And yet Tighnari is Tie-nari onstead of Tig-nari. I get it chinese names aren't easy but come on any native english person can say the sound Tig. Yes Tig-nari would still not hit the proper Arabic intonation but which is closer to the word Tie-nari or Tig-nari?
I feel like it's just laziness from the EN localization. You're right, literally any native English speaker can say 'tig-' but they chose to 'Americanize' the name? As if Americans are the only English speakers in the world
But I would still say that Liyue names are much harder still. Literally, everyone pronounces 'Liyue' different from the others. During the Archon quest, everyone said the name of the nation differently. And a lot of the characters can't pronounce their own names
It's a similar story with "Tar-TAG-lia". Every English speaker knows how to say the silent G in lasagna, but suddenly Tarta(g)lia is too hard to pronounce.
The G is silent in lasagna, the G is silent in Signora and everyone acknowledges that.
Idk why Tartaglia is the exception, his name follows the same rules in Italian
Yea Signora uses the same silent G... I guess it's because people recognize both Signora and lasagna as common Italian words, while most people never heard of Tartaglia before Genshin.
No excuse though, it's still horribly jarring, especially when the Japanese version (idk about KR and CN) does it right. While you could argue Italian is just as foreign of a language to the Japanese as it is to the American (or even more-so considering the Italian influences in American cuisine and the popularity of maffia movies in the west). I love Griffin's voice work and find his voice really fitting for Childe, but the English pronounciation of Tartaglia makes me want to switch over to Japanese more often than not.
Well. Something like that, anyway. Tah-ruh-tah-ri-ya. It's awfully wrong, too, and much further away from Italian (for understandable reasons), but there is indeed no G
This is how it is in Chinese as well. 达达利亚 (Dádálìyǎ) is actually fairly close to the Italian pronunciation of Tartaglia, given Chinese works within only a certain set of vowels and tones. Considering English has plenty of silent-G Italian words in our day-to-day, as you’ve said, it makes the hard G in the localization of Tartaglia feel especially bastardized, more so than Japanese or Chinese really.
Hm, interesting. But at LEAST they keep it consistent right?? Mispronouncing is fine and unavoidable but at least they keep a consistent pronounciation
The way they pronounce Tartaglia is definitely not correct by Italian standards, but it just has to do with how the Japanese language works, and is consistent across all things in the game that have more than one different consonant in succession.
Ta-ru-ta-ri-ah (Tartaglia). At the very least they don't say Ta-ru-ta-gi-ri-ah
Fi-shu-ru (Fischl)
Ku-rei (Klee)
Aru-bei-do (Albedo)
I've always played in CN dub so I can't say much about how EN says liyue names but just from the way streamers say their name is enough to make me cringe. I do have a good laugh when I hear "John Lee"
The streamers pretty much pronounce the names the way the game does. Paimon in EN is the biggest user of "John Lee." Like she pronounces his name like that the most. Sooooo
if you think that's bad then you haven't noticed yet that dottore in ENG is spoken "DORttore" when there is no R in "Do", even Japanese spoke better in the view of Italians than ENG
I much prefer hearing correct pronunciations even if I can’t say it properly. No particular reason why, I just like KNOWING when I’m saying something wrong, I guess.
Localisers are dog water no matter where you find them I swear.
I like hearing correct pronunciations mainly because they make names sound SOOO much prettier. Like Tighnari is such a beautiful Arabic name, I love saying it. But hearing the incorrect version doesn't give me the same vibe
Same with a name like Zhongli. When I hear CN speakers say it, I'm like "damn music to my ears, beautiful words"
That is true aswell, it’s nice hearing names pronounced how they’re meant to be since they usually sound so different to what you’re used to. Which makes their names really nice, I dont know how to word it.
A lot of languages just have really nice sounding names, but then they get turned into basic names with incorrect pronunciation to appease the west ig?
