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[CaviarMeths]

there are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese:

a = "ah", between the 'a' in "father" and the one in "dad"
i = "ee", as in "feet"
u = "oo" in "boot"
e = "ay", as in "hay"
o = "oh"

I think e is pronounced eh as in "chest." For example, a cat is neko, pronounced "nek-oh." The ay sound would come from a combination of the vowels e and i. Sound them out individually, then squish them together into one syllable and you should get that sound. eh-ee squishes to ay. Eg., "Eigo" is pronounced "ay-go."

Similarly, the i sound like in "pie" uses a combination of the vowels a and i (ah-ee) to form one syllable, as in "hai" (yes) or "mai waifu."

Edit: Ofc my weeb post is on the top of the page.

 

[Mephala]

I'll never speak about the series but I will always recommend it.

I also call Adol Adolf in my mind.

 

[Valjean Lafitte]

I spent almost my entire childhood calling Shigeru Miyamoto 'Shigeru My-a-moto' and Hiroshi Yamauchi 'Hiroshi Yamaw-shee'.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Wrong thread

 

[Swordian]

I think e is pronounced eh as in "chest." For example, a cat is neko, pronounced "nek-oh." The ay sound would come from a combination of the vowels e and i. Sound them out individually, then squish them together into one syllable and you should get that sound. eh-ee squishes to ay. Eg., "Eigo" is pronounced "ay-go."

Similarly, the i sound like in "pie" uses a combination of the vowels a and i (ah-ee) to form one syllable, as in "hai" (yes) or "mai waifu."

Edit: Ofc my weeb post is on the top of the page.

Your weeb post is incorrect. Adam's post is accurate.

 

[luka]

Yea, no. No one accepts that shit even though that is his official name. We all still call him "tie-dus". Like "Tide". Get it? That actually makes sense too.

Square is fucking nuts if they think we will call him that. >:C

/mad

My friends didn't agree with me even though they played KH as well. Tie-Dus sounds like it should be how you pronounce it since it's Titus is a pretty normal name, but Square gonna Square and Nomura gonna Nomura. I remember plenty of schoolyard arguments about it though.

tiida and yuna are the words for sun and moon in southern okinawan dialect

 

[ChouGoku]

Robot ninja sa-soo-kee

 

[Efejota]

Put simply: if you know Spanish vowel sounds, you can speak Japanese words.

Pretty much.

I remember when Skyward Sword was announced I was in a chat with dozens of users trying to figure out how it was pronounced and it was funny to look at.


Replying to the thread, I can't think of many examples.

Hee-rool-eh instead of Hai-rule I suppose.

I also always read K. Rool as Kah Rool until I started hearing about him in youtube videos, but it might probably be the official pronunciation here if he is ever in Smash Bros.
Pretty much like how Ike is Ee-keh and Dedede is Deh-Deh-Deh.

 

[josh924]

I think e is pronounced eh as in "chest." For example, a cat is neko, pronounced "nek-oh." The ay sound would come from a combination of the vowels e and i. Sound them out individually, then squish them together into one syllable and you should get that sound. eh-ee squishes to ay. Eg., "Eigo" is pronounced "ay-go."

Similarly, the i sound like in "pie" uses a combination of the vowels a and i (ah-ee) to form one syllable, as in "hai" (yes) or "mai waifu."

It's pretty much like that in Spanish as well, and it's basically the only similarity between Japanese and Spanish, at least as far as I know (Spanish is my native tongue).

Off-topic, but this reminds me; my dad's name is Jose and I don't understand how that name somehow ended up being pronounced as "Hozay" by people who primarily speak English. First of all, there's no Z sounds in Spanish (not Central American Spanish, anyways), and there's definitely no "A" sound in the name; the proper pronunciation is "Hoseh" ("seh" as in "set"). It would sound like "holdset", but without the "l", the "d", or the "t", so it's not like the proper pronunciation would be entirely foreign to people who primarily speak English.

And on-topic: apparently Cyan is supposed to be "Cayenne". And even after all this time, I'm not 100% sure how to say Celes, but my best guess would be "Sell less".

 

[BriGuy]

I had a friend that pronounced chocobo as "chook uh boo."

Just no.

 

[pablito]

Zi-dahn? What the fuck? Coming in here was a mistake!

 

[Slurmer]

I'm positive a whole host of people can't pronounce Final Fantasy's Cait Sith properly.

It's pronounced like "Cat" Sith. Easy.

 

[Ysarus]

Your weeb post is incorrect. Adam's post is accurate.

CaviarMeths' weeb post has merit IMO. What's certain is that the Japanese "e" is not pronounced as a diphtung, while the English "ay" usually is. Depends on your variety of English I guess.

 

[Shadow Ranger]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OnRqbATGOb8



Will never accept. Always "Zi-dayne".

Think the Footballer and you can't go wrong. So half the world basically knows the correct pronounciation...

 

[Mik2121]

Being from Spain and living in japan now I was able to confirm that I pronounced most names correctly thanks to me straight up pronouncing them like I would with Spanish (at least for all the non-English sounding names).

Some of the stuff going on here like Pokeemon and all that shit just blows my mind.

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

I'll never speak about the series but I will always recommend it.

I also call Adol Adolf in my mind.

It's easy. Ees.

 

[RaidenXZ]

I know its a completely different example since these games have voice acting now but it always bothered me:

Raiden in Mortal Kombat is pronounced Ray-din

And Raiden in MGS is pronounced Rie-din (for the record, this is how I pronounce my username too lol)

 

[Hansel]

It's crazy how often I hear "Geralt" pronounced as "jerALT".

Well now I'm embarrassed.

It's easy. Ees.

I am learning so much.

 

[Alcotholic]

I thought Gil in Final Fantasy was pronounced "Jill" for the longest time.

You pronounce Gil like your pronounce Gif.

 

[eXistor]

I always pronounced Minish Cap as Mine-ish Cap. Apparently it's "minnish", but there's no two n's in there...

/edit: back in the day a friend of my brother always said Shniobi instead of Shinobi. That is Shy Noby. Always made me laugh.

/edit: actually fuck I got that wrong, he pronounced it Shny Obi.

 

[MGrant]

Cuccos in Zelda. The Japanese call them ko-kos, but the alt-right is going to love it if their official English pronunciation is "cuck-os." I just say "chickens."

 

[Tizoc]

ADOOOOOOOOOOOOGIT
I WANT SOME FRUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT CAKE
SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORYUUUUUUUUUUGEN

Having played KoF more than we have any right to, we kept making up weird words for what the cast were saying when we were kids.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Arceus and about a third of the rest of Pokemon

Edit: God damnit…

Didn't know how to pronounce Suicune till the movie with it

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Japanese language is phonetic, meaning it is spoken exactly as it is written. this is in contrast to English which has all kinds of weird unspoken rules. look at the word "science" and try pronouncing all the letters in it.

there are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese:

a = "ah", between the 'a' in "father" and the one in "dad"
i = "ee", as in "feet"
u = "oo" in "boot"
e = "ay", as in "hay"
o = "oh"

using this guide, you can easily pronounce anything, or at least get really close to how a Japanese speaker will pronounce it.

"y" is usually pronounced similar to the "i", though it usually appears before another vowel sound, and is intended to lead into it. thus "Ryu" is "Reeoo"

consonants have different pronunciation than English too, Rs and Ls sort of blending into one another for instance, but these are the basics.

い　i as in hit
う　u as in put
え　e as in get
お　o as in got

いい ii can sound like ee as in feet
あい ai can sound like high
おう ou can sound like boat

 

[Cosmic Schwung]

It's funny when a game does have voice acting yet it's clear the actors haven't been provided with phonetic versions of the names so they all come up with their own pronunciations. Really stood out in Outcast which had a bunch of unusual names.

I always pronounced Minish Cap as Mine-ish Cap. Apparently it's "minnish", but there's no two n's in there...

It's a play on miniature, isn't it?

 

[pillowtalk]

Yggdrasil took a while for me to figure out.

