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[DDayton]

You've got it backwards there. The ones afraid of change are those who insist that the pronunciation of a word must remain the same from now until the end of time. Those afraid of change are the people who correct everyone else; the folks who insist that "them" cannot be used as a singular pronoun, that a preposition is something with which one shouldn't end a sentence. Etcetera.

Oh, we aren't afraid of change; we're just afraid of blatant ignorance.

 

[MetatronM]

The correct pronunciation of Ryu is neither "Rye You" nor "Ree You", although the latter is closer. It's a two syllable word that is not possible to indicate in English - 1st being "ryu" the 2nd being "u". So it's kinda like "ree you" if it were blended together to form a monosyllabic compound. Then you elongate the "uu" sound at the end to compensate for the 2nd syllable.

IIRC, Street Fighter II+ announcers do pronounce Ryu correctly. If you did hear "Rye you", I'd like to check it out myself.

Well, yeah, but now you're just making it harder on people.

 

[DDayton]

Is ending a sentence with a preposition something you won't put up with?

Spoiler

Note: saying something grammatically incorrect != blatant ignorance, particularly since much of what is considered "correct" in grammar is completely arbitrary. On the other hand, correcting someone's grammar = blatant assholery.

Many things are grammatically incorrect, whether or not you choose to value a set form of grammar. Grammar rules are based upon standard usage of the language... they change over time, but there is always a large body of standards when it comes to language. If we didn't have any standards, communication would be difficult or impossible. Flexibility should exist so that the language can adapt to the times, but complete misuse remains improper and disruptive to communication as a whole.

By the way, could you give me an example of -any- grammatical rule that you find to be "arbitrary"? By definition, a "rule" can't be "arbitrary", can it? Perhaps the origins of the rule came from chance, but once a rule is established it seems that it can hardly be arbitrary...

 

[hirokazu]

what confuses me lots if why many people believe Japanese 'e' is pronounced 'aye', like 'poke-aye-mon' and 'aye-va' (EVA)

also, i've always been up in the air about 'dynasty' - i used to pronounce it as 'di-nasty', but then i hear people say 'dye-nasty' so i started to use that, and then i hear people say 'di-nasty', so now i just don't know anymore.

and id software its incredibly weird pronounced as it is when you're used to saying I-D

 

[Rlan]

SEE-GA!

 

[carbonbased]

Dynasty = Dye-nuh-stee

 

[Parallax Scroll]

I used to pronounce Ubisoft as oo-bee soft until I spoke to an employee who pronounced it "you-bee soft"

A couple more I've seen people argue over:

Secret of Mana

Gibs (flying chunks of flesh after someone gets blown up in a first person shooter)

 

[Eric-GCA]

Ok, here's a recent one from Zelda.

How do you pronounce "Vaati"?

 

[alejob]

How do you pronounce Radeon? Like in ATI Radeon. How about ATI? IS it ATI or A-T-I?

 

[Justin Bailey]

My grandma could never remember how to say Nintendo. She always called it "Intender."

Fun times.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Gibs (flying chunks of flesh after someone gets blown up in a first person shooter)

Yeah, just like gif, which I steadfastly refuse to pronounce "jif" mainly because I hate people like that.

 

[levious]

Ryu is a Japanese word. Paris is a French word. Both of them have standard American pronunciations that are different from those in the original language. If someone, speaking English, pronounced an English word incorrectly, they should be corrected. In theory, if they're learning to speak English, they probably hope to speak it correctly.

If someone, speaking English, pronounces a Japanese word (very well known thanks to a popular arcade game) in a way that is different from the Japanese but commonly accepted in America, it would be pompous and annoying to "correct" them.

If you say "Rye-oo," people generally know who you're talking about. If you say "Ree-u," people generally don't know what you're talking about. Then you get to explain to them how you pronounce it right and everyone else in the country pronounces it wrong hahaha aren't you smart. Soon you wonder why you have no friends.

Why is this an issue when the proper pronounciation is in many versions of the game?

 

[slayn]

Why is this an issue when the proper pronounciation is in many versions of the game?

there is a more accurate pronunciation of the original intention of the name, and there is the more accepted pronunciation. In such a case in language, the more accepted should be adopted as the true pronunciation and hence many feel "rye-you" is the "proper" pronunciation.

