Pronounciations

[Lady]

That is quite a stretch o.O;;

Lol its not even a stretch its completely WRONG. But I'm stuck saying it that way in my head.

[Vilhem]

Try easing into it like this:

say "A" as in long sound, as in "pray"

then say "or"

then "zee"

then "ah!" as if you just had a good thought lol.

With difficult words that don't sound native to you, best thing to do is break them up and ease into them like that. Say them slow, monotone, then ease into saying it faster until you master it. I taught a good many people at my old job how to get down proper Spanish pronunciations this way xD

[3Jane]

Is that Eorzea ? I always say it A- (like hay) -or -zea (like Say) -ah. But that's just me

Z as a letter being pronounced zed.

[Vilhem]

"zee" is easier to roll into for monolingual folks, but "zeh" is acceptable too.

[Lady]

Try easing into it like this:

say "A" as in long sound, as in "pray"

then say "or"

then "zee"

then "ah!" as if you just had a good thought lol.

With difficult words that don't sound native to you, best thing to do is break them up and ease into them like that. Say them slow, monotone, then ease into saying it faster until you master it. I taught a good many people at my old job how to get down proper Spanish pronunciations this way xD

Printing your post out and pinning it on my cubicle, figure after a week of seeing it, itll come natural to say it right.

[Shougun]

Try easing into it like this:

say "A" as in long sound, as in "pray"

then say "or"

then "zee"

then "ah!" as if you just had a good thought lol.

With difficult words that don't sound native to you, best thing to do is break them up and ease into them like that. Say them slow, monotone, then ease into saying it faster until you master it. I taught a good many people at my old job how to get down proper Spanish pronunciations this way xD

Ah - or - zee ah...


ok so like A Orange Zebra!!!


Since we were talking about languages before I wanted to add - love the letter based phonetics that we can make so many weird sounds lol


You where showing Japanese of the English equivalent, Hanbāgā (ハンバーガー)-> Hamburger, getting a close phonetic is pretty much impossible with that kind of Asian base language (Like Chinese). However put in some accent marks in English (or other relating letter bases (we are a big family of languages )) and you can get pretty dang close lol. Of course the Asian languages have their benefits too (like 1-3 compact images per whole meaning (Kanji/Chinese) vs 2++ drifting images per word)

Its too bad we dont have a larger acceptance of accent marks in English - a lot of borrowed words would be said closer to the original with tiny tweaks, not only sounding more worldly of a language it'd also be more consistent for pronunciation lol.

[Pwnagraphic]

Hume
Mithra
Elvaan
Galka
Tarutaru


come at me.

Thread win.

I've always heard Eorzea pronounced Or-Zay-uh so that's how I say it.

[Vilhem]

Ah - or - zee ah...

Since we were talking about languages before I wanted to add - love the letter based phonetics that we can make so many weird sounds lol


You where showing Japanese of the English equivalent, Hanbāgā (ハンバーガー)-> Hamburger, getting a close phonetic is pretty much impossible with that kind of Asian base language (Like Chinese). However put in some accent marks in English (or other relating letter bases (we are a big family of languages )) and you can get pretty dang close lol. Of course the Asian languages have their benefits too (like 1-3 compact images per whole meaning (Kanji/Chinese) vs 2++ drifting images per word)

Its too bad we dont have a larger acceptance of accent marks in English - a lot of borrowed words would be said closer to the original with tiny tweaks, not only sounding more worldly of a language it'd also be more consistent for pronunciation lol.

Yeah, accents would go a long way in helping with some pronunciations, like we have in English "read" as in "I will read this book", and then we have past tense "I read that book". Then you say, "I like the color red". The last two sound the same, but a foreigner will be like "wtf?! which one do I write?" I dealt with a lot of this at my old job, and sometimes we just had to chalk it up to memorization lol [ I worked as an ESL/Spanish Tutor/Interpreter at my old university while I was doing my undergrad btw >.> ] It was especially funny to hear them say "shit" of paper, instead of "sheet", since they are trying to engrain their minds not to fall back on "ee" so much XD.

