Pronunciations

[Channy]

When Advent Children came out, quite a few fans were thrown for a loop when we heard our favourite words spoken and they were wrong. I'm looking at yoooooou mayko mahko.

Some were also thrown by the character's names... Yoo-fee, not Yuff-ee? Tee-fa, not Tih-fah? Ts-ung, not Ts-ang? (Though to me, I'd always heard/read the former two as they were confirmed).

Then Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core came out, and helped broaden the spoken terminology, though not too many come to mind. The only one that got me was Lucrecia... (Loo-cret-sia vs Loo-cresh-ah).

But now we're getting the whole game. Every nook and cranny of it. What else are you worried about?

Some things that come to my mind are

- Bahamut (I've heard elsewhere it's supposed to be Baha-moot... but I've always said Ba-HAH-mutt);
- Bugenhagen (Boo or bug?);
- Cetra (Set-rah or Ket-rah.. like Contra?)

 

[Starling]

Tseng and Lucrecia are pretty much the only examples that apply to me. I still stubbornly hang onto my pronunciation of Tseng but accepted the spoken one for Lucrecia, for some reason.

 

[ForceStealer]

I don't know how any American kid that played the game when they were young ever said Yuffie and Tifa as anything other than Yuff-ee and Tee-fuh. I've tried to train myself on You-fee. The best way is to just rename her "Yufi" during a playthrough, which is how they just should have done it.

I did always say May-koh (like the shark), Seng, and Lu-kree-sha. I'm fine with those although I still say May-koh if I'm not paying attention.

Cetra is definitely Set-rah, but I never knew how people got "ket-rah" out of that anyway. I've heard the "Baha-moot" thing too, before, but other voiced Final Fantasy games have said "Ba-HA-mutt," so I expect that will be the same.

I grew up saying "Byuu-gen-hay-gen" (hard Gs). Now that I have knowledge of Japanese I assume that they're going to say it Boo-gen-hah-gen.

 

[robotwarui]

Heh heh

I dressed as Loo-kree-sha for a convention, and told my sister about it, cuz I had to borrow her bias-cut skirt for the costume.
"That name sounds gross. It reminds me of the word secretion"

 

[Ⓐaron]

Most of the pronunciations make sense when you read them as Japanese names, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have done a better job romanising them.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^This is how it was for me. I can't hear "mako" and "materia" as anything but their Japanese pronunciations.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

A name spelled "Lucrecia" cannot be pronounced "Lucretsia". Even if you spelled it "Lucretia". you wouldn't get Lucretsia from that. Loo-cre-tee-a, maybe. To pronounce it Lucretsia, you have to spell it Lucrezia.

I pronounce Bugenhagen with the hard gs because it look likes a German name. Boojenhajen would sound silly. Same with Nibbleheim rather than Kneebleheim. If they wanted it pronounced Kneebleheim, they should have spelled it Niebelheim. I suspect some of the errors may be due to the actors not knowing how to pronounce foreign names.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

One that really threw me for a loop, is I always said Cait Sith phonetically, "Kate" "Sith (like star wars)". But apparently it's "Kai" "Shee"??

 

[Starling]

Kneebleheim is probably closer to the correct pronunciation, as it's another accepted spelling for Niflheim. It's like how people get mixed up with the pronunciation of Sean because its linguistic roots aren't necessarily obvious to people who encounter the name and don't realize it's supposed to be pronounced the same was as Shawn.

 

[leadmyskeptic]

This whole thread is actually remind me of, while there's no going back, how a certain degree of "personalization" is allowed when there's no voice acting and only text, and how if you later come to find out you were "wrong", it can hit hard. I recall years ago an English kid describing to me how when he first popped in FFX, and this squeaky American accent came popping out of the speakers he was horrified, as he had always imagined the protagonists to be like himself, even changing their names to his own, and this was no longer allowed. Never even thought of it

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Kneebleheim is probably closer to the correct pronunciation, as it's another accepted spelling for Niflheim. It's like how people get mixed up with the pronunciation of Sean because its linguistic roots aren't necessarily obvious to people who encounter the name and don't realize it' supposed to be pronounced the same was as Shawn.

The Internet doesn't seem to agree on how Niflheim should be pronounced. I got

Kneefl-hime
Niffle-hime
Knife-l-hime

!!

To me it will always be Nibbleheim.

The Japanese version of Lucrecia's name doesn't contain that "ts" sound: "ルクレツィア".

FWIW, my Gaelic speaking brother in law told me Cait Sith is pronounced Cot Shee, and apparently it means "Fairy Cat". However I think the Cait Sith is more a Scottish thing than an Irish one.

