Weirdest gaming-related pronunciation you've heard?

I used to play Street Fighter 2 at a local water park that had an arcade and there was a kid from the neighborhood that called Guile "goo-lee" and said that he threw a "manix voom".

Of course no one knew back then what the hell Ken and Ryu were saying.
 
Deus Ex

I still do not get how the hell people think the way they pronounce Deus makes any phonetical sense.

Say Deus

Got it?

Now say this word -----> Zeus (Referring to the greek god of thunder)

Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus

I do not understand.
 
We get customers in our shop that can't pronounce game names. Like, not even close. We're in the Netherlands and some customers try to say them in Dutch or something? I don't know but it sounds weird. Obviously most people do know how to pronounce them, I'm talking about a select few.

I'll put them down as they pronounce them, so you get a better idea:

Dead Space becomes: Speasea, just leaving out "Dead" altogether.
Pay Day The Heist becomes: Pea Dea de Neast
L.A. Noire: La Nore (L.A. isn't abbreviated, it suddenly becomes a French word)
Shinobi: Shniobi

I'm forgetting some, but goddamn it makes it hard to understand people sometimes.
 
I am guilty of the "Raiyu".

I also used to say "Prepherials" instead of "Peripherals".

My nephew somehow managed to turn "GTAV" into the word "Guitarv".

Oh yeah, I had a friend in high school who used to say "Nvidia" as "N-veeda".
 
NuclearSpy said:
Deus Ex

I still do not get how the hell people think the way they pronounce Deus makes any phonetical sense.

Say Deus

Got it?

Now say this word -----> Zeus (Referring to the greek god of thunder)

Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus

I do not understand.
Click to expand...

One is Latin. The other is not.
 
Ikaruga_logo.png
 
NuclearSpy said:
Deus Ex

I still do not get how the hell people think the way they pronounce Deus makes any phonetical sense.

Say Deus

Got it?

Now say this word -----> Zeus (Referring to the greek god of thunder)

Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus, Deus, Zeus

I do not understand.
Click to expand...
"Deus Ex (/ˌdeɪ.əs ˈɛks/ day-əs eks)" It's Latin, so it's not English sounds.
 
Pronounciation in the English language in general is so random. It seems like there are almost no patterns at all, so it leads to all these mispronounciation problems.

Portuguese and German, the two other languages I know, don't have quite as much problems like this. Most things in those languages are pronounced as they are written, you just need to know some basic guidelines. With English, on the other hand, many times you need to be taught how to pronounce something or you'll do it wrong.

On topic, the way I've heard Deus Ex being pronounced by English speakers is really strange. I can't even reproduce it, but it doesn't sound at all the way it should be.

Darksol said:
But that's not how it is.

Deus
Click to expand...

:O
That's not how that's supposed to be pronounced. This is how it should be: http://translate.google.com/#la/pt/deus
 
Pronouncing SNES as one word, "suh-ness." The Giant Bomb dudes do it all the time and it bugs the hell out of me. My friends and I simply say "Super Nintendo."
 
I don't remember a lot other than the obvious poke-man but one that's worse imo was from Tom McShea's recent review of Pikmin 3. He kept calling Pikmin, "Peek-men".
 
Gaiden - Heard many people say Gay-den
Raiden - Same story as above
Melee - I've heard many people pronouncing it so it rhymes with free
Deku Tree - I've heard numerous people say Dee-Q tree.
Epona - "ee-pona" I've heard.
Actually lots of names and words in the Zelda series get mispronounced frequently. I guess that's probably a common thing with unvoiced games.
Zealot - The unit from Starcraft. We used to play this as kids, and would pronounce it Zee-lot, not knowing that it was an actual word

One good thing about playing games in Japanese, is that there is never any confusion over the pronunciation.
 
Nintendo:
- Intendo
- Tendo

Donkey Kong:
- Honky Dong
- Hinky Donk
- King Kong

Wii:
- Wey
- Why
- Double-U-Ee-Ee

Pokémon:
- Pokermann

Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario BROSS (actually almost everybody says it like that here)

Zelda:
- Silda

Marble Madness:
- MarblÉ MadnESS (with the stress on the last syllables, pronouncing it as if they were French words)

Spy vs. Spy:
- Spai Vai Spai

GameCube:
- Geimkoob

And my father didn't like the sound of Skate or Die because he thought it meant "Shoot or Die" and was a very violent game.
 
My body physically jolts in repulsion when brits call "Mario" "May-rio"

He says is own name outloud over and over, how can you get it wrong?

I think I have a same issue with "Sea-ga" and "SAY-gah"
 
GalacticMouse said:
That's not an "American" thing. It's a New York thing...and it's stupid.

Mario pronounces his own name "Mah-ree-oh". There's a voice actor and everything! Surely the character himself knows how to say his name correctly...
Click to expand...

It's a New York thing? You mean the city that's full of italians? I've lived in NY my entire life and don't know anyone that pronounces it weird like that (at least not anymore, ESPECIALLY after Mario 64).

SatelliteOfLove said:
Some crazies pronounce it "Blay-Blew".

