I don't know if this has been a thread topic before. But I looked so nothing came up.

I was curious about how some people think they should pronounce words in the Japanese language.

I was looking at some books while waiting for a borders staff member to find a dvd in back for me as a gift for my sister. Well I over heard another store person telling a customer that some of the books that were on a higher shelf were manga. Well it wasn't that there were manga in the young adult section away from the other manga books that bothered me. It was how this woman pronounced the word manga. (sorry for the poor phonetics.) She said it as main-ga and not as mahn-ga as it should be. Well I don't know about you but this sure does sound like nails on a chalk board to me when people mispronounce things like that. I know it's not your language but please try and have some respect and pronunce the language properly.

It's more or a less a pet peave of mine when people mispronounce foreign words. A majority of me is of Italian blood and it just irks me when people misprounounce things. Most of these words are strewn about the English language too so there are no excuses for saying; Oh I'm not familar with that word so I don't really know how to prounounce it. It's worth the extra effort I think to pronunce things correctly. But this is a whole other subject topic and I had meant to talk about the Japanese lanugage here.

So if you have anything to say please do. Happy posting :)

Oh I absolutlely hate when people mangle Japanese. I'v taken the language for 3 years and I try to correct people when I hear them messing up.Not trying to be rude but its better than having native speakers make fun of you for what you've said.

OMG!! I hate it when the pronounce it "main-ga"!! It just pisses me off. If you can't say it right, then don't say it at all. I knew this one girl who was a so-called otaku kept on saying it was pronounced "main-ga". I just wanted to b**ch slap her.
There are even more japanese words that people miss pronounce. Like the word "karaoke" and "sayonara".

I don't mind it when they mis-pronounce something in Japanese. It's not their native language after all. It's hard to pronounce it right when it's a completely different language system from your own.

It's been one of my major pet peeves though, whenever I see online (since it's not often I hear people say Japanese wrongly here...too much Japanese drama shows on TV here so I guess people often have a good idea what it sounds like XD) someone shortening Bakura's name...they shorten it to "Kura". Wtf. 'バクラ', or '獏良', is separated as 'Baku'(獏) and 'ra'(良), so if you're going to shorten his name, it should be 'Baku', not 'Kura'! :illgetu:

*cough*
Yeah, but other than that, I don't really mind as long as I can understand what they're saying. :lol:

@Fading~But japanese is such an easy language to pronounce. It sounds the way it is spelled. Unlike for other asian languages or European languages, japanese and spanish are far the easiest.

Easy, perhaps, for those who know how it goes, but definitely not, for those who are completely unfamiliar with the language and only see occasional romanji of their words. Such as the common mistake of pronouncing the 'r's with actual 'r' sounds when it's 'l'.

Also, the stress on the words are different from English, such as 'katana', for example. I know a lot of people who pronounce it as 'ka-TAN-na', when it's actually 'KA-tana'.

When people who don't understand the language mispronounce it, it doesn't bother me. Because people mispronounce English words all the time. Its when the people who think they are cool by saying Japanese words, mispronounce it...then it bugs me.

But, it doesn't bug me as much anymore as it did when I was in high school....I just let it slide now. We all had our beginning moments. Someone was always there to correct us in the beginning. Let the newbies be...

@ Ichigo - Actually, I heard Korean is the easiest language to learn out of the Asian languages...respectably Mandarin Chinese is supposedly the hardest.

@Lady~I don't even know a lick of Korean. Vietnamese and Chinese(both) look hard. I remember when I first saw the last name "Ngyuen", wow!! did I ever pronounce that sucker wrong.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

@Lady~I don't even know a lick of Korean. Vietnamese and Chinese(both) look hard. I remember when I first saw the last name "Ngyuen", wow!! did I ever pronounce that sucker wrong.

LOL...I have a few customers who share that last name, apparently in Vietnam that is a common name, like Smith in America.
I think they pronounce it "new-gen" ...I think... >_<

Originally Posted by Lady_Megami

LOL...I have a few customers who share that last name, apparently in Vietnam that is a common name, like Smith in America.
I think they pronounce it "new-gen" ...I think... >_<

I think it is actually pronounced "when". The "n" is silent.......pretty much like everything else in the name.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

I think it is actually pronounced "when". The "n" is silent.......pretty much like everything else in the name.

oh .. lol maybe that's how I was pronouncing it XD

anyways...they are always nice... lol I am a geek

Originally Posted by Lady_Megami

oh .. lol maybe that's how I was pronouncing it XD

anyways...they are always nice... lol I am a geek

they can be, but there are some who can be a real ass. Like this one who had asked me out, but at the same time he was dating my sister and we didn't even know about it.

Names are very hard to pronounce sometimes. When my youngest brother was still in high school there were three korean exchange students. They were all in the plays so when I went to see my brother I would see there names in the programs. Of course I tried to pronounce them like they were Japanese names, that was so wrong. I learned later how they were pronounced and I was a bit off to say the least.

If they would just try to take at least basic Japanese.....
It's been a pet peeve of mine for a while now too, people butchering japanese names and words. As a student who studied Japanese for several years, I get the urge to smack them upside the head when they do that than teach them properly. Or they should just ask someone who knows if they can't pronounce it.

as for how Nguyen is pronounced it's "new-whin"
you know in family guy, how Stewie puts the emphasis on the H in coolwhip? yeah that's how it's pronounced...the "whin" part. now say "new-whin" really fast, that's how you pronounce Nguyen.

Um... No, I don't get pissed off. You can't expect every person to be able to pronounce every word in every foreign language. Would you think it's fair if I judged you for mispronouncing a word in Swahili, Finnish or Russian? Of course not. I think this is a big double standard in the anime/manga fandom.

