?) that sound phonetically close to Japanese.

Any southern European Latin-derived language is phonetically close to Japanese: Portuguese, Spanish and Italian all sound very phonetically alike, with Portuguese being the most soft-spoken of the three.

Is the "neh" in Shizune as in rhymes with "meh" or rhymes with "day"?

SirMax wrote:Is the "neh" in Shizune as in rhymes with "meh" or rhymes with "day"?

Rhymes with "meh".

Imagine this: nehehehehehe

A hehehe laugh with a "ne" in front.

OKAY GUYS, We're through the first names, let's go on to the family names.

Nakai
Ibarazaki
Ikezawa
Satou
Hakamichi
Tezuka
Mikado
Setou
Mutou
Shirakawa

Guys, it's all so easy really:

A's as in mass.
E's as in mess.
I's as the double e in tee.
O's as in moss.
U's as the double o in too.

Every vowel is pronounced except the group "ou" which stands for a long o.

... amirite?

SirMax wrote:Is the "neh" in Shizune as in rhymes with "meh" or rhymes with "day"?

Neither, but it's closer to the former.

Juno wrote:Guys, it's all so easy really:

A's as in mass.
E's as in mess.
I's as the double e in tee.
O's as in moss.
U's as the double o in too.

Every vowel is pronounced except the group "ou" which stands for a long o.

... amirite?

Correct. It uses Latin vowel pronunciation, except its much faster.

Is it she-zoon, or shi-zun-nei?

Second one.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

The Commissar wrote:

Juno wrote:Guys, it's all so easy really:

A's as in mass.
E's as in mess.
I's as the double e in tee.
O's as in moss.
U's as the double o in too.

Every vowel is pronounced except the group "ou" which stands for a long o.

... amirite?

Correct. It uses Latin vowel pronunciation, except its much faster.

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

however, the correct vowels would be

A is the same sound as pasta
I is the same sound as me
U is the same sound as food
E is a little tricky - step is passable (people will understand you), but the actual sound is closer to the English "hay" than it is to "heh" imo
O is the same sound as low

The reason you see "ou" being a long o is due to how the Japanese treat two vowels next to each other. For example, in English, you can tell the difference between Santa Claus' "ho ho ho" laugh and the word "hoe" when you hear it. The laugh ho is short, while hoe is held longer. This sort of difference in how the long the vowels are held happens a lot in Japanese, and it often can change the meaning of the word. Usually they just put two vowels next to each other (haa/hii/huu), but when a long O comes at the end of a word, it's not usually spelled hoo. Instead, it's spelled hou. However, at the beginnings of words you'll usually find things spelled with two o's.

In short:
Ho/hoe
Ho/hou

Even when people point out how the names are properly pronounced, I almost always stick with what I'm used to. It's spelled Thames, so why is it pronounced Tims?

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