Forum - View topicA Simple Question
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Jimmy Balls-O-Steel
Posts: 60 Location: The Great White North |
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Seeing that there are otaku out there who will make a fuss over Japanese words and names being incorrectly pronounced in the English dub, how come these same otaku don't seem to care when the exact same thing happens with English words and names in the Japanese dub*?
Personally, I find Engrish to be very, very irritating to listen to. (For example, my first time watching Hellsing made me want to take a cheese-grater to my ears at some points.) I'm not trying to start a huge debate here. I'm just looking for some answers. * It doesn't matter where it's produced or what language it's in, any cartoon with any actual audible talking that's voiced by a human is technically dubbed. |
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PantsGoblin
 SubscriberEncyclopedia Editor  Posts: 2969 Location: L.A. |
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I'm not the kind of person who makes a big fuss about pronounciations, as I do alot of them myself (I still never pronounce Milfeulle from Galaxy Angel's name correctly despite me watching all 4 seasons of it). But I find Engrish to be very humorous, so I actually like it when they have it, especially in comedy animes. It makes them even funnier. "I Like Jerry Beans"
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Keonyn
Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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It's mostly the bias purists that are vocal about such things. The same people who would rip on anything that's even remotely similar to an anime but embrace an anime that blatantly rips off something non-anime. Basically the people that can see only anime and can not see it do any wrong. They're out there, luckily not so much on this forum but try a few other forums and you'll find them in force.
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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I think engrish is funny too, but then it kinda ruins the dramatic air when you hear funny engrish... |
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remember love
 Posts: 764 Location: Germany |
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It is fun to here someone to say engrish even reading it makes me laugh. But yes it is annoying to here it at times but I also feel bad for people who say engrish other then english and get laughed at and don't know why. |
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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I think its better than being made fun of your english when english is your only languages ^^; a friend of mine constantly evaluates and critizes my english teacher for her english (i don't think it really matters as much when its a more literary analystic class) |
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madlib
Posts: 50 Location: the eeeeeeeeequatah |
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it does ruin the dramatic air, that's a real good point. but it does make some situations/circumstances (in comedies) funnier. |
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Efan
 Posts: 340 |
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You have to remeber though Japanese and English are very different languages. For instance almost all Japanese words end in a vowl (A, E, I, O, U for those still in grade 1 ~~) or and "N" so thats why they always seem to add that extra "ohh" or "ehh" at the end of english words. Also some letters and sounds that exist in english don't exist in the japanese language such as "L" and "Th". So it's not their fault, they don't really have alot of practice at it, although ill admit it makes things sound funnier, and sometimes makes me wanna poke out my own ear drums.
..... NO! ME NO ENGRISH!!! |
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Steventheeunuch
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Well regardless of whether it is their own fault or not, it still happens, therefore it shouldn't be such a gigantic no-no for English speakers to pronounce Japanese words incorrectly, because usually, it's "close enough".
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TestamentSaki
 Posts: 1012 |
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Hiyah!
As someone already said, Japanese don't use the letter L at all... That's why they use the R, even it's not as hard-sounding as in other languages, such as Spanish (and this I know 'cause English and Spanish are my languages) I actually think it sounds kinda cute, taking into account the enormous effort they try to do. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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We should also remember that saying "Engrish" words isn't just something they do in anime--the Japanese language has hundreds if not thousands of words that have been imported from Western languages and adapted into the Japanese sound system. Efan outlined some of the main differences: Japanese is a CV language that can't have consonant clusters=more than one consonant in a row, aside from the special syllabic "n," which forms a syllable unto itself. Only 5 basic vowel sounds exist: a as in father, i as in machine, u as in June, e as in met, and o as in home (more or less). And, certain other sounds don't exist, like L, V, TH, WU, SI (as in "see"), and even the R as we know it. So, aside from inserting extra vowel sounds within consonant clusters, the vowel differences in English and other languages become simplified. The "u" in "Trigun" and the "i" in "first" become the same sound in Japanese. These "comically" distorted foreign words are a natural part of their language and daily lives.
It's an issue of phonetics; for them, it's a physical difficulty to produce many English sounds. Now, if we take it the other way around, in English we have virtually all of the sounds that exist in Japanese, with a few exceptions like the R and the "tsu" sound. So in my opinion, there's less of an excuse for us to disregard the original pronunciations just for the sake of laziness, because we have the physical capacity to say, for instance, those five vowel sounds without too much difficulty. Sure, some liberties are permissible, but sometimes they go to far and decide to pronounce things just based on the romaji spellings of the word. For instance, in Pretear "Himeno" became "HuhMEEno," a rather radical change. This goes beyond minor vowel relaxations, like changing from the "ee" sound to the "i" sound (as in "it") for the first syllable of "Misaki" in Angelic Layer. Sure, some changes are okay, like for obviously foreign names like "Pacifica," and sometimes, English pronunciations are preferable, like in some show where they use the Japanese pronunciation of "katana" in the English dub. I'm not so much of a purist to hate on dubs for not being 100% "authentic" in this respect, but I wish they'd do as much as they can and not completely disregard the original sound. |
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Super Arrow
 Posts: 334 Location: Australia |
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Because they don't think that they're English-speakers.
*run* |
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IchigoK90
 Posts: 1634 Location: Scarborough, Ontario |
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I have no problem with engrish (BTW who came up with this word? Its just too funny a word). I like some other people find it funny. However in some cases I have found that sometimes it does sound annoying and out of place but thats usually because of the voice actor or singer if its a song with engrish.
"Believe it!" - IchigoK90 |
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remember love
Posts: 764 Location: Germany |
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You're right it..It is better then being made fun of your own english when english is your only language because it is your own language...I just feel bad about some people who don't know why there being made fun of when I make an english mistake and someone makes a joke out of it I can take the humour and even laugh myself because I understand what's going on....but when it's a person's second hand language and they don't know what people are making fun of I feel sorry for them. |
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