There is also the fact that rye-you sounds better =)

 

[levious]

Rye as in rye bread? That's retarded...

It's not that hard... Nah-EE-Nah-Nah-Jar

 

[Ristamar]

I'm getting more stubborn with age. I still refer to id as "eye-dee" ("id" just sounds lame) and Ryu as "rye-you" (nostalgia, mostly), even though I know they're not correct. They just sound better, IMO.

The Enix thing fucked me up, though. Damn... my whole world is shattered.

 

[Grey Fox]

Shit,I always thought Rye-yoo was the correct way.Asuka is another one of those japanese words with that crazy u in it.Didn't know how to pronouce that correctly until I watched the NGE anime.Raiden I didn't know either until MGS2.I gotta remember some of these new ones to me;enix,ICO,and a few others.

 

[BlackTyrano]

BTW, anyone who pronounces Ryu "correctly" comes off sounding like a pompous asshole. It's like people who insist on saying "Par-ee" for Paris. Just FYI.

It just takes some getting used to...the statement you made is definitely not universally true across the US. I pronounced it "rye-you" for the longest time, even after I found out the real pronunciation years ago. Then I started going to some fighting game gatherings where practically everyone pronounced it the "correct" way, and now it's no big deal pronouncing it "reyoo". Eventually, the latter pronunciation may become the more accepted way to say it in the US...things change.

 

[slayn]

^
|

I say em the same

 

[MetatronM]

Mana- man-uh

I flip back and forth between that and "mah-nuh." A gander over at dictionary.com, though, reveals that "mah-nuh" is the "correct" pronunciation.

Just out of curiousity, why would anybody every think "id Software" was anything but "id?"

 

[Dyne]

Ok, here's a recent one from Zelda.

How do you pronounce "Vaati"?

Vah-tee.

What about Agahnim? Or Agnahim... wait a second, how was that spelled, let alone pronounced?

 

[MetatronM]

there is a more accurate pronunciation of the original intention of the name, and there is the more accepted pronunciation. In such a case in language, the more accepted should be adopted as the true pronunciation and hence many feel "rye-you" is the "proper" pronunciation.

There is also the fact that rye-you sounds better =)

Except for the fact that 125 million people will tell you that "rye-you" is incorrect and therefore unaccepted.

And that's it's incorrect for both the vowel sound AND the place in which the syllables are split. Basically everything about the "rye-you" pronunciation is dead wrong.

 

[XS+]

Bah, I still purposely mispronounce Ryu's name (only when referencing the Street Fighter character) for the sake of nostalgia..

 

[BugCatcher]

Except for the fact that 125 million people will tell you that "rye-you" is incorrect and therefore unaccepted.

And that's it's incorrect for both the vowel sound AND the place in which the syllables are split. Basically everything about the "rye-you" pronunciation is dead wrong.

Yeah, 125 million people in Japan. In America (or anywhere else), who cares? Sure, you can go against the grain and pronounce Japanese words like karate and karaoke the right way instead of the popular way, but unless you're in Japan or speaking Japanese, you just sound like a jackass.

 

[BugCatcher]

But you can't just uniformly apply this rule to every word and think you're right. Stuff like 'Haru' or 'Ku-Gatsu' aren't pronounced 'Harr' or 'Gots.' You'll find there actually are a couple weird exceptions their phonetic system here and there.

Actually, if you listen to enough Japanese music (rap mostly), you'll hear exactly this kind of pronounciation. So there are even exceptions to the exceptions

 

[Senretsu]

One that bugs me is when people say :

Yoo-jee-oh for Yu-Gi-Oh (Yoo-Gee-Oh with a hard "g")

I don't even like Yu-Gi-Oh but it bugs me when people say it like that.

I once heard a guy asked if the store had "Shamoo II for X-Box"

 

[XS+]

Actually, if you listen to enough Japanese music (rap mostly), you'll hear exactly this kind of pronounciation. So there are even exceptions to the exceptions

I listen to a lot of Japanese rap and I can't think of an example of what you're talking about..

 

[BugCatcher]

I listen to a lot of Japanese rap and I can't think of an example of what you're talking about..

