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Did you say Mah-ko or May-ko?

  • Mah-ko

  • May-ko


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Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
Just curious, how do you English speakers pronounce "Makoto"?

May-ko-two ?

I've only ever heard it as Mah-ko-to from English speakers. The complication with Mako is that there is a word in itself, Mako, (as in the shark) that we normally pronounce as May-ko. Native English speakers are generally comfortable with different combinations of syllables being pronounced differently in various words.
 
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Rikucrafter

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 28, 2017
900
Australia
I pronounced it May-ko and I'm pretty sure I got that from the Yugioh english dub (I haven't watched that since 2004 so maybe its pronounced Mah-ko there and I'm misremembering)
 

Dash Kappei

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,841
May-ko? Is she the daughter of Meh-ryo? WTF is up with you Americans and mispronouncing anything that is not in English... do they not teach a mandatory foreign language in school over there?!

Learning foreign languages and cultures is good for you, there's nothing to lose there, only a whole lot to gain

Mah-ko.

Its Japanese so its not going to be pronounced any other way.

.
 

Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,742
giphy.gif
 

Cordelia

Member
Jan 25, 2019
1,517
I've only ever heard it as Mah-ko-to from English speakers. The complication with Mako is that there is a word in itself, Mako, (as in the shark) that we normally pronounce as May-ko. Native English speakers are generally comfortable with different combinations of syllables being pronounced differently in various words.
Ah I see. I just watched Persona 5 video in English and although the pronounciation is still wrong at least it's not May-ko-two lol.
 

Watchtower

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,650
Just curious, how do you English speakers pronounce "Makoto"?

May-ko-two ?
I've only ever heard it as Mah-ko-to from English speakers. The complication with Mako is that there is a word in itself, Mako, (as in the shark) that we normally pronounce as May-ko. Native English speakers are generally comfortable with different combinations of syllables being pronounced differently in various words.

Yeah, you can't exactly "gotcha" native English speakers for being inconsistent because English as a language is loaded with inconsistencies (and that's before you get into differences in dialect) and native speakers just roll with it.
 

Prine

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,724
Im British. Its May-ko you philistines.
 

Deleted member 29682

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 1, 2017
12,290
Yeah, you can't exactly "gotcha" native English speakers for being inconsistent because English as a language is loaded with inconsistencies (and that's before you get into differences in dialect) and native speakers just roll with it.

I mean internal language inconsistencies and dialects are hardly unique to the English language, it just gets highlighted when you're pronouncing words from other languages and loan words. You can't rely on experience to know how to pronounce them so you have to pick something from your existing vocabulary and then it becomes more obvious where the inconsistencies lie.
 

newmoneytrash

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,981
Melbourne, Australia
May-ko? Is she the daughter of Meh-ryo? WTF is up with you Americans and mispronouncing anything that is not in English... do they not teach a mandatory foreign language in school over there?!

Learning foreign languages and cultures is good for you, there's nothing to lose there, only a whole lot to gain



.
i think you're reading too much into the pronunciation of a word that people didn't officially hear spoken for like a decade and most people read when they were small children
 

Regulus Tera

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,458
If your only language is English, you are probably gonna have problems pronouncing words made up by Japanese people.
 

angelgrievous

Middle fingers up
Member
Nov 8, 2017
9,138
Ohio
May-ko? Is she the daughter of Meh-ryo? WTF is up with you Americans and mispronouncing anything that is not in English... do they not teach a mandatory foreign language in school over there?!

Learning foreign languages and cultures is good for you, there's nothing to lose there, only a whole lot to gain



.
You say that like it's our fault our education system is flawed and we should have known better.

i was 16 when I played the game and no, my dumb midwestern high school didn't have a foreign language offering so yeah, I assumed it was may-ko, Sorry.
 

Rabid-Coot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
269
Mah-ko for ages until the Mako (May-ko) Shark was in a documentary then back to Mah-ko when I heard some voiced FF content.
 

Watchtower

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,650
I mean internal language inconsistencies and dialects are hardly unique to the English language, it just gets highlighted when you're pronouncing words from other languages and loan words. You can't rely on experience to know how to pronounce them so you have to pick something from your existing vocabulary and then it becomes more obvious where the inconsistencies lie.

Definitely all true, but English is notoriously a pretty damn messy language. You got mostly Romantic word roots and mostly Germanic sentence structure blended into this slurry with loan words from every which way dumped liberally in, and a quick Google tells me it's a toss-up between English and French in regards to the sheer number of exceptions in their rules.

Going on a tangent, we could also go all "cold truths" and say that people back in the 90s were just straight-up not as familiar with Japanese language and culture as people are now, and so a lot of Japanese word stuff was taken in remolded to English pronunciation rather than preserved. The lack of familiarity would also apply to Cait Sith in terms of Celtic/Gaelic stuff.