Forum - View topicJapanse Names in Dub
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Kanae
 Posts: 118 |
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Typically I like to watch anime dubbed, since reading movies gets kind of annoying after a while, but it's starting to bug me how many American dubs completely murder Japanese names. For example, the FAKE OAV, while funny, has a character named Ryo, and the American dub keeps calling him Ree-o, like he's Mexican or something. Also, a lot of Japanese names that end in an -e end up weird, like Natsume from Generator Gawl, who gets referred to as Netsumi. I don't mind the little stuff, like pronouncing Kenshin as Kehn-shihn instead of Kehn-sheen, but the major mispronunciations really bug me. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just being nitpicky?
(By the way, you anti-dub purists who aren't going to say anything beyond "that's why I never watch dubs" are cheerfully disinvited from this discussion) |
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frostedsaiyan
 Posts: 637 Location: Maryland |
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I though Ryo was pronounced like that. Re-o...
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Kanae
Posts: 118 |
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It's all one syllable -- kind of hard to spell out, since we don't really have anything that compares to the sound in English, but the 'o' is strong. The 'y' is acting as a consonant, rather than a vowel, if that makes any sense, and doesn't take the accent. It shouldn't sound like Rio as in Rio Grande. R-yoh is I guess the best way I can spell if phonetically, but even that doesn't really describe it. Just watch FAKE with the Japanese dialogue and subs and that'll show it.
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frostedsaiyan
Posts: 637 Location: Maryland |
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Oh, I just thought it sounded like that because of Ryu, from Street Fighter.
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Eternal Perplexity
 Posts: 21 Location: Houston Texas Cowboy |
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Well I don't mind it much. Guess things can't be perfect for each individual person...
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 12104 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I remember growing up back when that game started becoming popular. It was funny to hear people pronounce his name as "Rai-yuu" and they didn't even know his fireball move had a name. They just called it "a fireball" as opposed to Hadou-ken. Anyway, I would say I'm very nit-picky about name pronunciations, which is I why I watch most (not all) anime in Japanese, especially "Ken-sheen". Don't even get me started on how badly they screwed those names up...  .
Most of the problems that really annoy me though is how almost every dub pronounces "e" as "ee" when it should be a short "eh." Same goes for "ei." It makes a long "eh" and NOT a long "a" sound as in Raymond. So for say... Rei, it'd be like "Rehh," and not "Ray" as the crumby ADV dub of Evangelion goes, or Seijuro would be "Sehh-juro" as post to "Say-juro". But that's just my own personal thing. 
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zaphdash
 Posts: 620 Location: Brooklyn |
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"Rei" would be pronounced Reh-ee, which, when said quickly, sounds fairly close to "Ray." And, at least in some cases -- although not in the case of Ayanami Rei -- it's actually *supposed* to be Ray, such as in Macross 7. So pronouncing it "Ray," while slightly incorrect (because there's no such thing as a diphthong in Japanese, so it's wrong to compress two vowels into one sound), isn't that far off the mark. Just like Japanese speakers have trouble correctly pronouncing some English words, English speakers have trouble with some Japanese words, particularly with two vowels in a row, so I don't think it's really fair to complain that the dub actors do what they can to approximate the sound. Does it bother you when the Japanese actors mangle English words? |
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Ken Hayashi
 Posts: 752 Location: Singapore |
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No, it's actually amusing. I work with Japanese colleagues and maybe that's why I got used to it already. I usually watch dubs to get a better idea of the plot and then watch it again subbed to listen to the actual voice actors. It works for me. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 12104 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Nope. And I don't hold it against the English speaking dub actors/actresses either. English is their language so they sound good when speaking English, and Japanese seiyuu are good at Japanese because it's their native langauge. I don't care if the Japanese mangle words like "toramura" (trauma) or "sank you" (thank you), but for the most part, a lot of the anime I watch usually takes place in Japan anyway with only a few not so important words English words that sound weird, whereas Japanese names in English are more important (to me).
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kainzero
 Posts: 309 |
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umm... if you look up "konpyuuta" in a japanese dictionary, you'll find it. these words are loanwords from english, and have pretty much integrated themselves into the language. they're not trying to speak english, it's actually part of japanese. it bothers me more to hear people say "ore no COMPUTER." on the other hand, japanese words are rarely loaned into english. off the top of my head i can only think of one: ramen.
i don't think it's the dub actor's fault. i just don't think anyone tells them how it's supposed to be pronounced. even then, it sounds so broken compared with the rest of the language. just like "ore no COMPUTER," "SAH-ku-RAH, let's play" also sounds kinda messed up... which is why in some instances, I support name changes... yet it's kinda hard in certain anime... like Yomiko Readman, "Yomi" means to read. ahh, the complexity of translation... |
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Kanae
Posts: 118 |
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I don't mind when the American dubs get it close but not quite; what I'm talking about is when they're really, terribly, horrifyingly wrong. If they say Mah-SAH-mi instead of MAH-sa-mi, that's okay. If they say mayn-ga instead of mahnga, I twitch a little. If they do something where it's a particularly unattractive aspect of American English anyway (that was my problem with Ree-o: the strong American 'r' tends to be an incredibly ugly sound) I get crabby.
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zaphdash
Posts: 620 Location: Brooklyn |
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That's all fantastic, but really not what I was talking about. Firstly, it's debatable whether or not you can consider "konpyuuta" a legitimate pronunciation, but that's a can of worms I won't open. Even if we ignore the real loan words, there are plenty of names and English words used in anime all the time. One example provided by Tony K. already, "sankyuu," pops up pretty frequently, and it's absolutely not an import word. Or, forget words all together. Anime uses English names all the time, too. And if we're just talking names, we're comparing apples and apples, since this thread was really about English dub actors messing up Japanese names. How is Kanuka "Kuranshi" or "Wiru Geemu" or "Supaiku Supiigeru" (from Patlabor, Turn A Gundam, and, of course, Cowboy Bebop, respectively) any different from an English actor mangling a Japanese name? By the way, I just want to say that I actually strongly prefer subs, and that some English mispronunciations also get to me, so I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate here. When they're relatively minor, it doesn't matter, but there are a few...for instance, one that always got to me was in FUNimation's Yu Yu Hakusho dub, the way they pronounce Yusuke's surname, "Urameshi." They pronounce it with a "y" sound to lead off, so it's like "Yerameshi." I'm assuming most or all of you know how it should be pronounced, but if anyone doesn't, it should be something to the effect of "Oo-rah-meh-shee." |
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Kanae
Posts: 118 |
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I gotta admit, I'm nitpicky, but there's a difference IMO between a Japanese actor mangling an English word because they honestly have trouble pronouncing certain of the consonant combinations in English and an American dub actor mispronouncing a Japanese name or word because they simply haven't bothered to find out how to say it right. That's probably the biggest difference between stuff like "Supaiku Supiigeru" and something like a certain annoying person I know who still pronounces 'ichiban' as 'ihcky-ban' (With that wonderful flat American 'a' that drives the rest of the world up the wall) An American is perfectly capable of saying "eech-bahn;" a Japanese person would probably have a lot of trouble trying to get "Spike Spiegel" out.
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Emerje
 Posts: 7550 Location: Maine |
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Not really, they don't misspronounce english names because they can't help it, they do it because it's the way they're tought, just like we tend to pronounce the silent "u" in japanese. A person who's native language is Japanese can do it right, they choose not to. I agree with Zaphdash.
Emerje |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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Quite a few Japanese include it as well. |
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