Well, I can dig up some examples if you like, but it's not uncommon to hear the 'u' dropped from 'tsu' in raps (matsu->mats, tatsu->tats, etc.) I can't remember hearing the 'u' dropped from 'ru', so I won't argue either way on that one.

 

[XS+]

Dig em up!

Actually it doesn't matter, I'm sure you can find examples where the ending U is completely silent, and I can find plenty of examples that gels with my earlier post. I'll just take your word for it..

 

[slayn]

And that's it's incorrect for both the vowel sound AND the place in which the syllables are split. Basically everything about the "rye-you" pronunciation is dead wrong.

except for the fact that it is a (if not the) popular way of pronouncing it in the english language, making it a (the) correct pronunciation in the english language.

when it comes to language, majority, not elitism, rules.

 

[BugCatcher]

Alright The first thing that comes to mind is HALCALI - マーチングマーチ, specifically the verse: 涙こらえてステージに立つ　毎日毎日ハツラツ...the "hatsuratsu" is said pretty clearly as "hatsurats". I know I've got others, but I'd have to search a bit through my library to remember which ones they are
Probably the best example I have is something I recorded on television a couple years ago, but I don't know where I'd host that sort of thing for you to download if you are still interested.

I'm not saying it's any sort of rule, just that it's done from time to time in music. If we're talking about regular speech then I don't disagree with your assertion one bit.

 

[Shrike_Priest]

The thing about pronunciation of foreign words, and especially Japanese, in English is: The phonetics of the Japanese language doesn't match that of the English.

You can't use English words/syllables to describe a vowel-sound that doesn't exist in the English language, at least not properly.

So you have to choose to either just deal with the fact that you're not going to be completely right, or get a proper phonetic-scripture version of the word.

And this is true for not only Japanese, but tons of other languages as well.

Which is why phrases like:

Ryu
Yggdrasil
Deus Ex
Ragnarok
Der Will Zur Macht
Jenseits von gut unt böse

Can never be agreed upon. It all depends on where you set the bar for what is considered "acceptable". A certain degree of Anglicisation has to be accepted, so nagging about details when you can't get it completely right anyway is useless, imo.

 

[MetatronM]

except for the fact that it is a if not the popular way of pronouncing it in the english language, making it the correct pronunciation in the english language.

when it comes to language, majority, not elitism, rules.

Lots of people making the same mistake doesn't make the mistake correct.

It's not elitism. It's a very simple phonetic rule. If a group of people woke up tomorrow and started pronouncing "France" and "Frahn-kee," it wouldn't make it right. It would just mean that a large group of people are being ignorant together.

 

[XS+]

If we're talking about regular speech then I don't disagree with your assertion one bit.

LOL I don't believe this forum sometimes.

 

[slayn]

Lots of people making the same mistake doesn't make the mistake correct.

It's not elitism. It's a very simple phonetic rule. If a group of people woke up tomorrow and started pronouncing "France" and "Frahn-kee," it wouldn't make it right. It would just mean that a large group of people are being ignorant together.

actually, in language, thats exactly how it works and its one of the ways languages evolve.

if enough people started saying Frahn-kee, dictionaries would start putting it in as an accepted pronunciation.

edit:

other ways in which languages evolve are spelling and making up new words that used to be mistakes. For instances, fishes (when referring to a group of fish, not the verb) is in fact a word, though I don't think it used to be or at least my grade school teacher would tell us we were wrong. But enough people wanted fishes to be a word, and so it is.

another example is cookie. cooky is a correct spelling of cookie, though I don't think it used to be.

 

[MetatronM]

But we're not talking about evolving a language here. We're talking about "how do you properly pronounce the Japanese name Ryu, as seen in such games as Street Fighter?"

And for that specific question, there is only one answer.

 

[slayn]

and by popular demand, in the english language, there is now more than one correct answer =)

or we just say one of the localization changes when the games are brought over to the US is that they are changed from the japanese name ryu pronounced "roo" or whatever, to the english name ryu pronounced rye-you.

 

[Yusaku]

Unless someone can actually prove that it's pronounced otherwise I'm pronouncing Ico eye-co.

 

[Miburou]

Unless someone can actually prove that it's pronounced otherwise I'm pronouncing Ico eye-co.

