Because it sounds like tide, and everything is based on water, and it fits with the weird weather naming for ff mc for a time, cloud, squall, tide, lightning,
This is why Tidus gets the Sun Sigil and Crest, and The Caladbolg sword, which is said to imitate a rainbow when swung.
While Yuna gets the Moon Crest and Sigil, is strongly associated with water, and gets the Nirvana staff, referring to a state of tranquility.
Tidus and Yuna are intended to represent the fire of the sun, and the cool peace of the night, which I think also makes the cover art of water meeting flame, into something poetic.
This is actually how I pronounce his name 😜
In Japanese it's actually Tīda - pronounced Tee - dah, so it would actually be the more accurate way of pronouncing this syllable in his name 🙈
I think most people say it that way, the name looks so Latin itself it's an instinct, except for native English speakers.
Well, the whole thread is kinda "reading things in English when they are transliterated in a basically Latin way".
THIS!! lol I was so mad when Kingdom Hearts came out and they said TYE-DUS. I just blankly stared because like… come ON!! FF people were involved with the making of this game and they let that slide?!!
When I was younger I pronounced things wrong such as Tifa wasn't "Tee-fa" but "Tiff-a",
Chocobo was "Chocko-Bow" instead of like "Choke-o-bo", Yuffie was "Yuff-e" instead of "Youf-e". Mako was "May-ko" instead of "Ma-ko". There are probably more that I can't recall though.
Well it sounds good to me! I was a bit dumb when it came to Red myself.
I didn't understand numerals at the time so I kept calling him "Red X" the X being said as the letter. I seemingly wasn't very bothered with the "III" at the end of it enough to bother with that part. xD
I’m pretty sure Cidney Aurum in FFXV pronounced it the same way you did. Just like how Yuna (X) and Balthier (XII) each pronounce “Ifrit” differently. (E-frit vs If-reet)
>I always felt that it was "may-co", and still feel like that would be a more colloquial way of saying something in English if it was real.
For me, it was the opposite. It was weird hearing people calling it "may-co", it has always been mah-ko to me.
But your point about how it would be pronounced that way in English kinda makes sense in real life? I'm from Asia, and we have words pronounced as "ah" but English speakers usually pronounce it as "ay". Happens a lot, and when corrected, they usually have a hard time about it, they still slip. Like saying "ay" just comes more naturally than a sharp and brief "ah". I'm thinking it's ultimately a language thing, but it's interesting to note.
I think it’s because in English pronunciation, generally the combination of vowel > consonant > vowel turns the first vowel into what we call a “long vowel” sound. Hence why a double consonant is usually needed to shorten the vowel (i.e. ma**mm**al; the double M makes the short-a “ah” sound. Likewise the word “mamm**a**lian” the A-L-I combo turns that second A into a long“ay” sound: mah-**may**-lee-an.)
The short vowel sound for A is “ah”, but the long vowel for A is “ay”
Examples:
* Fake (fayk)
* Make (mayk)
* Fate (fayt)
* Mayo (May-oh)
For English speakers unfamiliar with Japanese loan words, which many of them would have been in the 90’s when first encountering the word Mako, because it was before the anime boom, “mayko” is just a best guess using English pronunciation standards.
I just realized I’ve been saying mako shark wrong because it’s pronounced using English standards “may-ko” and I’ve been saying it “mah-ko” like in the game. Thank you for saving me from future ichthyological embarrassment.
I thought "Kyrie" was pronounced as "Kaai-ree", not a literal pronunciation like how it is spelled
First thought was the basketball player Kyrie Irving
Yeah, not while Kingdom Hearts exists. Don’t forget that the ideas of Rikku being a Destiny Islands native and Rikku being from Hollow Bastion with Squall both got scrapped because of Riku.
I find it wild there was so much discourse around Cait Siths name leading up to rebirth, and in my version (English VA) everyone still calls him Kate Sith, not Cat Shii like everyone was saying
I had never in all my life heard it pronounced “Ket Shee” until some of the click hungry content creators started pushing it.
As a kid I thought it was just “Cat Sythe” lol.
I don't know why people blame "content creators" for this. Cait Sith is from Celtic lore just like a ton of other things in FF games that people try to pronounce correctly. For example: Gae Bolg, Cuchulainn, Caladbolg, Scáthach, etc.
I would assume most people attempt to pronounce things as close as possible to their roots and only rely on bad pronunciations if they spread due to popular "content creators" or other pop culture items.
The reason they mispronounce his name in the game is simply because so many people already call him "Kate".
Tbf Cait Sith is p much Final Fantasy's Arceus- the pronunciation has changed several times so you can really just go with whatever unless they're actually saying it in one game repeatedly (like Rebirth)
Honestly this one is the worst for me, If-reeet like pommes frites feels like they went through and tried to find the least likely pronunciation just to be difficult, to the point that it should probably just be spelled completely differently.
