Pronunciation!?

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

ok so i got this game for xmas and completed it on the 27th :D still a way of mastering it tho!!!

anyway, whilst playing the game it was bugging me that quite a few things were being said differently to how i had imagined them in my head. here's what i got:

Lucrecia - i thought it was "loo-cree-see-a" not "loo-cret-chi-a"
Yuffie - i thought "yuf-i" not "yoo-fi"
Mako - i thought "may-ko" not "mar-ko"
Shera - i thought "shee-ra" not "share-ra"
Tifa - it's "ti-fa" not "tee-fa"

btw i realise that he majority of these are names :D

anybody agree/disagree with me? think they were something else entirely? think of something else pronounced differently?

discuss.

[Zeromus_X]

I used to pronounce several of them wrong, but now pronounce them accordingly. I'd rather be pronouncing it the proper way.

[Demon Lancer]

its not mar-ko its mah-ko
... nor is it an insurance company uh ok better get mah-ko :(

[Mo-Nercy]

its not mar-ko its mah-ko
Would I be right in guessing that you're not Australian? :D

In Australian-English, there is virtually no difference between those two pronounciations. We don't pronounce the 'r' in many words. eg. park sounds like pahk. mark sounds like mahk. Worst of all source sounds exactly like sauce in general speech. That's without hypercorrection, of course (so if you're Aussie and trying it right now and thinking, "hey, I don't talk like that" it's because you're trying to 'fix' that way you speak)

:eep:

And yeah. Tifa, Yuffie and Lucrecia were the big ones. Turns out I've been saying it wrong for 7-8 years. :eek:

[Darth Anarcus]

I had always pretty much been with you, original poster, on all of those except for Shera and Tifa. They turned out to be exactly how I had envisioned. I was, however, suprised at "Mako," "Yuffie" (though I had found that out when I played Kingdom Hearts, but was suprised nonetheless) and "Lucrecia." (I had always thought of it to be "loo-kree-sha." Kind of makes me rethink how "Ultimecia" might be pronounced.")

[Demon Lancer]

I had always pretty much been with you, original poster, on all of those except for Shera and Tifa. They turned out to be exactly how I had envisioned. I was, however, suprised at "Mako," "Yuffie" (though I had found that out when I played Kingdom Hearts, but was suprised nonetheless) and "Lucrecia." (I had always thought of it to be "loo-kree-sha." Kind of makes me rethink how "Ultimecia" might be pronounced.")

Go fight her again and by the time you decide how her name is pronounced you would have won already

[Black Magic Shopkeeper]

You gotta remember: This game is from Japan. So the pronunciation is different from what you'd expect. For instance:

They cannot pronounce "Ti" as "Tih". "Ti" is ち (Tee). Also, "Fa" is not pronounced with an F because the only "F" katakana is "Fu" (ふ).
Instead, they use "Ha" (は).
Therefore Tifa is, in actuality ちは (Tee-Ha).

Next, Shera.
This one is an oddball. The Japanese do not HAVE "She" (Which would be pronounced "Sheh" upon their terms). So in reality she was originally "Shee-Ra" しら
(FUN FACT: Japanese have no real "R" or "L" in their alphabet. Instead, the "R/L" is pronounced by tapping the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue--To pronounce a light, almost inaudible D, coming out with the curve from an R.)

MAKO...
Again, they cannot pronounce "May-ko" unless they use "Me-i-Ko". They don't USE Me-I-KO for Mako, though. MA (ま) is simply "Mah". Just like "GA" (が) is Gah. And "YA" (や) is yah. Got it?
So Mako=まこ. (Mah-Ko)
(Another fun fact: Japanese "O" is pronounced only as "Go" or "Woe". That's why CHOCOBO doesn't sound like "Chocolate" at the beginning.)

Yuffie was easy for me to understand when I first saw her name, basically because I played the Japanese version before the dubbed. I saw her name as: ゆひ (YU-HI). So to me, her name is Yoo-Hee. It sounds much better to me that way. Prettier, in my opinion.
(FUN FACT #3: "U" in Japan is pronounced "Oo".)

Lucrecia is hard to get a grip on. When I first saw her name (In Japanese of course) it was spelt as such: るくれしゃ (Ru-ku-re-sya)
So I can't say her name as the Englishified "Lucrecia" at all. It comes out sounding somewhat different. But if I speed my pronunciation up just a bit, It sounds about right. Remember how it's pronounced. AGAIN.
ROO-KOO-REH-SIYAH.