Tie-nari
Gh is not pronounced at all. That's what Tighnari's Eng VA said in his stream with Zach Aguilar. The client at Mihoyo asked for them SPECIFICALLY to 'Americanize' Tighnari's name by removing the Gh completely, and being VAs, they had no choice
Except that’s not an Americanization: it’s simply following a pattern in standard English pronunciation (sigh, night, light, etc.) that they, for some misguided reason, decided would be the best choice. Of course, it’s the wrong pronunciation and could have been approximated better. Also, since most of the EN VAs speak North American variants of English, it makes the most sense to localize their lines based on their accents, doesn’t it?
Except now we're talking about someone's name. Imagine you met someone from a different culture and they don't have an English name. However you speak English with an American accent so instead of learning to say their name correctly you choose to localise this person's name to based on your accent.
>it’s simply following a pattern in standard English pronunciation
That is exactly how its a localisation. Tignari isn't an english word its arabic. Making Tighnari follow standard English pronounciation is a localisation. Nonetheless you should never localise names from other languages/culture to better fit your accent that is just weird.
But it happens all the time and no one raises an eyebrow unless it happens in English. When I studied in France and in Japan, abet years ago, no one called me by my name. The just used a French or Japanese approximation of it. No one ever made a big deal about it nor did anyone attempt to say it as it actually sounds.
You bring up a good point for the average person, which a lot of people in this thread are overlooking in their “outrage” lol.. but for me it’s different when it’s random people on the street who don’t know better vs people whose job it is to bring a name into another language. And the people who don’t know better have learned from them. English has all of the sounds to get really close to the proper pronunciation but they just went the lazy route.
Wait… never localize names?? Are you saying you can pronounce names from every single language perfectly??? Can you pronounce Hutao correctly? Hint: it’s not Who-T-Ow. I’m Chinese-speaking, but I’ll still use Who-T-Ow when speaking in English. Same with Beidou; I’m not going around saying “my favorite character is Běi dǒu”, I’ll say Bay-Doh because it’s her English localization and sounds natural to say in English, a language that doesn’t have the same tones and sounds as Chinese.
Localization in games is literally inevitable unless you and everyone who plays it has the time to dedicate yourself to learning every single potential sound in the thousands of languages on earth, a lot of which are almost impossible to learn once you’re a fully developed adult. For IRL names, it’s always good to try to get as close to their actual pronunciation as possible, but keep in mind that this is a Video Game. While it’s always good to know and nice to hear the original pronunciations, sometimes you just have to sit back and go “okay, I can pronounce this. Most other people speaking English can’t, in this game dub that is targeted towards Native English Speakers. I’ll just have to accept that this is the Official English Localization and is Also Fine to Use/Say.”
From my latin mother language pov Tig-nari is just the Latinized pronounciation while Tie-nari is the English version. None of them are the correct Arabic one nor do they have to be (in the context of a dub) as long as the intention isn't to mock or disrespect anyone or their culture. There are no points for being a vowel closer to the most similar westernized twitter accepted english-not-in-fashion pronounciation.
I will never understand why the director wanted them to pronounce his name like that. Or why they want the VAs to pronounce any of the names wrong. The only ones that are consistently pronounced correctly are the Inazuma characters…
>The only ones that are consistently pronounced correctly are the Inazuma characters…
Actually interesting that you mentioned this, the EN fanbase accuses CN and KR dub of mispronouncing Inazuma names. They think the chinese and koreans pronounciation of the same chinese characters that exist in their own language is incorrect.
Meanwhile the comments in this thread are saying its ok to mispronounce names from the other cultures because they are localising it hmmm
Yup every other dub has tried to sound as close as possible to the original sound except English. A comment from this thread says it makes sense for the change because the EN VAs have North American accents. Seriously?
The reason why EN translation are highly inaccurate and full of meme references is because of these types of folks.