Silly, huh?
Click to expand...

given the katakana, that's actually the correct way to say it
"ブレイブルー" Burei buru

though, I've heard Blaze-blue and Blazzblue too


edit: also heard Pokemon as Pock-a-mon, but seeing that Pokemon is a contraction of Pocket Monsters, it does make sense
 
I remember when I was so annoyed with my mate when we were kids and he kept saying "Armor the Core". Its not even close to Armored Core... well i guess he said it more like "armor de core", but still.
 
I know a dumb guy who says "Residential Evil".. and I already heard an old man say his grandkids want "hello 4" for christmas.
 
Azuardo said:
Laura for Lara Croft (it's Lar-uh)
Leh-ra for Lara Croft
Zid-ayne for Zidane (it's Zid-ann)
Mar-ee-oh for Mario (it's Ma-ree-oh, the same 'ma' sound as in the word 'man')
Tie-dus for Tidus (it's Tee-dus)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how the given 'wrong' pronounciations of Zidane and Tidus count as 'wierdest'. They might be wrong compared to what the creator intended, but they are fairly natural English interpretations of those groups of letters, even though 'Zidane' is pronounced correctly as you say ( based on my limited knowledge of French footballers!). I suspect that the 'Tide-us' interpretation, apart from it being a more reasonable guess than 'teedus' based on the letter combinations, comes from 'Tide', given that the young man in bizarrely asymmetrical clothing is carrying a sword that looks like it's made of water and standing in the ocean on the box art.

How native English-speaking people get 'Laura' from 'Lara' is beyond me, it's an actual European name and perhaps not common but not exactly rare like 'Zidane'. I've known at least two women called Lara born long before tomb raider was a thing, one from Czechoslovakia, one from England.
 
Sakura said:
Gaiden - Heard many people say Gay-den
Raiden - Same story as above
Melee - I've heard many people pronouncing it so it rhymes with free
Deku Tree - I've heard numerous people say Dee-Q tree.
Epona - "ee-pona" I've heard.
Actually lots of names and words in the Zelda series get mispronounced frequently. I guess that's probably a common thing with unvoiced games.
Zealot - The unit from Starcraft. We used to play this as kids, and would pronounce it Zee-lot, not knowing that it was an actual word

One good thing about playing games in Japanese, is that there is never any confusion over the pronunciation.
Click to expand...

Halo's got a race of baddies whose highest (in infantry cases) rank is the Zealot, which is likewise a golden-armored, fast-moving, bunny-hopping bullet sponge with a plasma sword. I used to make the same mistake.
 
I had an argument with two IT teachers in high school (at different times) about the pronunciation of SEGA.
The teachers kept insisting it was 'Sea-ga' because that's the proper way, and that apparently Americans are wrong. :|
 
redcrayon said:
I'm not sure how the given 'wrong' pronounciations of Zidane and Tidus count as 'wierdest'. They might be wrong compared to what the creator intended, but they are fairly natural western interpretations of those words given that 'Zidane' is also a French surname. I suspect that 'Tide-us' comes from 'Tide', given that the young man in bizarrely asymmetrical clothing is carrying a sword that looks like it's made of water and standing in the Ocean on the box art.

How people get 'Laura' from 'Lara' is beyond me, it's an actual European name, I've known at least two women called Lara born long before tomb raider was a thing, one from Czechoslovakia, one from England.
Click to expand...

True enough; I think I was more writing down my own personal annoyances from mispronunciations, for which I can forgive ones like Tie-dus and Zi-dayne, or even Zi-dahn as it's supposedly "officially" pronounced in Dissidia, thanks to American VAs.

I don't know how people get Laura from Lara, either, but I've heard it done.

The "Leh-ra" thing is again down to the way Americans pronounce words like "apple" and "man", with that almost "epple" or "men" sound instead, and so some people then see the name Lara and attribute the same sound to it - it coming out like "Leh-ra" instead of actually "Lar-uh".

/ramble
 
I've heard people pronounce the P and S in games like Contra: Hard Corps and Blast Corps. It's pronounce core, peeps.

I also hate "Deeku" in Zelda instead of "Dehku."

But I'm guilty of a couple myself. Used to call Ryu "Raiyu" and Ridley "Ridely" (don't know how I fucked up that latter one).

I actually got Gaiden right in Ninja Gaiden as a kid, though. So many people saying Gayden.
 
redcrayon said:
I'm not sure how the given 'wrong' pronounciations of Zidane and Tidus count as 'wierdest'. They might be wrong compared to what the creator intended, but they are fairly natural western interpretations of those words given that 'Zidane' is also a French surname. I suspect that 'Tide-us' comes from 'Tide', given that the young man in bizarrely asymmetrical clothing is carrying a sword that looks like it's made of water and standing in the Ocean on the box art.
Click to expand...

The Tidus thing is obnoxious because it's extremely similar to an actual Western name (Titus), and actually a non-word in Japanese; you can't form "Tidus" using Japanese characters without alterations to begin with. As such, it naturally seems as if you wouldn't use Japanese-style rules for pronouncing it.

That said, the game has voice acting, so it's not exactly hard to find out the "proper" way to pronounce the names, wrong-sounding as they may be. (As opposed to say, Quistis. Key-stiss? Kwi-stiss? Kwys-tiss?)
 
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