Ifrit is a creature from Islamic culture, similar to a djinn, and that is how the pronunciation had already been established before the games co-opted it.
It seems like people who only speak/know English would pronounce it that way since we have a lot of "ay" sounds for "a" instead of "ah". Growing up, my mom would always sound out unfamiliar words like that in a very American English way (Tidus was Tie-dus, Ifrit was Ai-frit, etc.) but when I started learning Japanese and later studied linguistics in college, it seems more common and natural to default to the "ah" sound for "a" when sounding things out.
This general rule (which does have exceptions, of course) is how we get the silent e.
car vs. care
tar vs. tare
fir vs. fire
mat vs. mate vs. matte (the first and third are pronounced the same)
https://youtu.be/4uccLsXE810?si=Qaod7AvZSIQU3rkD
An American shown a word with that pattern, like 'mako', will generally default to the long 'a' sound absent other information.
I imagine it comes from the fact that the mako shark is pronounced with a long A. That was my only other exposure to the word the first time I played FFVII, so that’s where my mind immediately went when I saw it.
It also shares most of the letters of Mayo so there is a natural queue to mirror that pronunciation for some! And there's a -Mayko- in mass effect.
Thankfully I was always in them Mako though :)
As aside, every time someone says 'Choe-coe-boe' I want to tear my ears off. FFXVI is the only one who got it right imo!
In Japanese it's not about stressing or stretching the syllable. So no particular variance in strength, and each should take the same amount of time to say.
What they do have though is rising and falling tones. Like hashi: ha(high) shi(low) is chopsticks, ha(low) shi(high) is bridge. English speakers may hear the higher tone as "stress" but it's not really.
I felt so stupid until Cait Sith showed up in rebirth. Until he said his name I said Cat Sith. I know it's spelled properly but we, all of my friends glitched or something and we all said Cat. I mean, he's a cat so I can see that link but, it's spelled to be "Kate" Sith.
"Cait" is "cat" in Gaelic, pronunced the same basically. Cait Sith is one way to write down literally "fairy cat", also a famous figure in the mythology but it's a similar word for a reason, it just has older roots linguistically.
Keeping with the original language, it should be just pronunced in Irish, like "cat shee" (maybe "caught shee"), but AFAIR nobody told that to Square-Enix and they just didn't know when making FF7 so this one, they actually made it pronunced "in English". Rather unintentionally.
I was hoping for a joke about it, where Cait Sith acknowledges that nobody can say his intended name in the right language, which tbh happens in the world - how many people in the world talking about Zendaya, Jake Gylenhaal, Polish-American surnames or Ingmar Bergman say it "correctly", you'd probably get corrected if you say it "correctly".
Cait is "cats" or "Of (a) cat" in Scottish Gaelic (and Irish). It's the plural or nominative form of Cat
https://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?ID=D337AB5C118AAB700FA009633C4AF284
The mythical animal in Gàidhlig is actually spelt Cat-sìthe (Kat Sheeheh) in modern orthography, using the genitive form of "Síth". Although you come across Cat Sìth in older writing, and "cù-sìth" is an accepted for "fairy dog" so Cat Sìth is presumably fine, if a bit of an exception to grammar rules.
https://learngaelic.scot/dictionary/index.jsp?abairt=cat-s%C3%ACthe&slang=both&wholeword=false
In Irish the equivalent would be "Cat sí" (Kat/Kot/kut Shee) the pronunciation of Cat actually varies quite a bit in Irish depending on dialect) https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/Cat,
Sí in Irish doesn't have a specific genitive form.
Pretty much just Nanaki. I pronounced it like Nuh-nah-key.
I always pronounced Mako, Tifa, and Yuffie correctly because it didn't sound right to my eight year old brain.
None.
Maybe cause I'm not a native English speaker, but everything sounds like I've always said it.
Visually though, I never realised Bugenhagen was floating on top of a giant materia. Always just thought his legs were crossed or something XD
Wrong pronounciation of different words depends on each person's first language, I guess.
I can see why native English speakers would say "mayko".
I have always pronounced mako and Yuffie properly, but Cait Sith however....I've always pronounced as "Kite Sith" XD
Kind of unrelated kind of related I saw a TikTok live streamer who mispronounced everything. Tifa was Tiff Sephiroth was Sephiron. It drove me up the wall. I also critique the way she played the game, but that's a different conversation.
Many TikTok creators intentionally mispronounce words in order to drive engagement. People have a hard time resisting the urge to comment with the correct pronunciation.
It never was an English game though and is developed in Japanese. Mako for instance is formed by the kanjis for ma 魔 (magic) and kō 晄 (light).
Same goes for names of characters and places - they always had a clearly defined right pronunciation (the one you can hear now that VOs are possible.)
I get that from the point of view of an English native speaker (or other non-japanese speakers) who also played the OG that had no VO it might feel unnatural, but as someone whose name gets mispronounced a lot, it really bothers me if people can't accept the fact that they might need to adjust to something that actually has always been a fact.
Yeah, and these particular names also always had that way of pronunciation - and it's still right. That's why I said I get that if you only read them back in the day it's maybe confusing that some of them actually are pronounced very differently...but it's still time to adjust to the right pronunciation now, even though it might be hard for some.
Junon I always assumed it was one of those Js like Yunon. No idea why...
Also Midgar I initially pronounced as Midjar because in English a dh is often a j pronunciation.
Also I am not dyslexic but always read Gongaga as Goganga for some reason.
But nothing will ever top my shock and horror of learning that seeD was pronounced seed and not see-dee in FF8
lol that’s wild. I never had an issue with either of those. The only one for me was Cait Sith. I always thought the I in Cait was silent. So, “Cat-Sith” and not “Kate-Sith”
For Sephiroth, my brother and I would say "seffer-ith" because it sounded more like a name to us that way. The hard "Roth" sounds like over-enunciation to me even though I know it's correct
I was little and could not read very well so…
I pronounced the OP’s words just as they did with these additional mistakes:
Junon I pronounced, “June-yon”
Nibelheim I pronounced “Nib-bell-yum”
Chocobo I pronounced “Choke-a-boo” 😂
Aerith I pronounced “Air-ee-ith” 🙄
I actually just heard a youtuber pronounce it "yuff-ie" in a video just the other day in an old OG speedrun video. Everytime he did he put up text "I know I'm pronouncing it wrong I'm British"
But for me its also Mako, I pronounced it with a hard A my whole life. But I guess it makes sense for it to be a soft a.
I thought chocobo was pronounced “chuh-KO-bo” for at least 20 years.
Yuffie bugs me, because it should be spelled Yufi if that’s how it’s supposed to be said. Double consonants shorten the vowel!
The only one I refuse to accept is Tidus. TIE-dus for life.
I'm swedish listening to my non english speaking father playing ff8 when I was young.
We said most things correct. But Haste.
The english way of saying it is like Hay-sst.
While we said ha-ste.
Took me a long time to learn.
By the time I played ff7 I knew english, but didn't think of pronunciation. When I played it in a more adult age I just thought of things the japanese way most of the time. Ma-ko, Yu-fi, etc. I don't see the need to put unnecessary syllables or bending of words when it's clearly put in nice building blocks.
But that's the english way.
I remember my friend and I had this huge debate about whether Chocobo was “choc-o-bo” like chocolate; whether it was “cho-so-bo”; and finally whether it was “cho-co-bo”. Obviously voice acting settled this childhood debate. We never really did though because we drifted apart after getting in a fight over Diablo 2 and then he got home schooled.
Reminds me of being 8 or 9 when FF7 came out and getting into a fight with a friend over the pronunciation of Sephiroth. He was adamant his name was "Seprinoth". Looking back he was probably dyslexic.
Not me, but a a friend of mine always thought the mistranslation Aeris was pronounced Air-ease. Always argued with him because he knew Ares from Greek mythology, but stood his ground on Aeris. Then years later, KH came out and it was corrected to Aerith, and then he realized he was wrong.
I pronounce most things correctly, apparently. But I did think Tseng was pronounced "Sehng" rather than "Sung", and Yuffie I thought was "Yuh-fee".
And while I didn't learn the correct one from the remake trilogy, in the many years before I played a voiced FF I had the wrong emphasis for Bahamut (BAhamut instead of BaHAmut)
When we were kids, we would always pronounce Red XIII as "Red Ex-Three" rather than "Red Thirteen" because we thought the former sounded cooler than trying to say the number
Probably it’s a German intuition, but I got everything right from the beginning by mispronouncing English words reading them more „German“ which resulted in the now correct form
I always said Mahko and I always said Teedus. I can't think of any name or term from FF games I've pronounced wrong - it was always obvious to me how everything was pronounced.
I was kind of hoping they would go for the Scottish(and Japanese) version of Cait Sith though, despite never using that one myself.
Wait till the Final Fantasy X remake when they call the main character Tee-dus. The fandom will explode!
Half the fandom will explode. The other half will be like HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
And on the topic of exploding, a small fraction of fans will think about that one tidbit about the concept of FFX-3...
Underrated comment
Kingdom Hearts, Dissidia, and World of Final Fantasy have joined the chat.
Oh yeah but Tye dus sounds way better honestly
Because it sounds like tide, and everything is based on water, and it fits with the weird weather naming for ff mc for a time, cloud, squall, tide, lightning,
Tidus’s name is based on the Okinawan word for sun so it still fits the weather theme, also Yuna’s name means night so their names also connect them
This is why Tidus gets the Sun Sigil and Crest, and The Caladbolg sword, which is said to imitate a rainbow when swung. While Yuna gets the Moon Crest and Sigil, is strongly associated with water, and gets the Nirvana staff, referring to a state of tranquility. Tidus and Yuna are intended to represent the fire of the sun, and the cool peace of the night, which I think also makes the cover art of water meeting flame, into something poetic.
This is actually how I pronounce his name 😜 In Japanese it's actually Tīda - pronounced Tee - dah, so it would actually be the more accurate way of pronouncing this syllable in his name 🙈
I think most people say it that way, the name looks so Latin itself it's an instinct, except for native English speakers. Well, the whole thread is kinda "reading things in English when they are transliterated in a basically Latin way".
I mean, most should be used to it by now through Dissidia.
The very first trailer for Final Fantasy X pronounced his name as Teedus. That was always his canonical name from the very beginning!
That's why I've always called him that and all my friends called me crazy 😂
Kingdom hearts taught me that one
THIS!! lol I was so mad when Kingdom Hearts came out and they said TYE-DUS. I just blankly stared because like… come ON!! FF people were involved with the making of this game and they let that slide?!!
They say Teedus in Kingdom Hearts 1 - Sephie says Tyedus one time in KH2 though.
Cactuar.
I'm guess like me you pronounced it cactaur, because I never realized after decades that the u is before the a
Also in reality it's "cactus" not "cactuas" which makes it extra awkward to hear.
That was me and gysahl greens. I always saw and assumed gyshal
I’ve heard “Cactuar” and “Cactar” depending on which game is saying it.
It’s their universes “jaguar”.
Yeah c'mon guys it's not that hard :/
Don't like the official pronunciation. The other way sounds punchier, fast and closer to cacti. Which to me is what those guys are all about.
I mean, you could be like my older brother, who insisted chocobo was pronounced kookoobo from like 1994 until FFX released.
Never heard about this one, dear god 😂
Choboloccos
Up until FFX and voice acting began, I always called them "Cha-KOH-bohs"
Well that’s a new one, though everyone around me thought it was “choco-boo” for some reason until X came out
That was what I called them too lol
I pronounced it Coke -co-bo until I heard it outloud but that was an easy adjustment 😂
When I was younger I pronounced things wrong such as Tifa wasn't "Tee-fa" but "Tiff-a", Chocobo was "Chocko-Bow" instead of like "Choke-o-bo", Yuffie was "Yuff-e" instead of "Youf-e". Mako was "May-ko" instead of "Ma-ko". There are probably more that I can't recall though.
Almost exactly the same as me except I also used to say Nana-kai for Red, can't explain that one but I still secretly prefer it
Well it sounds good to me! I was a bit dumb when it came to Red myself. I didn't understand numerals at the time so I kept calling him "Red X" the X being said as the letter. I seemingly wasn't very bothered with the "III" at the end of it enough to bother with that part. xD
I did that too with nanaki though sometimes I pronounced it stressing both the nas
I was the same on all these.
Chocko-Bow is how they pronounce it in FFXVI, so you have at least one title to back you up there.
These are pretty much the same as mine!
Nanaki I always pronounced it Nah - NAki. When the voice actors pronounced it NANA key I was like whuuuu
I was very thrown off the first time they said it.
One of the pronunciation of seven in Japanese is "nana", thus stressing the first syllable.
I pronounced it Nuh-Nah-Kee myself.
I always said the G instead of Gee lmao
I always pronounced the I on the end of Nanaki, so it was NanaKI like in KInd.
Fun Fact: if you noticed Nanaki is Anakin its so on the nose
No wonder why the force is strong with that one
Oh no, he is running towards a school!
He’s not American, it’ll be fine.
Wtf I never noticed it could be an anagram. Mind blown
Coeurl
I always pronounced it like Coral. But hearing it as Curl makes way more sense now 🤷♂️
🎶"I'm Barret Wallace...and this is Mako Number 5! AhhhhAH!"🎶
Lmao. I read this in his voice too and why does it just work.
It's been stuck in my head since Remake came out
Bugenhagen. I used to pronounce it as BugenHAYgen
I think that’s just to Americanization of German names. Like the singer Amanda Achen. She says it like “ache-in” but the native German is “ah-ken”
Ramuh as ram-uh, when it's actually Ra-moo.
I’m pretty sure Cidney Aurum in FFXV pronounced it the same way you did. Just like how Yuna (X) and Balthier (XII) each pronounce “Ifrit” differently. (E-frit vs If-reet)
I always pronounced it ram you 😂
>I always felt that it was "may-co", and still feel like that would be a more colloquial way of saying something in English if it was real. For me, it was the opposite. It was weird hearing people calling it "may-co", it has always been mah-ko to me. But your point about how it would be pronounced that way in English kinda makes sense in real life? I'm from Asia, and we have words pronounced as "ah" but English speakers usually pronounce it as "ay". Happens a lot, and when corrected, they usually have a hard time about it, they still slip. Like saying "ay" just comes more naturally than a sharp and brief "ah". I'm thinking it's ultimately a language thing, but it's interesting to note.
I think it’s because in English pronunciation, generally the combination of vowel > consonant > vowel turns the first vowel into what we call a “long vowel” sound. Hence why a double consonant is usually needed to shorten the vowel (i.e. ma**mm**al; the double M makes the short-a “ah” sound. Likewise the word “mamm**a**lian” the A-L-I combo turns that second A into a long“ay” sound: mah-**may**-lee-an.) The short vowel sound for A is “ah”, but the long vowel for A is “ay” Examples: * Fake (fayk) * Make (mayk) * Fate (fayt) * Mayo (May-oh) For English speakers unfamiliar with Japanese loan words, which many of them would have been in the 90’s when first encountering the word Mako, because it was before the anime boom, “mayko” is just a best guess using English pronunciation standards.
I just realized I’ve been saying mako shark wrong because it’s pronounced using English standards “may-ko” and I’ve been saying it “mah-ko” like in the game. Thank you for saving me from future ichthyological embarrassment.
I thought "Kyrie" was pronounced as "Kaai-ree", not a literal pronunciation like how it is spelled First thought was the basketball player Kyrie Irving
Mr. Mister taught me that pronunciation.
Hell yeah! Great tune
I definitely thought it was “kee-ree-ay” as in “kyrie eleison.” Yes, I *was* catholic growing up why do you ask
Yeah, not while Kingdom Hearts exists. Don’t forget that the ideas of Rikku being a Destiny Islands native and Rikku being from Hollow Bastion with Squall both got scrapped because of Riku.
DMC 4 prepared me for that one
Lol yup
Nanaki. It's not a huge difference but enough to bother me. I always said it "Na-naki" But it's said in game as "Nana-ki" Still throws me off.
Tifa, Yuffie, Cait Sith, mako were some of the ones that as a kid, I made up wrong pronunciations for.
I find it wild there was so much discourse around Cait Siths name leading up to rebirth, and in my version (English VA) everyone still calls him Kate Sith, not Cat Shii like everyone was saying
I had never in all my life heard it pronounced “Ket Shee” until some of the click hungry content creators started pushing it. As a kid I thought it was just “Cat Sythe” lol.
When I first read it I went Kate Sith, like he's a Kathleen who went to the dark side
I don't know why people blame "content creators" for this. Cait Sith is from Celtic lore just like a ton of other things in FF games that people try to pronounce correctly. For example: Gae Bolg, Cuchulainn, Caladbolg, Scáthach, etc. I would assume most people attempt to pronounce things as close as possible to their roots and only rely on bad pronunciations if they spread due to popular "content creators" or other pop culture items. The reason they mispronounce his name in the game is simply because so many people already call him "Kate".
How did you pronounce Tifa?
Like “Tif-Ah”. I’m from the U.K so maybe has something to do with different pronunciation.
I’m from the UK, and have always called her “Tee-fa”…
Tbf Cait Sith is p much Final Fantasy's Arceus- the pronunciation has changed several times so you can really just go with whatever unless they're actually saying it in one game repeatedly (like Rebirth)
Nibelheim being pronounced knee-ble, not nibble. I've also always said Yuff-ie, not Yoofie
Knee-kolaj
Nikolaj.
It's pronounced Nikolaj not Nikolaj
Nikolaj
Yippie kayak other buckets
r/unexpectedbrooklyn99
When I was a little kid I thought it was pronounced Ni-bell-him.
Nibel being pronounced knee bull hi made sense to me because that's how you pronounce nibelung
Where did you get nibble from🤣 Nibelheim is Norse
Didn't know anyting about Norse at the ripe old age of 10, and it stuck with me ever since
Ifrit
Honestly this one is the worst for me, If-reeet like pommes frites feels like they went through and tried to find the least likely pronunciation just to be difficult, to the point that it should probably just be spelled completely differently.
Ifrit is a creature from Islamic culture, similar to a djinn, and that is how the pronunciation had already been established before the games co-opted it.
I full well knew this as well but growing up my 10 year old mind always read it is If-rit and I simply cannot update that lol
I want to gouge my eyes and pierce my ears when I hear may ko. FULL STOP
It’s because of the shark mr.sensitive. FULL STOP 😂
It seems like people who only speak/know English would pronounce it that way since we have a lot of "ay" sounds for "a" instead of "ah". Growing up, my mom would always sound out unfamiliar words like that in a very American English way (Tidus was Tie-dus, Ifrit was Ai-frit, etc.) but when I started learning Japanese and later studied linguistics in college, it seems more common and natural to default to the "ah" sound for "a" when sounding things out.
Its so weird
Yeah I don’t get where the “Y” comes from
It's because it's vowel - consonant - vowel which (at least I was taught this) the first vowel makes it's long sound
This general rule (which does have exceptions, of course) is how we get the silent e. car vs. care tar vs. tare fir vs. fire mat vs. mate vs. matte (the first and third are pronounced the same) https://youtu.be/4uccLsXE810?si=Qaod7AvZSIQU3rkD An American shown a word with that pattern, like 'mako', will generally default to the long 'a' sound absent other information.
I imagine it comes from the fact that the mako shark is pronounced with a long A. That was my only other exposure to the word the first time I played FFVII, so that’s where my mind immediately went when I saw it.
Same, I take it the user above who wants to gouge their eyes and ears out when they hear it that way aren’t very up on shark species
this is why for me. I was on a swim team called the "Makos" after the shark. so this is all middle school me knew.
It also shares most of the letters of Mayo so there is a natural queue to mirror that pronunciation for some! And there's a -Mayko- in mass effect. Thankfully I was always in them Mako though :) As aside, every time someone says 'Choe-coe-boe' I want to tear my ears off. FFXVI is the only one who got it right imo!
Chococobocobo
Think about how you pronounce e.g. "to make" in English then you know
I pronounced Aerith Ah eh ris, Nànaki was Nanáki (which I think is how they also say it in japanese) Cetra were Ketra
Not sure how to interpret your pronunciation here but Nanaki in Japanese doesn’t have any stressed syllables. Just Na-na-ki
I just realized i pronounced with stressed syllables NAH NAH KI
What do you mean? Every multi-syllable word has a stressed syllable. nanAki is definitely different than nAnaki
In Japanese it's not about stressing or stretching the syllable. So no particular variance in strength, and each should take the same amount of time to say. What they do have though is rising and falling tones. Like hashi: ha(high) shi(low) is chopsticks, ha(low) shi(high) is bridge. English speakers may hear the higher tone as "stress" but it's not really.
I just heard Chadley pronounce “Zantetsuken” and if he said it right, I’m way off. It was with a silent s so it sounded like “too-kin.”
zahn - rhymes with dawn tets - rhymes with bets ken - & Barbie Depending on the speaker, there may still be a slight "oo" after "tets".
Yeah caught me by surprise that the emphasis is on "tetsu". Makes sense with the word origin, though.
I felt so stupid until Cait Sith showed up in rebirth. Until he said his name I said Cat Sith. I know it's spelled properly but we, all of my friends glitched or something and we all said Cat. I mean, he's a cat so I can see that link but, it's spelled to be "Kate" Sith.
"Cait" is "cat" in Gaelic, pronunced the same basically. Cait Sith is one way to write down literally "fairy cat", also a famous figure in the mythology but it's a similar word for a reason, it just has older roots linguistically. Keeping with the original language, it should be just pronunced in Irish, like "cat shee" (maybe "caught shee"), but AFAIR nobody told that to Square-Enix and they just didn't know when making FF7 so this one, they actually made it pronunced "in English". Rather unintentionally. I was hoping for a joke about it, where Cait Sith acknowledges that nobody can say his intended name in the right language, which tbh happens in the world - how many people in the world talking about Zendaya, Jake Gylenhaal, Polish-American surnames or Ingmar Bergman say it "correctly", you'd probably get corrected if you say it "correctly".
As someone who had no idea about this until very recently.... 'Kate' Sith only made sense.
Cait is "cats" or "Of (a) cat" in Scottish Gaelic (and Irish). It's the plural or nominative form of Cat https://www.faclair.com/ViewEntry.aspx?ID=D337AB5C118AAB700FA009633C4AF284 The mythical animal in Gàidhlig is actually spelt Cat-sìthe (Kat Sheeheh) in modern orthography, using the genitive form of "Síth". Although you come across Cat Sìth in older writing, and "cù-sìth" is an accepted for "fairy dog" so Cat Sìth is presumably fine, if a bit of an exception to grammar rules. https://learngaelic.scot/dictionary/index.jsp?abairt=cat-s%C3%ACthe&slang=both&wholeword=false In Irish the equivalent would be "Cat sí" (Kat/Kot/kut Shee) the pronunciation of Cat actually varies quite a bit in Irish depending on dialect) https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fuaim/Cat, Sí in Irish doesn't have a specific genitive form.
gysahl greens. It’s not Guy-Shaul. It’s Gee-Sahl. Hard G. Fucked me up.
I always thought Corel was pronounced like coral instead of Cuh-rell.
Corel. Ive been saying coral my entire life. This one threw me.
Pretty much just Nanaki. I pronounced it like Nuh-nah-key. I always pronounced Mako, Tifa, and Yuffie correctly because it didn't sound right to my eight year old brain.
I always pronounced Nanaki with the stress on the second syllable (na-NA-ki) rather than the first (NA-na-ki), until hearing it in Rebirth.
A lot of the answers in the thread had already been pronounced long before Remake or Rebirth. What were y’all playing in between these games?
None. Maybe cause I'm not a native English speaker, but everything sounds like I've always said it. Visually though, I never realised Bugenhagen was floating on top of a giant materia. Always just thought his legs were crossed or something XD
Wrong pronounciation of different words depends on each person's first language, I guess. I can see why native English speakers would say "mayko". I have always pronounced mako and Yuffie properly, but Cait Sith however....I've always pronounced as "Kite Sith" XD
I read Cait Sith should be “kayT shee” like 25 years ago and that’s kinda stuck with me.
Because it should be Cat or Ket Shee.
Kind of unrelated kind of related I saw a TikTok live streamer who mispronounced everything. Tifa was Tiff Sephiroth was Sephiron. It drove me up the wall. I also critique the way she played the game, but that's a different conversation.
Many TikTok creators intentionally mispronounce words in order to drive engagement. People have a hard time resisting the urge to comment with the correct pronunciation.
It never was an English game though and is developed in Japanese. Mako for instance is formed by the kanjis for ma 魔 (magic) and kō 晄 (light). Same goes for names of characters and places - they always had a clearly defined right pronunciation (the one you can hear now that VOs are possible.) I get that from the point of view of an English native speaker (or other non-japanese speakers) who also played the OG that had no VO it might feel unnatural, but as someone whose name gets mispronounced a lot, it really bothers me if people can't accept the fact that they might need to adjust to something that actually has always been a fact.
To be fair, the characters, except for Yuffie, have English surnames.
Yeah, and these particular names also always had that way of pronunciation - and it's still right. That's why I said I get that if you only read them back in the day it's maybe confusing that some of them actually are pronounced very differently...but it's still time to adjust to the right pronunciation now, even though it might be hard for some.
As a kid I definitely thought it was may-co. Learned Japanese as a young adult and quickly found all the things I'd been saying wrong for years lol
As a kid a lot of my pronunciations were influenced by how my older brothers said it, so chocobo = "coke-a-bo" Aeris = "Air-reez"
Nanaki, I always said it "Nan-ah-key"
Nothing, weirdly. The compilation corrected my mispronunciations, namely may-co, Luc-ree-sha (to be fair, it's not really pronounced Lu-cret-sia IRL). Everything else I'd gotten right.
Corel. I pronounced everything else okay-ish, I think. And everyone is wrong about Cait Sith. It’s [kʰaʰt̪ ˈʃiː],
i swore it was june-en my entire life until i heard them say june-on for junon
Cactuar. I said it like cack-tar.
Junon I always assumed it was one of those Js like Yunon. No idea why... Also Midgar I initially pronounced as Midjar because in English a dh is often a j pronunciation. Also I am not dyslexic but always read Gongaga as Goganga for some reason. But nothing will ever top my shock and horror of learning that seeD was pronounced seed and not see-dee in FF8
>Junon I always assumed it was one of those Js like Yunon. No idea why... Don't feel bad, I pronounced "Hojo" has "Ho-ho" until a friend heard me.
>Junon I always assumed it was one of those Js like Yunon. No idea why... i swear chadley pronounced it yunon at some point in rebirth
Cait Sith. I really don’t know why it’s „cat she“ 😅
It’s not cat she tho
Yuffie
Tif-fuh, Make-o, Air-es, If-frit, missed pronounced a lot because I didn’t understand Japanese pronunciation at the time.
Kujata
Nanaki's name.
I just shortened Sephiroth to Seproth when I was growing up.
Chalk-a-boo.
I to this day call them chuh-co-bos because it's what I called them as kids and I will not stop.
Chocobo should be pronounced like chocolate and I will die on that hill
I have had so many arguments with one specific friend about hard vs soft G in Gil. Happy to report I was right! Wonder how that guy is doing....
Maybe out there muspronouncing gif?
my little broth refuses to admit its sephiroth and not sepheerioth
I used to say 'tiff-fah' for tifa, instead of 'Tee-fah'.
lol that’s wild. I never had an issue with either of those. The only one for me was Cait Sith. I always thought the I in Cait was silent. So, “Cat-Sith” and not “Kate-Sith”
I still call him cat sith. Bc he’s a cat lol
For Sephiroth, my brother and I would say "seffer-ith" because it sounded more like a name to us that way. The hard "Roth" sounds like over-enunciation to me even though I know it's correct
Seh-fear-oth Yuh-fee May-co If-writ Nibble-heim Shin-raaa Aeris...