 

[Tetsujin]

I always pronounced all of these names the German way which turned out mostly accurate in almost every case.
Notable exception being Tseng. =/

 

[leadmyskeptic]

"Cat Sith" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_sìth) is apparently more common in Scottish folklore than Irish...but the name is gaelic? Always amazes me just how many little nods to, sometimes even unconnected mythology and things the FF creators throw in there. It still boggles my mind that they threw in a reference to a brilliant shoegaze album into FF7..

 

[Joker]

Square Eee-nix (not enicks) pronunciations can gtfo.

Yuff-ee
Tie-dus
May-ko
Byuu-gen-hay-gen (gen rhymes with ten)
See-sil (not Sess-il)

...the list goes on, imo.

 

[NikolaiBroketheZoom]

My brothers and I always pronounce mako "Mack-o", as in, rhymes with "Smack hoe". Weirdly we all pronounced Yuffie "yoo-fee" and Tidus "Tee-duss".

I remember we learned pretty much everything game-related from the oldest of the three of us, who for some reason pronounced Red's name, "Red 8". A few years later I found the strategy guide while cleaning up and was flipping through it and immediately realized it was a 13, and that I'd been wrong for years.

Also, my dad was the worst at pronouncing things. He pronounced Cerberus "sir-ee-bruss", even though that's a word he already knew how to pronounce before the game came out. He also pronounces Cait Sith "Cat Scythe".

What the fuck, dad.

 

[JBedford]

I used to say "cat scythe" but I think nowadays I say "cat sith". I pronounced it the former way because my brother said it was pronounced that way. I actually inherited two other pronunciations from my brothers before I learnt to read the text properly: Shinra pronounced "Shrine-nuh", and Sephiroth as "Sef-roif".

I mostly ignore the correct pronunciations because it's not like I experience FF7 media often to drill in the correct ones into my head.

I pronounce Nibelheim as "nai-bull-haim". I get all the other usual ones wrong, may-ko, yuff-ee, seng, tif-fuh, lu-cree,shuh. Byu-gun-har-gun.

I pronounce "Reno" as "Ren-no", Elena as "Eh-len-nuh", and Junon as "Jun-noon" (a short "oo" like the "u" in bull).

 

[55-]

This whole thread is actually remind me of, while there's no going back, how a certain degree of "personalization" is allowed when there's no voice acting and only text, and how if you later come to find out you were "wrong", it can hit hard. I recall years ago an English kid describing to me how when he first popped in FFX, and this squeaky American accent came popping out of the speakers he was horrified, as he had always imagined the protagonists to be like himself, even changing their names to his own, and this was no longer allowed. Never even thought of it

Ehhh but this is the excuse game developers use to justify making all main characters white guys. Is it really that hard to identify with characters that don't look or sound like you?

 

[SOLDIERis1337]

As far as Cait Sith goes I know Cid made the first part of his name sound like "Kate" in a scene in Dirge, but have they ever pronounced the second word in any voice acting?

 

[Roger]

Surprised how many people are set on making Yuffie sound like dog's name.

 

[ForceStealer]

Well that's how they spelled it. If the U was supposed to be long it should not be followed by a double consonant.

 

[Theozilla]

Well that's how they spelled it. If the U was supposed to be long it should not be followed by a double consonant.

Just because it is followed by a double consonant doesn't mean the vowel always has to be pronounced short.
I mean, do you also pronounce Monkey D. Luffy's (from One Piece) name as "Luff-ee" then?

 

[trash panda]

Always and forever:

Sepy-roth.

....even though I have a ph sound in my own name.

 

[Octo]

Cait Sith - Kate Sith
Bugenhagen - beau (as in beauty) -gen (as in pen) hagen (as in hagen-das)
Elena - Eh -leh -na
Reno - Ree -no - just like Reno Nevada (this should be his full name
Tseng - I still read this as Tiseng. Even though I know its pronounced Sung.
Yuffie - Will always be Yuffy. If they wanted it to be otherwise they should have spelled it Yufi or Yu-fi
Tifa - Always pronounced this Tee-fa.
Cerberus - Serberus
Mako - Mah-ko - as in whacko
Bahamut - Couldn't be bothered with this one so it's always been Bah-mut.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Reno Nevada. I like it.

 

[ForceStealer]

Well that's how they spelled it. If the U was supposed to be long it should not be followed by a double consonant.

Just because it is followed by a double consonant doesn't mean the vowel always has to be pronounced short.
I mean, do you also pronounce Monkey D. Luffy's (from One Piece) name as "Luff-ee" then?

Being completely unfamiliar with One Piece, that's how I would read it, yes. I mean, it looks exactly like "Fluffy" without the first F.
And while I'm certain you could find exceptions, that is the general rule in English.