It's interesting how you mention Hanbāgā (ハンバーガー)... the "n" can change to "m", depending on the consonant that comes after it. In this case, you would actually hear "hambaga" because the b, or a p, will change that sound to "m". It's the same with other, similar words, like パソコン "pa so con" (persocom), you would hear it "pa so com", because it is actually an abbreviation of the words パーソナルコンピュータ "pa-so na ru ko m pyu-ta" (personal computer).

This rule also exists in Spanish, albeit slightly different. Our "b" and "v" sound nearly identical in spoken language, but when the b follows m, it makes a harder b sound. "Coh-lom-bee-ah" instead of "Coh-lom-vee-ah" (Colombia) if that makes sense lol.

/nerd ><;;

[KaMuiSouZou]

The devs have given a few posts on how to correctly pronounce things, it would be nice if the OP updated the first post with them. The only applicable one to race names I know of is Roegadyn. Hopefully other people know if there's more.
Roegadyn: Roo-Gah-Deen (long ooh and ee, not roh-ga-din)
ルガディン: Ru-Ga-Deen. (The Japanese pronunciation enforces the dev post below)

From the depths of the Seven Hells, a post rises once more to wreak havoc on the Localization forums. (cue dramatic riff)

When pronouncing Roegadyn names, you can, for the most part, follow the rules of English. There are, however, some exceptions, so I'll cover a few of those here.

Vowels:

AE: Somewhere between the 'e' in 'egg' and the 'ai' in 'air' depending on the consonant that follows it
Aerg (ambitious) would be pronounced like 'airg'
Aent (duck) would be closer to 'ent' (rhymes with 'sent')

Aergaent (ambitious duck)

Y: A long 'e' such as the 'ea' in 'eat' or the first 'e' in 'Steve'
Alyr (alder) would be pronounced 'ah-leer'
Blyss (blossom) would be pronounced like 'bleece' (rhymes with 'fleece')

Alyrblyss (alder blossom)

OE: An 'ooh' sound such as the 'ue' in 'blue' and the 'oo' in 'I pity the foo'
Broen (brown) would be pronounced 'broon' (like 'broom')
Loef (leaf) would be 'loof' (rhymes with 'goof')

Broenloef (brown leaf)

Consonants:

PF: Closer to an F than a P
Pfym (five) would be 'fim' (rhymes with 'slim')
Skapf (sheep) would be 'skaff' (rhymes with 'staff')

Pfymskapf (five sheep)

TH: More like a hard 't' than a soft 'th'
Thosin (grey) would be 'toe-sin'
Sthal (steel) would be 'stall'

Thosinsthall (grey steel)

W: A 'v' sound rather than a soft 'w'
Wyzn (white) would sound like 'vee-zin' (thanks Viridiana!)
Wilf (wolf) would sound like 'vilf' (rhymes with 'filth')

Wyznwilf (white wolf)

G: Almost always hard (like the 'g' in 'guilt' but not the 'g' in 'page')
The 'gin' in Swygyn (silent) would be NOT be pronounced like the drink 'gin' but like the 'gin' in 'begin'
Agat (amber) would be 'ah-got'

Swygynagat (silent amber)

J: A 'y' sound like in 'year' and 'yummy'
Jungh (young) would be pronounced 'yoong'

H: When paired with a vowel (before or after), almost always silent
Smhid (smith) would be pronounced 'smid' (rhymes with 'kid')

Junghsmhid (young smith)


Like I mentioned before, we hope to make available a Roegadyn dictionary and pronunciation guide sometime before the launch of 2.0. Until then, I hope this helps clear things up somewhat.

My personal pronunciations on the other names, with the original Japanese as indicators on correct English pronunciations. (Tip: you can hear the Japanese words through Google translate. It's pretty accurate.)

-Hyuran: Hyur-ran, rhymes with human. ヒューラン: Hyoo-Ran
Hyur: Hee-Yur in one syllable, rhymes with slur.

-Lalafell: lah-lah-fell. ララフェル: La-La-Fe-Ru

-Elezen: Eh-Leh-Zen. エレゼン: Eh-Leh-Zen.
The Japanese pronounce the first syllable as "Eh" resulting in the word falling off your lips more gracefully or "elvish-like." However, El-Leh-Zen with a harder L at the beginning is more comfortable in English (like Elvish: El-Vish), so that works too until we get a dev to differentiate.