 

[MGrant]

It's funny when a game does have voice acting yet it's clear the actors haven't been provided with phonetic versions of the names so they all come up with their own pronunciations. Really stood out in Outcast which had a bunch of unusual names.



It's a play on miniature, isn't it?

Yeah, or "diminish."

 

[Morrigan Stark]

It's easy. Ees.

I don't know how people figure this, really. It is not the correct French pronunciation, which would be "Iss".

 

[singhr1]

Semi-related: RuneScape had no voice acting and a global player base, so everybody read the names of towns differently. There was one town called Ardougne that was a frequent point of contention among players. Ardougne had every variety of pronounciation.

Ar-doon
Ar-dug-nee
Ar-doh-n

Eventually the developers decided to weigh in on how various towns were pronounced. Rather than clear things up, it threw players into a frenzy.

Ardougne was apparently pronounced "Ar-doyn." Nobody on earth pronounced it that way and people were defensive.

But, worse, one of the most central towns of the game was a town called Varrock, unanimously pronounced as Vuh-rock. The devs said it was pronounced Vair-ock.

And if that wasn't bad enough, they also said the town of Falador, ubiquitously pronounced as Fal-a-dor, was really pronounced Fay-la-dor.

It was cataclysmic.

You just blew my mind. I've been so wrong for so long

 

[Cosmic Schwung]

Yeah, or "diminish."

Ah, good call. That looks much more likely.

 

[Manu]

These are so similar and implicity understood as identical. This is really just an accent difference, is it not?

In this case, Sonya is pronounced like "son-shah". I had friends in school who did the same thing.

In the same vein, I called Mileena "Milena" for the longest time, it took me a while to get used to say Mileena. And everyone just called Reptile "Reptil", the spanish word for it, pronounced rep-teel

 

[.JayZii]

い　i as in hit
う　u as in put
え　e as in get
お　o as in got

いい ii can sound like ee as in feet
あい ai can sound like high
おう ou can sound like boat

This is partially incorrect. The compound sounds are fine, but you basic vowels are wrong. Adam's pronunciation guide was fine, everyone.

This video should be added to the OP, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPJIwff3w0I

 

[Mephala]

It's easy. Ees.

In my mind its still yiss, aww yiss~

 

[Meia]

Playing World of Warcraft for almost 8 years before finding out I had been mispronouncing Gnomeregan the wrong way. No Voice Acting at all really in the game(minus some very very minor bits), then they added new voiced intros for every race in the game. Blew my mind.

 

[Daingurse]

I had no idea how to say Echidna for the longest time lol. As a kid I pretty much was saying "Knuckles the Enchilada".

 

[Murkas]

Dragon Slayer Ornstein.
Orn-steen?
Orn-styne?
Orn-steyn??

I'm safely assuming Executioner Smough is pronounced like how Hawkeye Gough pronounced his name. Confusing times before the DLC was released.

My biggest hurdle wasn't even a name, playing Parasite Eve 1 during it's release, I would have probably been around 9 or so. The word mitochondria messed me up for a good while. It would always come up, what baby is to Metroid:Other M, mitochondria is to Parasite Eve, didn't know how to properly pronounce it until it would come up in science class some years later.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Zidane is obvious but but you gotta be non native english speaker or football fan.

 

[Ysarus]

Being French, going from spelling to pronunciation is usually pretty straightforward. Even when I get something wrong initially, I don't mind correcting myself, especially when it's a word that exists in another language.

(That said, there are way too many French people who never pronounce the second N in Nintendo and it drives me crazy)

When the names are completely made up, it gets more complicated. The Zelda series is really annoying in that respect, between the names that get anglicized and those that don't. I have no idea how to pronounce Farore. Initially I went with "fah-roh-reh" but now I tend to use "fah-roar". The Japanese pronunciation is fu-ro-ru. Then there's stuff like Rauru and Nabooru, which probably would be something like Raul and Naborl if Zelda II had been localized more recently. I've gotten used to pronouncing the "boo" in Nabooru like the English "boo" though.

