Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 21 to 22 of 22

Thread: English pronunciations in Japanese shows/movies

  1. #21
    Jounin Winged Dancer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    誰も知らない屋の裏
    Age
    39
    Posts
    898
    First of all, as a non-native English speaker, I can say this.... English is a BITCH to pronounce. Spanish and Japanese are way easier, as they are mostly pronounced the way they are written....

    Meanwhile, English has The Chaos, which makes all students of English choose death rather than reading that aloud.

    The thing about Japanese is that it is a syllabic language. All of its "letters" are actually [I]simple[/I[ syllables, composed of a consonant and a vocal:
    K+a = Ka (か)
    W+o= Wo (を)
    S+e= Se (せ)
    And the wonderful exeptions of "N" (ん) and "Tsu" (つ), and even those depend on how they are romanized.

    Because of that structure, it is very difficult for them to pronounce syllables composed of more than two letters and, even more so syllables with more than two consonants and words ending in a letter other than "N".

    So, to take one of your examples,
    Cloud
    In English, it divides into "Clo - ud", but since a sound like "Cl" is impossible to write in Japanese (same with the final "d"), they guide themselves by sound and write it "Ku-ra-u-do".

    Most Japanese agree that the reason they can't speak good English is because of the Katakana, too. Quoting my Okaasan, "If a kid goes to school and the teachers tell him "I like milk" but the kid writes "Ai raiku miruku", he'll never be able to pronouce it and will never get an understanding of it."

    So now you know. The day characters are called "Cloud" and not クラウド is the day the the common Japanese will be able to pronounce English.

    無理してここまでやってきて これからもすっと同じだろう
    それでも何かを信じたい 心の奥の声

  2. #22
    Vampiric Minion Kraco's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    :noitacoL
    Age
    46
    Posts
    17,976
    It's interesting how deeply the syllabic system affects their thinking (capabilities). After all, they should all learn also the latin alphabets in school, and thus, in theory, they should also be able to use them to write, speak and think western words in a correct way. But I guess it's not that simple.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •