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Alright, I’m gonna sound like a complete noob here, but what is the true pronunciation for manga and anime? Over here in America, everyone always called it manga(main-ga) and anime(long a-na-may) After starting Japanese, I used the Japanese pronunciation, the syllables in hiragana. Had a debate with a friend who claims that she talked to a Japanese person that said that it was pronounced the first, American way, and that anyone who said “mon-ga” sounded like an idiot. I disagree with her, though I don’t technically know which one is right. So who’s right?
Mainga? Where the hell do people get that i from?! It’s “man-ga” and “a-ni-may”
I think your friend is lying. Or spoke to an imposter. ;)
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
Luke.
If you have learned hiragana the correct pronunciation should be pretty easy to figure out for you…
Yah. “Mon-ga” is too far the other way. Unless you were talking “mon” as in “Monday”. It’s kinda tricky to write the pronunciation of things in text.
And on that note, Yggbert, you’re not the first person I’ve seen write it, but why on Earth is “ay” the way you write the “e” sound?
@Joel Because it’s easier to get across how it should sound without creating confusion, if I say “a-ni-me” then people could end up thinking you’re meant to say “me” as in, I.
The “me” in “anime” sounds the same as how you’d pronounce the month May anyway.
1. your friend is lying
2. when you friend spoke to the japanese person, he didn’t specifically ask about the pronunciation, but misheard.
3. the japanese person was speaking english with your friend and thus used the american pronunciation because it is more widely accepted.even the japanese students I teach english too ask me how they should pronounce japanese words that are used commonly in english (ie karate and karaoke, etc..) and have way different pronunciation in english. Let me assure you, they do pronounce it with japanese pronunciation when they are speaking japanese.
Yggbert wrote:
> The “me” in “anime” sounds the same as how you’d pronounce the month May anyway.… No it doesn’t. At least, not how I’d pronounce May. It sounds more like “meh”, only not so heavy on the h sound. Granted, “animay” is the way it usually gets pronounced in English, but “ahnimeh” closer represents how it’s meant to sound. Of course, the problem with using phrases like “sounds like” or “rhymes with” is that different English dialects pronounce vowels differently. (Interestingly, my Japanese lecturer commented that Americans usually have atrocious accents when speaking in Japanese, while Australians tend to be almost accent-free. Go figure. =P )
KiaiFighter wrote:
> (ie karate and karaoke, etc..)Ooo, and the old favourite, “kah-mah-kah-zeeee”. I mean, that’s not even how it’s spelt.
I’ve never heard anybody say the month May as “meh” or anything closely resembling it so that seems very weird to me. For Japanese I think “mey” is the best way to get across the sound in English. I should have used that instead in hindsight.
Sorry, I meant “meh” is how you pronounce the “me” is “anime”, not “May”. “Mey” is closer than “may”, I suppose, but it’s still too drawn-out. I mean, I’ve seen one blog where the writer gives pronunciation guides whenever he writes a Japanese word or place name, and always uses “ay” every time a word has an “e” sound – for example, “Kobe is pronounced Koh-bay”. I just want to scream “it’s not bay! It’s beh!”
>The “me” in “anime” sounds the same as how you’d pronounce the month May anyway.
No, not in Japanese. The え vowel in Japanese is too short and clipped to sound like “ay” or “ey”. It’s closer to “eh” as Joel says, like in “bet” and “met”.
Listen to this audio clip of the word 宣伝 (senden):
http://assets3.iknow.jp/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JW00452A.mp3
It doesn’t sound like “sayndayn”, right? :)
Ah-nee-meh more in Japanese; Ah-nee-mey more in English. Sounds like it should be a French word, spelled “animé” :P
I’d say the え sound is somewhere between “eh” and “ay”, though it really depends on the person’s accent, I guess.
When you wrote “mainga” and “monga”, I just thought that was hilarious :’) But then when I thought about what your accent must be like, it kinda makes sense to write them like that. You’re from the US, right? Don’t live there, so can’t place where that accent would be from, but can hear it in my head haha. And the “na” sound you’ve placed in “a-na-may” I think would be better written as “nih”, but whatever.
Michael wrote:
> Sounds like it should be a French word, spelled “animé” :PFrom memory, French does have something to do with it. Animation came to Japan from France, or something like that. Or maybe I’m misremembering. In any case, “anime” is an abbreviation of “animation” – which doesn’t really help in this discussion, since it’s pronounced “a-nee-may-shun” – which is spelt in Japanese as アニメーション. Hence アニメ.
@Micheal: Oh no, my accent’s not that bad. xD I was trying to exaggerate the pronunciation, so people would understand what I was saying. I probably should’ve used hiragana to spell out the pronunciations, not words.
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
Jesse.
I had this same argument in 5th grade with this one kid… he never learned…
Looks like the others have got it covered. Pronounce it as it’s written, deviations within a certain range can be chalked up either to accent or speed. The longer you draw it out the more obvious it will become though– a quick a • ni • mé will likely be truncated to a • ni • me, either by your throat or the listener.
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This reply was modified 13 years ago by
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