And just for extra measures, I'll throw in my favorite Character...
Cait Sith.
The Japanese were nice to us Celts and decided to use the REAL word: Sidhe (pronounced in Ireland and other Celtic homelands as: Shee). Also, they used the Celtic word "Cat" (known by us as "Ket", or to people more like ME--the Gaelics of Ireland "Kot"--).
So translated from Celtic/Gaelic to Japanese, it sounded like "Ke-to Shii" (けと し)
The "TO" was thrown in, of course, because they cannot end their words in consonants like us. Only vowels. (Except for a short "N" -ん...) So normally they end words of a consonant-abundant language, they use "o" to end each word with.
Sadly, Cait Sith (or rather, Ket Sidhe in more exact manners) is not an Irish faery. It's Scottish. Irish Faeries deriving from cats and other animals of such nature are called "Pooka".

Anyway, I gave my little lesson of pronunciation for the day...Hope it makes some sense.

[DK]

I agree on all apart from Shera, which I pronounced the way it is in the game. I still pronounce them how I do, because it sounds more natural to me than some of the dumbarse ones from the game. :monster:

[Kita]

I always said it Mayko.
In the game, someone says "Shinra" just like that. Shinra. And then someone else says it "sheenra"
So I'm thinking...how do you say it?
I always like Yuffie better than Yoofie.
And I pronounced Lucrecia "Lu-cray-cia" or "Lu-cree-cia"
Tifa was Ti-fa not Tee-fa. And Shera was just..."Sheh-ra"
....yeah.

[Enjolras]

Well, with our accents down here is Australia and New Zealand, most of us pronounce Tifa "Tee-fa" by defualt. Mako is also usually "Mah-ko", not "May-ko". Those two are right, but all the people I know in NZ said Yuffie "Yah-ffie" and Lucrecia " Lu-kree-sha", which are both apparently wrong.

[Mo-Nercy]

Well, with our accents down here is Australia and New Zealand, most of us pronounce Tifa "Tee-fa" by defualt.
I think that's more unique to NZ because you guys have a crazy tendancy to shift all your vowel pronunciations. For many years, I had been saying 'tiff-ah'

[Darth Anarcus]

Even if the pronunciations are different in Japanese, they could have changed them in English so that they sound better and are more in line with what most of us were thinking. That would have been the smart thing, I think, rather than throwing all of these weird pronunciations at us, forcing us to adopt weird new words in place of the ones we had always used for ten years in our minds.

[Kita]

NZ pronounciation can be much different to Aus pronounciation!
Everyone I know has said it Tiff-ah..

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

i found another one on my replay through

niebelheim - i thought it was "n-I-bel-heim" but the game pronounces it "nee-bel-heim"

and btw, i still pronounce things how i originally thought it was cos it's sort of force of habit now :D stupid ff consuming my life, i love it!!!

[Enjolras]

NZ pronounciation can be much different to Aus pronounciation!
Everyone I know has said it Tiff-ah..

Well, maybe I was wrong on that one then.
...There's probably not much point me talking about this, as I don't think most of the US or GBR people on this site are gonna care much about how a teensy little island like New Zealand pronounces 'Tifa'.

[No.78]

The pronunciation of lucrecia DID make no sense whatsoever.

LUCRETCHIA!!!

"NO!!!"

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

don't be nasty the the new zealandishians enjolras. besides NZ is a great place, have u seen LotR's!?

[TasteyPies]

niebelheim - i thought it was "n-I-bel-heim" but the game pronounces it "nee-bel-heim"

Will always be nibble-heem in my book.

[Kita]

I never knew how to say Niebelheim.
I thought..nibble hem. Nible hime.

Good things come in small packages!
NZ looks awesome :D

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

noticed something else today, but in the game they purposefully never say cait sith's name? they always say sumething like "my feline friend" or "you know who".

why do you think this is?

[YTDN]

I always pronounced Lucrecia as 'Loo-kree-sha'. I have no idea how they got 'Loo-Kre-tia' out of it. Anyway, I'm still gonna pronounce how I think it should be said.

[Enjolras]

don't be nasty the the new zealandishians enjolras. besides NZ is a great place, have u seen LotR's!?

