Tsiun dear? Moat Moat? daoh jins?

It is nice to see everyone can pronounce things the right way - whatever they may be thinking the "right" way is.

Loads of anime obviously, my dear.

It doesn't work that way for the regular person. It might for words that are often stand alone like itadakimasu, moe, or kawaii, but I bet half the people here would pronounce "mote mote" as "moat moat" while the other half says "mo te mo te".

Even words like kawaii which everyone thinks they can pronounce, end up saying it KA-[WHY] and leave off the second "i" at the end.

I was joking of course... I don't think you can really learn Japanese by merely watching Anime, either.

By the way, it made think of this discussion.

Since a certain event I've been pronouncing hentai as "hen tie".

They don't know what to look for, you can't really blame them. Plus honestly japanese is such a weird language. The rules for it are so unique. English has German as a common language. Spanish, French, and Italian are Romance languages. But Japanese stands alone, nothing is similar. You have to change your view of how words are put together and how you form your sounds when speaking.

I think that is why it is called "romaji" and not "how you spell it in english"

I think if you just took Roman letters and used english rules, Kawaii would be pronounced like "Kuh - WHY" the ending sounding like Hawaii or like the question "Why?". Since people don't know about how each character has to be pronounced audibly, they assume the two i's make a long "Y" sound. It is really supposed to be "Kuh-Wai-Ee". Don't leave off the "i" at the end.

See this is all important, because I was going around telling little girls they looked kawaii, but leaving off that last i. So in my southern accent it sounded more like kowai, which meant I was telling little girls they looked scary.

When you said Kuh - WHY, for some reason I thought that would be something Hank Hill would say.

Also, after 4 years of studying Japanese I can honestly say I think I could give a basic lesson on how to pronounce general words that are thrown around on anime boards in less than 30 minutes, especially if you teach people how vowels work. It's not a terribly difficult language to learn at all, it's just the vocabulary and kanji that take forever, no so much the structure or kana. Also, you say it would sound like Hawaii, but I say Hawaii the same was I say Kawaii, so I don't get how that works..

And of course there are always going to be the people who simply say they don't give a shit and will continue to pronounce it wrong for the rest of their lives, such as crazy as WWII vets.

WWII vets don't say Kawaii.

But your right, my Hawaii example was bad. Mainly used it because a lot of people pronounce Hawaii wrong too, myself included.

Portuguese here, so pronouncing japanese stuff is caek.

Fun fact: I used to pronounce raze's name just like in japanese. But I think I saw in a post somewhere that it was suposed to be pronounced in english. I still say it jap though, not like it matters.

Well, for me as a German, picking up Japanese pronunciation was also quite easy. We basically pronounce stuff in a very similar way.

The only thing that needed practice were syllables beginning with "r", getting it to "roll" right may be a bit tricky. Imitating a cat's purr helped lol

I sorta get what you guys are talking about but, there isn't really a "r" sound in japanese :|

Nevermind, I'm pretty sure I get ya.

Go to 0:19-0:25. I just say it the way they say it in anime, the way it's meant to be said. It's like with English you don't like it when anime characters speak engrish the wrong way.


Kawaii and Kowai

I don't have an ear for it, I had to listen to that video like 3 times before hearing the difference between kowai and kawaii.

I don't believe everyone when they say 'they speak it the way it's supposed to be' I'm sure a bunch of you mess up on pronunciations ;|

The best way to pick up a language is simply exposure, I'd say. So for any number of people who prefer watching Subs over Dubs, and who listen to J-Pop, J-Rock, and generally immerse themselves into the culture- I'd say that they can get the pronunciation down pat.

Hell- my best buddy speaks perfect Japanese- but he's got no bloody idea what any of it means. XD