• jbrains@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    11 days ago

    Typically, yes. Pronunciation mistakes are not ruled incorrect unless they change the spelling of the name or word, such as adding consonants. Ken corrects the pronunciation without calling the mistake out, usually, although he labors under strange conceptions, such as insisting in not pronouncing the initial “t” in “tsunami” and “tsar”.

    • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      11 days ago

      Strange conceptions?

      Tsunami doesn’t start with a T sound, It’s just a strange artifact of the romanization of the Japanese sounds. It’s not exactly a S sound either. The sound it’s supposed to be just doesn’t have an english equivalent at all, so they made up something close-ish but it does a poor job of communicating that.

      The one Japanese mis-pronunciation that bothers me is that Tokyo only has two Syllables, To-Kyo, not To-Ky-O like almost all western people pronounce it as. Kyoto has the same problem, It’s Kyo-to, not Ky-O-To.

      • jbrains@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        11 days ago

        Strange conceptions?

        Yes. That’s humor.

        Tsunami doesn’t start with a T sound, It’s just a strange artifact of the romanization of the Japanese sounds.

        Yes, and English speakers have an established collective inconsistency regarding whether to pronounce loanwords anywhere on the spectrum from (somewhat) faithfully to the original language to transcribed to entirely reinterpreted with English pronouciation norms. To declare that the “t” in that word is silent overstates the situation. At most, it’s optional.

        I pronounce those cities as two syllables, although it doesn’t bother me when others don’t. I also pronounce “Mangione” as three, even though I don’t overdo it on the Italian vowels.

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          11 days ago

          Living on the west coast of Canada, where we talk about Tsunamis fairly regularly, I’ve never heard anyone add a T sound to Tsunami at the start. Only Sue-Nah-Me

      • loppy@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        11 days ago

        This is a strange take. In Japanese it’s literally a consonant cluster [ts], which is to say it’s literally a Japanese “t” followed by a Japanese “s”. The Japanese “t” and “s” are not exactly the same as English, but they’re close enough, and English has the same cluster in, say, the plural “mats” of “mat”.

        What “tsunami” breaks in English is not really the sound, but instead just the fact that English doesn’t allow [ts] unless it’s preceeded by a vowel.

        • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          11 days ago

          It’s not at all like the T sound in Japanese followed by the S sound. The normal T sound in Japanese is pronounced by putting your tongue behind your top teeth and flicking your tongue down a bit. Tsu on the other hand starts with your tongue below your top teeth, and your cheeks pulled together a bit.

          It’s also nothing like the TS in Mats in english.

          • loppy@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            10 days ago

            Where are you getting this information? This “pull your cheeks together a bit” sounds completely out of left field to me.