Japanese pronunciation

[CTU Kyoto]

Hi guys,

I enjoy your show, although I think you should edit it down to a more manageable length... Anyway, I'm writing to advise you on Japanese pronunciation. The vowels are always pronounced the same way no matter what, unlike English.

"a" is pronounced like the a in Pass
"e" is pronounced like the e in Bed
"i" is pronounced like the i in Pizza
"o" is pronounced like the o in Roll
"u" is pronounced like the u in Dude.

So you guys pronounced Shunkan to rhyme with Dunkin' as in Dunkin' Donuts, but it should be SHOON-KAN. Osu Tatakae Ouendan is OSS TA-TA-KA-EH OH-EN-DAN (words ending in "su" generally have the u suppressed). Puyo is POO-YO. Morning Musume is MOO-SOO-MAY. Oh, and you kept calling Sudoku "Soduku" and it drove me nuts!

Other feedback: I think you should do more research on games you plan to talk about. Osu Tatakae Ouendan came out in Summer 2005, not close to the DS launch. Electroplankton wasn't a launch title, it came out later in 2005 too. Also, you said that while the US version of Brain Training has "Sudoku Included!" written prominently on the package, the Japanese version didn't because they don't need to advertise it or it wouldn't be a good selling point to the Japanese because the game has been around in Japan for "thousands of years or whatever". The Japanese version doesn't have Sudoku in it, and I know that thousands of years was an exaggeration, but Sudoku is relatively new and not Japanese. It was invented in America in the late 70s, with the name Number Place, and imported to Japan under that name. One particular company calls their puzzles Sudoku, and that name spread back to the West.

Sorry if this post sounds really negative, I enjoy the show! Good luck pronouncing future game titles!

[Womp]

Hi guys,

I enjoy your show, although I think you should edit it down to a more manageable length... Anyway, I'm writing to advise you on Japanese pronunciation. The vowels are always pronounced the same way no matter what, unlike English.

"a" is pronounced like the a in Pass
"e" is pronounced like the e in Bed
"i" is pronounced like the i in Pizza
"o" is pronounced like the o in Roll
"u" is pronounced like the u in Dude.

So you guys pronounced Shunkan to rhyme with Dunkin' as in Dunkin' Donuts, but it should be SHOON-KAN. Osu Tatakae Ouendan is OSS TA-TA-KA-EH OH-EN-DAN (words ending in "su" generally have the u suppressed). Puyo is POO-YO. Morning Musume is MOO-SOO-MAY. Oh, and you kept calling Sudoku "Soduku" and it drove me nuts!

Other feedback: I think you should do more research on games you plan to talk about. Osu Tatakae Ouendan came out in Summer 2005, not close to the DS launch. Electroplankton wasn't a launch title, it came out later in 2005 too. Also, you said that while the US version of Brain Training has "Sudoku Included!" written prominently on the package, the Japanese version didn't because they don't need to advertise it or it wouldn't be a good selling point to the Japanese because the game has been around in Japan for "thousands of years or whatever". The Japanese version doesn't have Sudoku in it, and I know that thousands of years was an exaggeration, but Sudoku is relatively new and not Japanese. It was invented in America in the late 70s, with the name Number Place, and imported to Japan under that name. One particular company calls their puzzles Sudoku, and that name spread back to the West.

Sorry if this post sounds really negative, I enjoy the show! Good luck pronouncing future game titles!

In our defense we also said Japanese wasn't our strong point as well. :P

Sudoku we knew was added to the US release of Brain Training, but then again, when we talk about Brain Training we are mainly referring to the upcoming US edition not the Japanese release. I honestly don't recall mentioning either Plankton or Ouendan! as being release titles either because I knew they weren't...Plankton just came out within the last so many months alone.

Anyway, glad you enjoy the show...We'll try better to pronunciate for you next time. :)

[nukinetix]

"a" is pronounced like the a in Pass
"e" is pronounced like the e in Bed
"i" is pronounced like the i in Pizza
"o" is pronounced like the o in Roll
"u" is pronounced like the u in Dude.Can you believe I didn't know this even though one of my girlfriends (a few years ago of course) was a professional Japanese->English translator ? What's funny is that this is EXACTLY the same way vowels are pronounced in the Greek language (I read and speak ancient Greek as well) and it's funny how it really takes a long time for native English speakers to get used to this pronounciation - it just doesn't come natural to the low level "wiring" in the brain (those subconscious, sub-100ms processes that produce spoken words faster than we can "think" how we do it). So don't be surprised my friend.