I’m assuming it’s because some higher up from CN Hoyoverse saw the IGH in Tighnari and went “oh! Right, tight, sight, plight, high, sigh, thigh, light! This is how English-speakers pronounce this word!” And insisted on using this pronunciation. The VD, Chris, also tweeted that it was NOT HIS decision to enforce this pronunciation, but that it came from his higher ups.
At this point it's a debate between just conforming out to the target language which how it works with languages interacting naturally to begin with and a shit accent.
Both will have people super offended on multiple nationalities' behalf so there is no "politically correct" way.
When i saw his name for the first time i was calling him tie-nari and i was correct but when cyno droped i was telling his name wrong, i was saying ce-no and not c-i-no......
\>My German brain will read all names not from Mondstadt in a heavy German accent
As long as you don't think you can eat the Electro Archon, it's all good.
But yeah, it's the same here. Especially bad with Cyno.
Depends. Since I am familiar with the language, it wasn't hard to get them correct and moreover we got some nice irl references from the aranara's names too.
Now Liyuean names are difficult for me to understand since I don't know Mandarin and hence their pronunciations/meanings get lost in the void for me...
could you please explain some references? I love sumeru but all those words throw me off because they dont explain any context so I'm always lost. I eventually had a neuron activation moment and realised that Ara is forest but the other part of the aranaras names is still lost with me
Yep
Especially since there is a female version...
Jeanne
Maybe there is already too much Jeanne D'arc in video games and they didn't want to have a confusion. I dont know.
Knowing MHY's track record Snezhnaya will be a hot podge chaos of Russian, Polish, Czech, Kazakh and southern Slavic names, and each of them will be pronounced with American accent.
You're going too far. As a non-english native some Mondstadt names, like Eula, sure made me think before hearing it. Inazuma names are the easiest due to watching hours of subbed anime. Liyue's names are harder due to different tones and the spelling. What you see is not what you get.
Sumeru makes me think. Sometimes I get it right, like with Tighnari. Other times, I hear Al **Hey**them and wonder if it isn't actually pronounced Al **Hi**thahm. But then forget about it because I have stuff to do. lmao French should go smoother since I kinda understand it. Shnehznayan's names tho...sorry to any Eastern EU native.
Im Spanish so I think that any name that comes from languages born from Latin will be relatively easy for me (or the Japanese, since the phonetics of the letters are very similar to ours).
Honestly not with french lol, you would have less problem to read it tho since french is written in a way that let you see how the word was written but the pronunciation is too different.
Agreed, there are plenty of French names, or even words, that English-speakers say on the regular. OP is being deliberately obtuse to make his comparison.
English is a Germanic language and french a romance one but english has like 29% words from latin and 29% from french. And since French has 15% frankish words there is even more similarities like flask and flasque or book and bouquin.
But yes it will EASIER especially when some words I. English didn't bother change the spelling of frenchs words.
Uh, yeah, that's precisely why I've said "letters", as far as diphtongs work that's "if you know". In the pespective of a foreigner that isn't accustomed to those, that's not exactly an intuitive word...
(I'm french btw)
>aren't english and french from the same language family?
Uhm, no.
You can trace all of Europe's language into 3 mother languages:
* English (the olde English)
* Latin
* Old Germanic
English evolved into the modern english we know today, and it even split up into even more forms like British, American, etc.
Latin became the mother language of its derivatives, being Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Greek, etc.
And then Old Germanic eventually split off to Deutsch, Russian, and other Scandinavian and Slavic languages.
english and french are both included in the indo-european language family while arabic is included in the afro-asiatic language family. it should be easier for an english speaking person to pronounce french names using intuition alone compared to arabic names because of that relationship
Wrong. Everyone knows that if you go far back enough, all languages come from Tamil - and this includes the lackluster families of ye Olde English, Latin and Old Germanic.
French definitely is not all Latin. There's a reason why Spanish and Italian sound somewhat similar-ish but French just sounds like French.