Some Pokémon trip me up too. Florges is supposed to be Flor-jess judging from its Japanese name, but then it should be called Florgès in the French version, which isn't the case.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Dragon Slayer Ornstein.
Orn-steen?
Orn-styne?
Orn-steyn??

Last one and if it's from German it'd be something like Ornshteyn.

 

[RubberLuffy]

I had a friend who would pronounce Irvine (from FF8) as eye-vrin. It was infuriating.

 

[Krejlooc]

Ancient book of Whys

 

[Manu]

Last one and if it's from German it'd be something like Ornshteyn.

It's based on a pianist called Leo Ornstein. Hence the lion connections, Leo Ring, etc.

 

[gamingPotato7]

Coming from a latin language, never mistook how to pronounce Final Fantasy names like Zidahne or Teedus. But Cait Sith I was completely wrong, I thought it was Caheet Sid (Sith as in Sith from Star Wars). Weird that it is Sheed or something

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Dragon Slayer Ornstein.
Orn-steen?
Orn-styne?
Orn-steyn??

Going by how it's written in Japanese it should be the second one. (And Smough's name is pronounced "smo", seemingly as a sumo joke.)

 

[dc89]

Used to have a lot of debates with my class mates (back when I was around 11-14) around certain FFVII pronunciations.

Junon for example. Was it Jun-on, Ju-non or Yu-non
Jenova - was it Jen-ova or Jee-nova (with a more pronounced je)

 

[MegaSackman]

Zidane is obvious but but you gotta be non native english speaker or football fan.

This. I Always called him Zidahn.

 

[Kinsei]

Used to have a lot of debates with my class mates (back when I was around 11-14) around certain FFVII pronunciations.

Junon for example. Was it Jun-on, Ju-non or Yu-non
Jenova - was it Jen-ova or Jee-nova (with a more pronounced je)

Ge-nova. It's a real name, there's a movie with it as the title, and of course there's the Jenova Reunion.

 

[OtakuReborn124]

4 pages and I haven't seen any Fire Emblem characters yet, so maybe it's just me.

FE7: mostly good. Bartre and Geitz I'm not 100% sure about, but most names in Elibe are obvious.

FE8: Oh boy. Eirika (I just ignore the first "i" most of the time), Innes (I usually say like "eins" like the German but with a softer ending), Ewan (ee-one, though I've heard you-en), Gerik (I use a soft G, though I've heard hard Gs used), L'arachel (I usually ignore the apostrophe and say "lara-kell", but the Japanese kana points to something like "larchel" or even Rachel). Among prominent enemies, Caellach comes to mind (I usually go with "kallack")

FE9: A few that have gotten me weird looks at times. Titania I've pronounced like tie-tay-ni-ah but have heard ti-tan-ya. Gatrie I use gah-tree though I've heard "gay-tree". Rhys I pronounce the same as Wrys, a healer from the Archanea games (FE1,11,12) which can get confusing since Rhys is also a healer. I pronounce them both like "wrist" without the terminal t (his Japanese version doesn't help because his name in Japanese is "Kilroy"). There's also Zihark which get crazy at times and I pronounce as is (zee-hark) and usually requires clarification. Muarim is also sometimes confusing (Mu-are-im vs mar-im). Then there's more innocuous ones like Lucia and Marcia (lu-cia or lusha, same with mar-cia or marsha).

FE10: Has voiced narration but still I've heard conflicting pronunciations. Micaiah, even with voice acting and narration, I've heard conflicting stuff (mike-ay-ah, mee-ka-ya). Skrimir (skry-mer, skrim-eer), Vika (veeka, vye-ka) (not narrated).

 

[Murkas]

Going by how it's written in Japanese it should be the second one. (And Smough's name is pronounced "smo", seemingly as a sumo joke.)

Thank fuck, I've always been pronouncing it smo, even after the dlc released and I was assuming I'm supposed to pronounce it smof. Couldn't just start pronouncing another way after more than a year of pronouncing it one way.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

It's based on a pianist called Leo Ornstein. Hence the lion connections, Leo Ring, etc.

Cool info!