Hey man, look at my location. Besides, I wasn't really being nasty, just self-deprecating.

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

rofl, i love a guy that can kick himself in the face! :D much like wee man ;)

[Black Magic Shopkeeper]

noticed something else today, but in the game they purposefully never say cait sith's name? they always say sumething like "my feline friend" or "you know who".

why do you think this is?

Probably because even they're stumped.

[Darth Anarcus]

I'm awaiting the pronunciation of "Red XIII." Is it "Red Thirteen" or "Red the Thirteenth"?

Something funny is that I've recently been saying it as "Red Thirteen Dickhead," because when I asked this question over at FFWA, someone replied with "Clearly Thirteen dickhead," lacking a comma after "Thirteen" and thereby making it sound like it was part of the name. It's kind of an inside joke between myself and myself.

[chrisfffan]

for some reason i used to say serpico for sephiroth ha ha

[tidus_rox]

I got this game and was surprised that I pronounced every single thing in the game right! I was so proud of myslef!!

[Zeromus_X]

You gotta remember: This game is from Japan. So the pronunciation is different from what you'd expect. For instance:

They cannot pronounce "Ti" as "Tih". "Ti" is ち (Tee). Also, "Fa" is not pronounced with an F because the only "F" katakana is "Fu" (ふ).
Instead, they use "Ha" (は).
Therefore Tifa is, in actuality ちは (Tee-Ha).

Next, Shera.
This one is an oddball. The Japanese do not HAVE "She" (Which would be pronounced "Sheh" upon their terms). So in reality she was originally "Shee-Ra" しら
(FUN FACT: Japanese have no real "R" or "L" in their alphabet. Instead, the "R/L" is pronounced by tapping the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue--To pronounce a light, almost inaudible D, coming out with the curve from an R.)

MAKO...
Again, they cannot pronounce "May-ko" unless they use "Me-i-Ko". They don't USE Me-I-KO for Mako, though. MA (ま) is simply "Mah". Just like "GA" (が) is Gah. And "YA" (や) is yah. Got it?
So Mako=まこ. (Mah-Ko)
(Another fun fact: Japanese "O" is pronounced only as "Go" or "Woe". That's why CHOCOBO doesn't sound like "Chocolate" at the beginning.)

Yuffie was easy for me to understand when I first saw her name, basically because I played the Japanese version before the dubbed. I saw her name as: ゆひ (YU-HI). So to me, her name is Yoo-Hee. It sounds much better to me that way. Prettier, in my opinion.
(FUN FACT #3: "U" in Japan is pronounced "Oo".)

Lucrecia is hard to get a grip on. When I first saw her name (In Japanese of course) it was spelt as such: るくれしゃ (Ru-ku-re-sya)
So I can't say her name as the Englishified "Lucrecia" at all. It comes out sounding somewhat different. But if I speed my pronunciation up just a bit, It sounds about right. Remember how it's pronounced. AGAIN.
ROO-KOO-REH-SIYAH.

And just for extra measures, I'll throw in my favorite Character...
Cait Sith.
The Japanese were nice to us Celts and decided to use the REAL word: Sidhe (pronounced in Ireland and other Celtic homelands as: Shee). Also, they used the Celtic word "Cat" (known by us as "Ket", or to people more like ME--the Gaelics of Ireland "Kot"--).
So translated from Celtic/Gaelic to Japanese, it sounded like "Ke-to Shii" (けと し)
The "TO" was thrown in, of course, because they cannot end their words in consonants like us. Only vowels. (Except for a short "N" -ん...) So normally they end words of a consonant-abundant language, they use "o" to end each word with.
Sadly, Cait Sith (or rather, Ket Sidhe in more exact manners) is not an Irish faery. It's Scottish. Irish Faeries deriving from cats and other animals of such nature are called "Pooka".

Anyway, I gave my little lesson of pronunciation for the day...Hope it makes some sense.

Um...I know you probably mean well, but I'll have to correct you. Foreign words and sounds are transliterated into Japanese with katakana (which contains sounds not very normal to Japanese so they are able to pronounce foreign words correctly). This of course includes the names of characters.

Tifa is ティファ (Ti fa), pronounced Tee-fa.

Shera was シエラ (Shi e ra, "Sierra"), but was changed to Shera in the english version. In katakana, Shera would be something like シェラ (She ra), so I guess it's an honest mistake..

