How do you pronounce Nibelheim?

[Eerie]

Im a strange fellow in that I got into FF7 after norse myth, so i do odd shit like say Midgard and Nifelheim half the time instead of the FF7 versions. Do the same for A Megami Sama too

You know what? When I pay no attention, I say and write MidgarD too. Grmbl. Which is an error I made a lot here. I try to pay attention and not do it anymore though.

 

[ForceStealer]

BARE-et with a long a seems so weird to me. In my neck of the woods, if you wanted someone to be called BARE-et, you'd have to spell his name Bairet.

As someone whose last name is Barrett, it has been amusing in my life to encounter people who say it BARE-it vs BAA-ret (like apple)

 

[Eerie]

French pronunciation is the latter

 

[ForceStealer]

That's the way we say it, though the Philadelphian element makes for a rather harsh short-A

 

[Fangu]

I stress 'Midgar' differently whether I'm talking about FF Midgar or Norse mythology Midgard It's odd.

Also the last 'd' in Midgard is silent, at least in modern Scandinavian languages

 

[ForceStealer]

When I see people say "Midgard" consistently I wonder if they just somehow never really read the text boxes or are just being pretentious

 

[Ryushikaze]

BARE-et with a long a seems so weird to me. In my neck of the woods, if you wanted someone to be called BARE-et, you'd have to spell his name Bairet.

Thing is, there's precedent for Barrett as "Bare-et" as per this 1956 song.

 

[Eerie]

When I see people say "Midgard" consistently I wonder if they just somehow never really read the text boxes or are just being pretentious

I just got confused ok

 

[S-O]

I used to say nibelheim but after the compilation came out I got used to saying neeblheim so now it's just really inconsistent for me.

 

[Torrie]

This thread blew my mind. Seriously. Glad to offer more international inconsistency fun!

So, Russian vowels are not differentiated by their length, i.e. there are no long or short vowels at all, each vowel can be both with no difference in meaning. When speaking, people tend to pronounce the stressed vowels longer for better emphasis. The position of the stress can shift in borrowed words or name adaptations in order to make the word more pronounceable. To make things worse, Russian consonants are divided into hard ones and soft ones. Add to all of that the fact that Russian localizers often had no idea how to read a certain name, which resulted in unpredictable variants.

Aeris/th -> EYE-riss
Tifa -> TEE-fah
Yuffee -> YOU-fee
Cait Sith -> Kite Sit
Rufus -> ROO-foos
Reno -> REN-oh
Elena -> yeah-LEN-ah (a common Russian name, by the way)
Poor Tseng was just translated letter by letter, hence /tseng/.
Sephiroth -> sef-ee-ROT or sometimes sef-ee-ROSS (because we don't have the 'th' sounds)
Jenova -> /ʒə`nɔːvə/ (pretty much like 'supernova')

Mako -> MAH-koh
Materia -> mah-TEH-ree-ya (luckily, this is an existing word over here, so one problem less)
Mythril -> miff-REEL (as I said, translating the 'th' sounds is always a pain in the backside)

Nibelheim -> nee-belle-HIME ('belle' like the French name Belle, lol)
Mideel -> mid-EEL (with the soft 'l' at the end like in Belle again)
Midgar -> mid-GAHR
Wutai -> voo-TIE (there's no /w/ sound either)
Corel -> KOH-rell
Gold Saucer -> translated literally into Zolotoye Blootse (why does it look so hilarious omg hahaha)
Gongaga resembles my hometown Kaluga (kah-LOO-gah) just a bit, so gone-GAH-gah.

Surprisingly, the way I got used to pronouncing all this stuff peacefully co-exists with the way I hear it's pronounced by Japanese and Amerian VAs, like in parallel universes in a way

 

[Rankles]

Always been Nibble-hime for me...