The way it's written in katakana?

 

[BugCatcher]

LOL I don't believe this forum sometimes.

Why? If we limit the argument to spoken Japanese, I agree with what you were saying about pronounciation. At least, I've never heard anybody drop the 'u' in 'gatsu', etc. in normal conversation. I only mentioned that it happens in music and we kind of got sidetracked

 

[Yusaku]

Just out of curiousity, why would anybody every think "id Software" was anything but "id?"

Because most people have no idea that 'id' is even a word, or what it means.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

But we're not talking about evolving a language here. We're talking about "how do you properly pronounce the Japanese name Ryu, as seen in such games as Street Fighter?"

And for that specific question, there is only one answer.

Yes, Rye-you.

Everybody I know that played that game (extensively or just a bit) have always called him that. The only exception is Japanophiles that only watch anime, only read magna, and want to live in Japan.

Get over it, and don't correct someone when they say rye you unless you don't like your balls.

 

[dog$]

I think you're taking this the wrong way.

I don't see anyone in this thread telling people that these pronunciations are now World Law and must be enforced among all known people.

I correct people that say Ryeyou all the time, but only by replying with a sentence where I say his name correctly. Eventually they stop talking about him, and I get to stop hearing his name get mispronounced. Win-Win.

 

[werther]

How do you say pronunciation? I say it pro-nun-cee-a-shin

 

[XS+]

Because most people have no idea that 'id' is even a word, or what it means.

I already learned the meaning of 'id' at the time I thought the company's reading was 'eye-dee' Software..

EDIT: That was mean/dumb, haha

 

[ConfusingJazz]

I think you're taking this the wrong way.

I don't see anyone in this thread telling people that these pronunciations are now World Law and must be enforced among all known people.

I correct people that say Ryeyou all the time, but only by replying with a sentence where I say his name correctly. Eventually they stop talking about him, and I get to stop hearing his name get mispronounced. Win-Win.

Did you not go to a whole lot of arcades when it was out? There was some damn violent people that played that game that wouldn't take too kindly to your trying to correct them.

 

[SentientStone]

Today when I was at EB looking for a pre-played copy of Ico, I asked the guy where the game was (since my cousin saw it earlier) and he pronounced the game as "ei ko".

Also when I asked him if there was any good trade-in offers for GameCube games, he replied, "Oh, you mean the "gay"cube?". ARGH.
My first bad experience at an EB (as you can tell I do not go there often ).

 

[MetatronM]

Unless someone can actually prove that it's pronounced otherwise I'm pronouncing Ico eye-co.

ICO = イコ = ee-koh

 

[levious]

stupidity, it's amazing sometimes.

I'm an elitist cause I like pronouncing words, especially names, correctly?

"Hey man, what's your name?"

"Manuel"

"Man-yuo-all, hmmm, my friends and I will just call you Manny"

 

[levious]

really what's the point then? Most of the arguments on the side of "I'll pronounce it how me and my friends always did" boil down to "say it right and get your balls snatched."

 

[RevenantKioku]

Did you not go to a whole lot of arcades when it was out? There was some damn violent people that played that game that wouldn't take too kindly to your trying to correct them.

I'm not sure if you're viewing it the right way.
No one [sane] is going up to people and "Y'know, *snort* its not 'rye-you' its 'ryu' *snort* *chuckle*"
If I hear someone say something wrong, or spell something wrong (I turned the dictionary on for most of my programs, so to improve my spelling) I don't rub it in their face, I just say it or spell it the right way if I respond with the need of using that word or name. Ever see how pissed off people get if you mispronounce their name? I substitute teach, and some of these kids won't look at me just because I can't say their name right. I think some of their names are fucking ridiculous to be honest, but its not my place to judge them on their name, so I just ask how they say it, and try to pronounce it to the best of my ability.
I have a Polish last name, so its pretty damn hard to pronounce, and I correct people when I can, because I know they'll do the same to me in most cases. But its also true that we're not pronouncing it the correct Polish way, just an adequate way in English, so I've just run myself into a stupid corner.
The point is, there are some people who care, and some that don't. I don't see getting into a huff over either side.

And that guy who said "gif" should be pronounced "jif" is just a douche, really.