Yuffie is ユフィ (Yu Fi), Yoo-fee.

Lucrecia's is rather awkward, ルクレツィア (Ru ku re tsi a), 'Lucretchia' seems to be the proper pronunciation they picked in DoC.

Finally, Cait Sith's is ケット シー (Ketto Shii), which is an imitation of 'Caught Shee', Cait Sidhe the Gaelic cat fairy, etc.

[DM_Melkhar]

ok so i got this game for xmas and completed it on the 27th :D still a way of mastering it tho!!!

anyway, whilst playing the game it was bugging me that quite a few things were being said differently to how i had imagined them in my head. here's what i got:

Lucrecia - i thought it was "loo-cree-see-a" not "loo-cret-chi-a"
Yuffie - i thought "yuf-i" not "yoo-fi"
Mako - i thought "may-ko" not "mar-ko"
Shera - i thought "shee-ra" not "share-ra"
Tifa - it's "ti-fa" not "tee-fa"

btw i realise that he majority of these are names :D

anybody agree/disagree with me? think they were something else entirely? think of something else pronounced differently?

discuss.

Lucrecia - I originally thought the same until I watched Gundam Wing, as that's Lieutenant Noin's first name.

Yuffie - Same, but after hearing the correct pronunciation it makes sense almost. Yuf-i just sounds....rubbish, in my opinion.

Mako - I didn't think may-ko or mar-ko. I originally thought ma-ko, just the way the word looks when you write/type it.

Shera - Shee-ra? Possibly because the original Shera was Heman's opposite? Both cartoons are ages old now, but I remember watching both Heman and Shera. However, when I played FFVII, I believed it to be share-a. I seriously doubted that Sakaguchi would have kept the same pronunciation as that female cartoon warrior of years past. Wouldn't fit someone like FFVII's Shera.

Tifa - Likewise, I thought Ti-fa and not Tee-fa as well. However, if you listen very carefully in Advent Children, it's been pronounced both ways.

Another argument I'd heard before Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus was how to pronounce Sephiroth. There were a few possibilities:

1.) Seph-roth - keeping the i silent.
2.) Sephir-oth - saying the first two syllables as though they were one.
3.) Seph-ee-roth - as it sounds in One-winged Angel.
4.) Sepher-oth - how Rufus pronounces it in AC.

Both 2 and 4 are said in AC. I prefer 2.

[Fynn]

Wait... What origin does Lucrecia's name have? Isn't it slovian? The pronounciation would make sense then.

[Grendal]

Lucrecia - "loo-cree-shee-uh"

Yuffie - "yuh-fee" Although "u" is normally pronounced "oo" in Japanese, it can take the form of "uh" when preceeding certain sounds. I think this case would be "yuh-fee."

Mako - "mah-ko" This is how it is pronounced in Japanese.

Shera - This should probably be Sheila, not Shera. "r" and "l" are very ambiguous in Japanese, being that they come from the same sound. Because of this, "r" and "l" are often mixed up when translating words into English.

Tifa - "tee-fuh" This is how it is pronounced in Japanese.

[Grendal]

I never knew how to say Niebelheim.
I thought..nibble hem. Nible hime.

Good things come in small packages!
NZ looks awesome :D

This is an Old Norse word. It's actually supposed to be spelled Niflheim. (you also misspelled the misspelled version of it!) It is roughly pronounced "niffle-hayme."

[razorrozar7]

Cait Sith=Ket Shee. Hardest thing ever to wrap your mind around.

[blackmage_nuke]

Lucrecia - I pronouced it Loo-cre-shi-a like, I would pronounce the cia in artificial
Yuffie - I got yoo-fee because of the magic e at the end making the U=oo
Mako - I say mac-o or mah-co
Shera - I say share-a
Tifa - I said Ti-fa as well

off topic but if you lived in NZ i believe the pronunciations would be
Luh-kr-uh-chuh-eh
Yoo-fuh
Meh-koe
Shee-rii
Tuh-feh

edit: didnt realise this thread was necro'd...

[razorrozar7]

Lucrecia: Loo-cree-sha
Yuffie: Yoo-fee
Mako: May-ko (I'm working on it >_<)
Shera: Sheh-rah
Tifa: Tih-fah (short for Tiffany. :D)

[Rye]

Please don't revive threads older than 3 months. :) Thank you.