Other feedback: I think you should do more research on games you plan to talk about. Osu Tatakae Ouendan came out in Summer 2005, not close to the DS launch. Electroplankton wasn't a launch title, it came out later in 2005 too. Also, you said that while the US version of Brain Training has "Sudoku Included!" written prominently on the package, the Japanese version didn't because they don't need to advertise it or it wouldn't be a good selling point to the Japanese because the game has been around in Japan for "thousands of years or whatever". The Japanese version doesn't have Sudoku in it, and I know that thousands of years was an exaggeration, but Sudoku is relatively new and not Japanese. It was invented in America in the late 70s, with the name Number Place, and imported to Japan under that name. One particular company calls their puzzles Sudoku, and that name spread back to the West.
Hey, great info there, wow. Hope you post more often here.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Hi, and welcome!

The show is ad hoc for the most part. We don't script it - which allows us the easy going laid back and, in my opinion, FAR MORE entertaining show than those people that fact check every single item, script to the letter, and read it back monotone for 30 minutes. There are lots of those shows - we prefer to be different.

The problem with ad hoc is that we often skew to a tangent and end up talking about things we have NOT had a chance to make notes on. This is an unfortunate side effect of a show like this, and I do apologize if we occassionally run off incorrectly.

All said, thanks for listening!

[btribble]

"a" is pronounced like the a in Pass


Hehe, just wanted to chime in to say the "a" is pronounced like the a in Car, not Pass. At least to Americans anyway!

[Flare]

"a" is pronounced like the a in Pass
"e" is pronounced like the e in Bed
"i" is pronounced like the i in Pizza
"o" is pronounced like the o in Roll
"u" is pronounced like the u in Dude.
This is easy for me because in spanish, the vowels are pronounced exactly like that. Save for the silent "u", I've been speaking correctly.


So you guys pronounced Shunkan to rhyme with Dunkin' as in Dunkin' Donuts, but it should be SHOON-KAN. Osu Tatakae Ouendan is OSS TA-TA-KA-EH OH-EN-DAN (words ending in "su" generally have the u suppressed). Puyo is POO-YO. Morning Musume is MOO-SOO-MAY. Oh, and you kept calling Sudoku "Soduku" and it drove me nuts!
My favorite japanese words of all are: "HATORI HANZO!" As pronounced by the Samurai Shodown announcer. That name seems to have so much force in it...

Kyoto, one question; since in Japanese you say the last name first and the first name last; Is "Shigeru" the first name and "Miyamoto" the last name, or the other way around? (Do japanese people say Miyamoto Shigeru?)

[Shane R. Monroe]

I'm seriously practicing this ... Hopefully I'll get better.

[jakdin]

Kyoto, one question; since in Japanese you say the last name first and the first name last; Is "Shigeru" the first name and "Miyamoto" the last name, or the other way around? (Do japanese people say Miyamoto Shigeru?)

Shigeru is his first name. Miyamoto is his last name.

This confused the heck outta me when I first went to Japan. I would say, is that your first name? and the reply would be, "Yes" but in Japanese, they say the Last name First, so when inquiring, I'd be misled because the Surname would be first and given name Last....but then I'd inquire as to which was their given name, and they'd say, "both" since they had no name to begin with...so then it'd be, "ok, which is your Family Name?" and the usual reply is they're First Name (given name) which would throw me off even further.

In time, I came to know what a Surname would sound like...dunno, just did, although it still stumps me once in a while when I read a full Japanese name in print because I'm not sure which form the writer has taken, the western or Japanese approach to listing the names.

Another interesting thing about Japanese names is that they don't have Middle Names. This also has caused me some frustration, here in the States: My wife is Japanese and whenever we are applying for something, credit card, bank account, taxes, etc, etc, the forms always need you to supply a MIDDLE NAME... hehe. I ALWAYS have to explain to the person why my wife has no Middle Name and they most always can't understand at first. Idiots. ;)

[Turbo2Xs]

Segway!

Don't mean this to be rude, but when I was in Korea it seemed that 38% of the populations names were "Park" or "Kim".

