In some Japanese shows..... The voice actors say some English words but with a different pronunciation. For example... In FF7:AC, instead of just "Cloud", they say "Cloud-o"... Stuff like that...
Is that their way of saying the words or is it just an accent?
Just they way of saying foreign words, mainly because they don't have a character to represent the sound of "d". In Japanese, that name would actually be romanized as Claudo most probably.
Some other examples you can use for refference, in romaji form:
Sumisu = Smith
Raito = Light
tawaa = tower
misu = Miss
Maikeru = Michael
When using foreing words, Japanese use Katakana and such. Google for more information.
Last edited by Munsu; Mon, 03-19-2007 at 06:16 AM.
Yup, Bud's got it explained perfectly. But Cloud would be romanized as Ku-ra-u-do (クラウド), as the Japanese Hiragana (or Kata) does not have sounds starting with C, L, and F (except for "fu").
Here are 2 tables of Hiragana and Katakana characters, for those who are interested. I made these 2 tables, together with the romanji back when I just started learning how to write in Japanese.
Hiragana
Katakana
"Our hearts are full of memories but not all of them reflect the truth. The heart isn't a recording device. Even important memories change with time. They warp or fade, leaving us with but a shadow of what we hoped to remember." 天の道を行き、全てを司る。これは僕の世界。
The two are synonymous.Originally Posted by Id3aLiStiC
A foreign accent is just the presence of the characteristics of one language when speaking another. Because Japanese has an inherent consonant-vowel consonant-vowel structure (well, excluding the n sound), any foreign word is also pronounced using this structure. Therefore, words ending in consonants, or words with consonant clusters are reformed to make them easier to say for a Japanese speaker.
The examples Bud and Psyke gave are pretty good.
Last edited by XanBcoo; Mon, 03-19-2007 at 11:06 AM.
<@Terra> he told me this, "man actually meeting terra is so fucking big", and he started crying. Then he bought me hot dogs
Lol, how can I have said Claudo? That's horrible.
Last edited by Munsu; Mon, 03-19-2007 at 08:17 PM.
More like "Mee-hai"
From my anime experience, they also don't have a genuine "J" sound.
Psyke, you got a higer res version of those to tables? i would really appreciate it.
edit: nvm imageshack was acting dumb, thx
Mee-hai? That doesn't make sense, and Michael doesn't have a "J" sound.
Well that's how they always pronounce it. I'm pretty sure that's a "Michael" in Monster.
And "J" is often pronounced like a "Y" (e.g. Joshua from Chrno Crusade)
That's because they were trying to emulate German names and pronuciations in Monster.
Then what about GunXSword? There was a Michael in that too.
it is maikeru, soukou no strain has a michael too, and its pronounced maikeru
As far as names go, there is no fixed spelling as long as it "sounds" correct. That is the purpose of Kata after all, to cater for words in other languages, not just English.
"Our hearts are full of memories but not all of them reflect the truth. The heart isn't a recording device. Even important memories change with time. They warp or fade, leaving us with but a shadow of what we hoped to remember." 天の道を行き、全てを司る。これは僕の世界。
As I said, they are using the German pronuciation. If that's the case, then the romaji representing the katakana used is Mihaeru instead, and it's pronounced different than the English Michael. In the end, it's the same name but it shows what's the intended pronuciation of the name given is and the country of origin for the intended name.
As Psyke said, Katakana is used to help Japanese pronounce foreing words and names, so as long as it sounds correct it should be all good.
I'm looking at those charts, and I don't see any characters that represent "Ja", "Jo", "Ju" etc.
So how are words like Jutsu, Jounin, and Juuken written? Are they just phonetic variants of some set of characters, or do they have their own set?
<@Terra> he told me this, "man actually meeting terra is so fucking big", and he started crying. Then he bought me hot dogs
Combinations of Ji plus Ya, Yo, and Yu.
Yup. For words starting with J, it is written by using a Ji followed by a small ya, yu, or yo.
Eg: じゃ = Ja (Jya)、じゅ = Ju (Jyu) 、じょ = Jo (Jyo)
"Our hearts are full of memories but not all of them reflect the truth. The heart isn't a recording device. Even important memories change with time. They warp or fade, leaving us with but a shadow of what we hoped to remember." 天の道を行き、全てを司る。これは僕の世界。
In case you are wondering, the Ji sounds comes from an alternative to the "shi" character. The alternatives goes as follows.
Starts with Turns into
K G
... i'll just scan a page or two from my Jap txt to show u. it'll be easier
This'll show you how words are formed using hiragana and katana. If you want to make a word from another language, you use katakana.
And um, i don't think "its all good as long as it sounds right" works. I mean, they teach this stuff to kids in Japan and im sure the teachers woudln't want to see 10 variances of the same word. Not only that, but my teacher wouldn't have corrected the katakana on our in-class dialogue project if there wasn't a correct spelling of the word.
Last edited by Danad_corps; Sat, 03-24-2007 at 02:00 PM.
i saved a unicorn
I was oversimplifying... Of course there's going to be some correct way to spell things. What you have to realize is that there isn't one set way to spell all the Names since there are various ways to pronounce it; you can use the Michael example above. So it all depends on the intended pronounciation you're looking for and having the correct set of characters to represent those sounds.
Also, your Japanese teacher is not absolute... the Japanese language is complicated as it is, that I'm sure that even the teachers are still learning some things about the language. I know I've seen a lot of discrepancies between teachers and the romanization of the small "u" character.
For example, some would argue that "Tookyoo" is the correct romanization while others would argue it's "Toukyou".
I see what you mean. Just like all languages spoken today, it evolves as time passes.
i saved a unicorn
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