-Miqo'te: Mi-Koht-Te ミコッテ: Mi-Ko-Tte
The ' here indicates not only a harder, double t but a half-beat pause in Japanese. (Listen in Google translate). I think sounding out Mi-Koht-Te rather than Mi-Ko-Tte will help. (Sound out the T at the end of the second syllable instead of just the beginning of the third.)

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Some other interesting pronunciations based on dev posts:
-Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn: Murhl-Veeb Bloo-Fis-Veen
-Peiste: Peace-Tuh (Japanese sounds more like "Paste")
-Goobbue: Goo-Boo
-Louisoux: no dev post as far as I know, but Japanese is ルイゾワ: Ru-Ee-Zoh-Ah. Indicates the French pronunciation of Loo-Ee-Swa
-Leve/Levequest: Leave or Leave-Quest (like in "I'm leaving" not "lev" as in lever).
-Eorzea: no dev post but Japanese is エオルゼア Eh-Oh-Ru-Zeh-Ah. English would be Aay-Or-Zeh-Ah, not Or-Zay-Uh
I think Vilhem's post breaks it up nicely:

Try easing into it like this:

say "A" as in long sound, as in "pray"

then say "or"

then "zee"

then "ah!" as if you just had a good thought lol.

Hello all!

As you all know, FINAL FANTASY XIV is a veritable cornucopia when it comes to oddly spelled words (I believe, 'keyboard mashing' was a colorful term one player used). In the past, there have been multiple questions on how to pronounce certain names, and I've tried to cover a few of those in Localization posts. However, after discussing it with my fellow voidsent peers, we've decided that it is high-time that something a bit more comprehensive be introduced, especially with ARR and a whole new batch of players on their way.

Over the next few months, we hope to provide you all with some pronunciation guides for NPC, place, monster, and item names. If possible, I'd also like to get up some actual audio files, but if that proves impossible, we'll at least get some IPA action in there.

If you have any words we'd like to cover, use this thread as a place to list them up.

Thanks!

P.S. (Peiste is an Irish word for 'serpent' and to the best of my knowledge is pronounced roughly 'peace-tuh'. It is interesting to note that the Japanese rendering of the word comes out sounding like 'paste')

P.S.S. (Goobbue is, in fact, pronounced 'goo-boo,' as Teakwood mentioned.)

I'll cover this one in the future as well, but I wanted to reply right away because leve is such a major term.

Here on the team, we've been pronouncing the word 'leave'. In fact, 'leve' is an archaic spelling of the word 'leave' that was used between 13th and 16th centuries.

Why look! Here's an example from Fitzherbert's The Book of Husbandry (1523)

"Seldom doth the housbande thryve withoute the leve of his wyfe."

Preach it Fitzherbert!

The reason behind using this word in the first place can be seen here in the in-game explanation given by leve distributors:

"In a city as large as this one, there will always be those who are looking for someone willing to assist them with their troubles. Instead of doing the searching on their own, they often come to us. We, in turn, document their petitions and then offer them to our clientele―fine men and women such as yourself. These tasks are what we like to call "levequests," and if someone happens to be interested in accepting one, we present them with a guildleve that is used in conjunction with the quest. Guildleves are, in effect, passes which grant their bearers [B][COLOR="red"]

[Stephen]

You're right in that there's the discrepancy with "hyur" and "hyuran", but all that really changes is the +an sound, so its not "totally" different.

Of note is how the JP spell things phonetically (to the best of their ability) based on the spellings used with roman letters.

Roegadyn: ru ga di n

Minfilia: Mi n fi ri a

Ascilia: A shi ri a

F'lhaminn: Fu * ra mi n

Thancred: Sa n ku re ddo

Yda: I da

Papalymo: Pa pa ri mo

etc >.>



That is quite a stretch o.O;;

To some extent yes, but that's generally with foreign words. They have their own word for human, but since they're translating words with Katakana to have them sound a bit 'mysterious' they'd probably have gone with:

Hi yuu ma n


But either way it's all good, BRING ON THE BETA !!!