Made it easy to figure out first and last.

As a side note to this side note, Why is it that it seems that the most common phrase the average Korean can speak is "****a youuuuu!" :confused:

Odd, that...

[Flare]

Are those stars supposed to be a bad word? :confused:

[btribble]

Good luck with the pronunciation practice! At least if you see a vowel, it's always pronounced the same way, which is more than I can say for native English. Soon enough you'll be thinking "yeah, hangly man, I could understand that mistake... it really does look like it should sound like 'hungry man'!".

As far as the whole first name / last name thing - it can be confusing, especially because it can be done either way, depending if it's more Japanese or Western style. Often you'll see "LAST First" though, meaning the family name is the one that's in all capitals.

And, if part of the name is "yama" "mura" "moto" or "guchi" then it's probably a family name :D

[CTU Kyoto]

Btribble, good point. I'm not American so maybe some of my vowel examples are a little off.

Another word people often mispronounce is the name of the Nintendo president, Iwata. It's often pronounced Eye-wata, but following the i as in pizza rule it's like Ee-wata.

Anyway, I don't want to lecture people and sound like a smartass who wants to show off the fact that he speaks Japanese. I just thought that most people would like to know the right way to say these things.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Hey man... don't let'em get you down ... *I* appreciate it and I'm working hard at picking up the vowels. In fact, in Chris and I's show notes, I'm actually putting phonetics next to questionable japanese words so I'm sure to at least halfway get it right. I may never get the rhythm and cadance down right, but I'll get close.

I know when I spent some shore leave time in France, if you at least TRIED to speak the native language, people were a WHOLE LOT nicer to you than if you just assumed they should speak english to you. I know in the reverse, if some tourist of something comes up to me and starts belching spanish I'm a lot less eager to help them than if they at least TRY in broken english to get help. Shrug.

[CTU Kyoto]

Shane, it's really nice to know you're trying to pick up the vowels! If you have any game names you plan to use in a podcast feel free to PM me for pronunciation confirmation or whatever.

Yeah, in France even if you're just reading it out of a phrase-book and butchering it, they like you to try French before they will use their English to help you. I suppose most countries are the same, but we're spoiled in English-speaking areas knowing that most of the world studies our language so we don't anticipate, say, a Japanese person assuming we know Japanese.

[miner2049er]

Those pesky French!

One time I was in Paris with 2 friends and my brother and we were ordering dinner. My brother asked for a plate of chips and the waiter shrugged and said "pardon?"

So he asked again for a plate of chips, same answer, "pardon?"

Then in terrible French he asked for "une portion pomme frites" and the waiter in perfect English said "Aaah, you want a plate of chips!"

B******!

You can kind of see his point though.

[Shane R. Monroe]

heh ... yeah ... It's truly amazing how USELESS high school foreign language classes were. I mean, I took like, two or three years of French and I couldn't understand or speak for squat :) I had a translation book, so I worked through it ... again, I think it was simply the level of effort I put out that made them warm up to me.

Italy was another story. In all my Naval travels, Italy was the LEAST friendly place to me. You could walk into some establishment, HEAR the employees speaking english to someone - then when you got to the counter, they would play "no speakie" with you. I have to admit, though - I don't recall seeing a more beautiful place than LaMadalena, Italy (or an uglier place than Naples, Italy). Fascinating.

[Flare]

if some tourist of something comes up to me and starts belching spanish I'm a lot less eager to help them than if they at least TRY in broken english to get help. Shrug.

That's why at least I said "So whay do yu col yurselbs thee last honest pizza place?"

instead of "Y porque se llaman el ultimo lugar de pizza honesto?"

LOL! :D

[Shane R. Monroe]

BAHAHAHAHA! I loved that pizza!

[BJWanlund]

good one Flare!!!

I shall have to make a lame attempt @ humor.

You guys are killing me!!!

I wish an opening came up on the RGR team, mainly b/c I am a NES expert and I have noticed that Shane hasn't gotten around to reviewing the Generation NEX...I have the NES knowledge to be able to make a working comparison to my old "toaster" NES (which would have made Shane's NEX review more intelligent if he had done so). I have a way to do it for you guys, plus I might be able to get a job near where Shane's job is (I have some occupations in mind...)

BJ