That being said, Japanese is pretty easy to learn how to pronounce since it's a syllabic language (I've just started taking lessons in it this year) But, if someone does not have the time or inclination to learn it, I won't judge them for it. If you have no intention of going to Japan or learning about it's culture there's not really a reason to learn the language.

it really annoys me when people don't pronounce manga right, but then, i have no right to talk. i used to miss pronounce it too several years ago.
what bothers me, tho, is not being able to pronounce something from a manga. i'm pretty good at pronouncing japanese words, but there are still a few i can't seem to get. for example, from the manga Tokyo Mew Mew, i cannot pronounce the character's name Masaya. i don't know why, but i just can't seem to pronounce his name! >_<

@guibin~it sounds like the say "when" not "new- when". My bad.

@Moonbright~....but it is so annoying when they are anime fans themselves and they think they know everything. Like that girl I was talking about. She was such a bitch towards me and kept on saying it is pronounced "main-ga". How do you get "main-ga" out of "manga"?! I would have understood if you said "man-ga", but "main-ga"? Even if you use english wording, there is no vowel in there to make the "a" strong.

Originally Posted by Eloise Moonbright

Um... No, I don't get pissed off. You can't expect every person to be able to pronounce every word in every foreign language. Would you think it's fair if I judged you for mispronouncing a word in Swahili, Finnish or Russian? Of course not. I think this is a big double standard in the anime/manga fandom.

That being said, Japanese is pretty easy to learn how to pronounce since it's a syllabic language (I've just started taking lessons in it this year) But, if someone does not have the time or inclination to learn it, I won't judge them for it. If you have no intention of going to Japan or learning about it's culture there's not really a reason to learn the language.

I think when a word ( from any language ) is integrated into societies vocabulary then people have no excuse not try to pronounce it properly. Especially a person who works in a book store as I had first stated above. They should at least try to learn the correct pronunciation of things in the pop culture media.

Well...with that manga pronunciation example you gave...you have to understand that probably those people weren't told the proper pronunciation. And that's the main problem with it is the fact that most people don't know the right way to pronounce it, so they pronounce it phonetically. I mean, yes it's annoying to listen to when people mangle japanese, but you have to also understand where they're coming from too. It's not from a lack of respect for the culture, it's a lack of knowledge. I mean, if someone mispronounces a japanese word, I'll politely tell them the right way to say it. That's the best way to go about it. Just don't be all rude and be all "That's not how you say it! Say it right!" which I have seen happen before.

You guys are lucky if you have Japanese at your school. My school does not teach it and that makes me so mad. All we have is spanish and german.

I live in South Africa, so we are taught Zulu, Afrikaans and there is a class for French for the foreign students who come and can't speak a word of Afrikaans OR Zulu. We've never had any Asian languages and if we did, I think it was be one of the Chinese dialects...

That aside, I have been teaching myself Japanese slooooowly but surely, and the pronounciation seems pretty easy to me, except for the fact that I can't speak as fast as the natives do. Lulz! Well I get pretty annoyed when people badly mispronounce words but I don't say anything unless the want to learn or I can find a polite way to correct them.

Ok while I can see the point of wanting people to speak the words correctly...... do we have such a fit when people mangle the English language? There are different ways people speak, pronounce words, etc even amongst our own native language. People who do not speak English as a native language are usually not treated this harshly. I live in a community which is predominately Spannish speaking... those who at least TRY to speak English I do not care if they do not pronounce everything exactly right, many of them do not even try to learn it.

Now if you were going to go to Japan I would think you would at least try to learn what you can, if you were going to move there then even more so, it is only right as you are in their country. But to get this upset about how not everyone has the option to take classes in Japanese (when I was in school we were lucky to get anything other than just Spanish, maybe German). Some of us have no help learning, we try to teach ourselves and should be treated with as much respect as anyone else. We have a harder time learning just from books/manga/anime/online stuff without the benefit of anyone teaching us or correcting us (POLITELY).

I guess my point it would you like it if someone was rude to you every time you did not use what they consider the correct pronouncement of a word? If they were rude when you spell a word wrong, or do not use 100% proper grammar?

While I agree, if you are going to try, then really TRY. If you are going to say you know it, then you better know it, or be prepared to get corrected. But to get this upset about people who pronounce a word wrong, that is not in their native tongue.... that is a bit overboard. Do you do the same to people learning, French, German, Latin, Arabic or any other language?

Japanese pronunciation is much like Estonian - you read exactly as you write and the emphasis is on the first syllable. So pronunciation isn't that hard for me and I don't understand how my other classmates don't get it.

Sometimes it does bother me when someone says something wrong and usually I try to correct them, but not always.

Originally Posted by Hielin

Japanese pronunciation is much like Estonian - you read exactly as you write and the emphasis is on the first syllable. So pronunciation isn't that hard for me and I don't understand how my other classmates don't get it.

Sometimes it does bother me when someone says something wrong and usually I try to correct them, but not always.

That's kind of the point here anyway. Some words have an obvious way of how it is meant to be pronunciated. I think as long as people know the basics. Even if it's just hearin a few Japanese words and thinking ah ok! their "a" sound only as an "ah" sound etc. I think people could at least try to make an effort to pronounce words from different languages correctly. A lot of people seem to think everything is pronounced like English language words. It's frustrating really because I've lived with people pronouncing Italian words I've know almost my whole life completly wrong and it's just simply annoying. So I try my best most times to pronounce words of other languages correctly because I'm sure people of those ethinicities would surely appreciate it and I like hearing how those words are pronounced in the right way.

i dont get pissed off.
i dunno...it just seems kinda rude to me. like bitching out a foreign person for mispronouncing something in english.
you dont go around doing that, because its not their language. why is it different with us English-speaking persons and japanese?

i mean, its ok to correct them, but be polite.