7 replies to this topic

[ScrapIron Prime]

Is anyone else tired of hearing Major Campbell and other voiceovers absolutely butcher House names? Either I've been told wrong and have been making the same mistake for 36 years, or the Draconis Combine's house name is supposed to be pronounced KOO-ree-tah or kyoo-REE-tah. Hearing the game pronounce things like CURE-ee-tuns just... hurts.

Am I wrong? Is that a correct pronunciation? Did previous Mechwarrior games have it wrong?

[Wildstreak]

All are wrong, I and many others always knew it as CUR-ree-tah.

[SomersetStriker]

Major Campbell does the best she can

Edited by SomersetStriker, 10 June 2021 - 10:39 AM.

[Escef]

A lot of people butcher Asiatic languages. Part of the problem is that when the words get transcribed into the Latin alphabet there is generally no indication of syllable breaks. Syllables in Japanese, for example, tend to consist of a vowel or a consonant-vowel pairing. For example, the classic animated science fiction movie from 1988, "Akira"; the name would be broken into syllables as "a ki ra". On top of that, Japanese words don't generally have accented syllables (that is, it is often spoken in a monotone, except for words spoken with deliberate emphasis). Syllables in Japanese do not normally end in a consonant (the exceptions usually being an n or m sound).

Another example of how Japanese gets hacked to hell outside of Asia: Kage. The word means "shadow", and is pronounced loosely "kah gay". But a lot of people read it and impose English spelling and pronunciation rules to it, leading it to frequently being said the same as cage. (This was apparently an issue in the production of the game DaiKatana. There was a character named "Kage", and there was no consistency in how the voice actors pronounced the name. A lot of people needed to re-record their lines.)

Then there's the fact that many East and Southeast Asian languages do not have a distinct R or L sound, they have one sound that's kind of a blend of both. Yes, that silly, stereotypical accent exists for a reason. Another aspect of the stereotypical accent is people from Asian countries don't pluralize words properly. That's because in a lot of their languages, there is no such thing as a plural noun, the concept is alien to them. Another weird thing is "ts". It's a sound that doesn't exist in a lot of European languages. In English, the only place it really occurs is in the middle of the word "bestseller". It's almost a "z" sound, but not quite. (Apparently, German speakers tend to have an easier time with this one, as the sound does exist in their language.) Of the top of my head, I can think of the Capellan Ti Ts'ang (from TRO 3060) as an example.

Yes, I'm a monolingual American, but I do find the idiosyncrasies of language fascinating, so I've picked up a lot of odd tidbits about the subject.

[Anubis Ka]

I found during the little time I studied Japanese the best way to pronounce romaji is to read it in Spanish.
While not perfect, reading Hiragana and Katakana charts in Spanish the pronunciation was closer to Japanese than if they were read in English.

[Anubis Ka]

ScrapIron Prime, on 10 June 2021 - 07:56 AM, said:

Is anyone else tired of hearing Major Campbell and other voiceovers absolutely butcher House names? Either I've been told wrong and have been making the same mistake for 36 years, or the Draconis Combine's house name is supposed to be pronounced KOO-ree-tah or kyoo-REE-tah. Hearing the game pronounce things like CURE-ee-tuns just... hurts.

Am I wrong? Is that a correct pronunciation? Did previous Mechwarrior games have it wrong?

For me it also is hearing dah-VION instead of DAY-vion

[Escef]

Anubis Ka, on 10 June 2021 - 03:26 PM, said:

I found during the little time I studied Japanese the best way to pronounce romaji is to read it in Spanish.
While not perfect, reading Hiragana and Katakana charts in Spanish the pronunciation was closer to Japanese than if they were read in English.

Tangential anecdote. Shortly after I got a PS2 (way back in the years of pre-history, right?), I starting updating some of my video collection from VHS to DVD. I was watching the episode of Evangelion where Asuka makes her first appearance. And I decided to cycle through the audio tracks to see who did the best job with her German lines. The Japanese voice actress... Well, she tried. The English voice actress was actually fluent in German, and did a good job. The Spanish actress did a good job, but at the very end of one of the phrases threw a distinctive Spanish twang into it. And the French voice actress, oh, dear gods... Even to my untrained, American ears she sounded like someone speaking German with a French accent. It was so weird.

[TVMA Doc]

SomersetStriker, on 10 June 2021 - 10:37 AM, said:

Major Campbell does the best she can

She's "special". Probably rode the short drop ship to class.