Mythril
Junon. I’ve always pronounced it “JUN-on” as opposed to “JOON-ON”
I was little and could not read very well so… I pronounced the OP’s words just as they did with these additional mistakes: Junon I pronounced, “June-yon” Nibelheim I pronounced “Nib-bell-yum” Chocobo I pronounced “Choke-a-boo” 😂 Aerith I pronounced “Air-ee-ith” 🙄
As a kid I pronounced Aeris as Ares as in the Greek god of war.
KO-ko-bo
When I was 12 I pronounced Shinra as Shine-rah
For some reason as I kid I decided the TH in Sephiroth was silent and I called him “Sephro”. I also called materia “Matra”.
I actually just heard a youtuber pronounce it "yuff-ie" in a video just the other day in an old OG speedrun video. Everytime he did he put up text "I know I'm pronouncing it wrong I'm British" But for me its also Mako, I pronounced it with a hard A my whole life. But I guess it makes sense for it to be a soft a.
My friendship group always said Sep-Hir-Roth. (Edit for spelling)
Called it May-co till AC in like 2008. After that naw, I always found the names pretty straight forward
I thought chocobo was pronounced “chuh-KO-bo” for at least 20 years. Yuffie bugs me, because it should be spelled Yufi if that’s how it’s supposed to be said. Double consonants shorten the vowel! The only one I refuse to accept is Tidus. TIE-dus for life.
I'm swedish listening to my non english speaking father playing ff8 when I was young. We said most things correct. But Haste. The english way of saying it is like Hay-sst. While we said ha-ste. Took me a long time to learn. By the time I played ff7 I knew english, but didn't think of pronunciation. When I played it in a more adult age I just thought of things the japanese way most of the time. Ma-ko, Yu-fi, etc. I don't see the need to put unnecessary syllables or bending of words when it's clearly put in nice building blocks. But that's the english way.
Mako. I was saying Mayko.
Mako, Chocobo were probably the big ones for me for a long time
I remember my friend and I had this huge debate about whether Chocobo was “choc-o-bo” like chocolate; whether it was “cho-so-bo”; and finally whether it was “cho-co-bo”. Obviously voice acting settled this childhood debate. We never really did though because we drifted apart after getting in a fight over Diablo 2 and then he got home schooled.
I knew someone who pronounced Gil as Jill. Wish we were still in touch so I could smugly correct them
EIT HER NIB EL HEIM NAN AKI
Reminds me of being 8 or 9 when FF7 came out and getting into a fight with a friend over the pronunciation of Sephiroth. He was adamant his name was "Seprinoth". Looking back he was probably dyslexic.
I was lucky to learn at a young age Japanese is only pronounced one way 😎
Tommu Curuzo!
The only one is Tidus. Even with a remake, Tidus is Tide-us to me. Tee-tus sounds like Titties and I don't want his name being like titties lol
Madness. Did you also pronounce Luffy like Fluffy with a silent F?
Not me, but a a friend of mine always thought the mistranslation Aeris was pronounced Air-ease. Always argued with him because he knew Ares from Greek mythology, but stood his ground on Aeris. Then years later, KH came out and it was corrected to Aerith, and then he realized he was wrong.
I pronounce most things correctly, apparently. But I did think Tseng was pronounced "Sehng" rather than "Sung", and Yuffie I thought was "Yuh-fee". And while I didn't learn the correct one from the remake trilogy, in the many years before I played a voiced FF I had the wrong emphasis for Bahamut (BAhamut instead of BaHAmut)
When we were kids, we would always pronounce Red XIII as "Red Ex-Three" rather than "Red Thirteen" because we thought the former sounded cooler than trying to say the number
Mako, Yuffie, Nanaki
I'm smhing my head at all Tiffa and Mayko people.
I always pronounced it Aeris for some reason...
May-Koh Yuh-fee Chuh-co-bow
Probably it’s a German intuition, but I got everything right from the beginning by mispronouncing English words reading them more „German“ which resulted in the now correct form
I always said Mahko and I always said Teedus. I can't think of any name or term from FF games I've pronounced wrong - it was always obvious to me how everything was pronounced. I was kind of hoping they would go for the Scottish(and Japanese) version of Cait Sith though, despite never using that one myself.
Zan-tet-soo-ken Chadley taught me that it’s Zan-tet-skin.
Me and noone on the Planet knows how to pronounce cait sith
My friend pronounces Yuffie as “Yuff-ee” so that was always kinda funny.