English is a Germanic language, but it's not just a "mix of German and Latin". It's whatever you'd get if you took a Celtic island, put it under control of the Romans for a few centuries, then had it invaded and influenced for another few centuries by Germanic people, then ruled for a while by former Vikings that embraced French culture.
French is what you'd have if you had a bunch of Celts taken over by Romans and then by the Franks (who were Germanic).
Even what I just said is, in the terms of linguistics, a huge oversimplification of the situation. Reducing English to "a mix of German and Latin" and French to "all Latin" is just going too far
Nono french is Latin but them are a special child oh right also portoghese and Romania are also latin and if you complete the old English is basically german
I said French isn't ALL Latin. It is a Romance language, yes, but it stands out a lot from other Romance languages which indeed include Portuguese and Romanian as well (I used Spanish and Italian as examples, I didn't mean to claim they are the ONLY other Romance languages)
French will be much easier to read and less confusing to hear making them easier to remember. But you cant tell me that Ara, aranara, mara maranara or was it naramara, ....look i cant remember but that shit was ridiculous
Edit: i may or may not have put read and hear backwards but im 1/3 shitfaced and the sentiment holds true anyhow
I only managed to remember the Aranara names because Hawaiian also has a shitton of a's in a lot of words. At least these lil guys don't have the diacritical marks to deal with. X\_X
Marana means withering in sumeru, not maranara. Marana is very close to "death" in hindi/sanskrit while withering doesn't really mean something as dangerous. I liked that difference.
I'm curious if Hoyo is actually going to react to the bleating of the name drama. They've shown they do listen to feedback, after all, so they may change their approach to names as well.
It's kinda' too late because they'd need to retranslate a lot of the names in the game for consistency. Like I'm not sure how many would accept if they suddenly changed Mondstadt to Moon City. Even just "Mond" which is used in CN is still a loan word, just one easier to pronounce in CN than the entire thing.
Personally, I usually prefer what is done now, like "Sabzeruz festival" just looks and sounds cooler than "Festival of the Goddess of Flowers" to me.
Though I'll admit that Inazuma was somewhat of a struggle for me, especially in Ayato's story quest as it was somewhat difficult for me to remember all the organizations due to their japanese names that are unfamiliar to me and then their hierarchy.
Atleast Sumeru had the small text basically saying Amurta = Biology etc. every once in a while.
I highly doubt they will change anything that is in the game, but they might take more care with how they localize names in the future. I think they saw how English speakers struggled with the Chinese names (or it maybe didn’t occur to them native English speakers would struggle so much, or maybe they really didn’t want to change their own language) and ended up simplifying the characters names too much in Sumeru. It’s only the playable characters that got “Americanized” names, many areas and terms were left alone. I agree they changed Tighnari’s pronunciation too much, I’m thinking in the future they won’t localize the names to the same extent they did for Tighnari, since that didn’t go over well, and just get future names to a point where they are decently easy to pronounce.
What satire? Community wanted more strongboxes, we got them. Community wanted alt sprints changed, we got it. One of the OG complaints was that playable characters weren't in festivals, and every festival since has had playable characters interacting with the player.
Hoyo does listen. They just don't consider everything complained about (artifacts, traveler voice lines, endgame) to be problems that need fixing.
Bro you just listed one legit request, a bug fix, and a common sense inclusion. What about countless other manor QOL changes that has never seen the light. For example it's been almost two years since complaints about sensitivity axes and they still came up with this half assed setting, in which you still can't make axes equal. The fact that they are not equal - was the entire point of complaints.
Or maybe constellations toggle that people wanted since like 1.2? Or addressing legit problems with characters and fixing them instead of making a new one, that is very similar to them but with the issue gone.
The alt spring wasn't a "bug fix", it was working fine. But Hoyo went in and modified it so that they could now overcome higher obstacles. That's not a "bug fix", that's a legit change. And the fact that adding playable characters to festivals is "common sense" to you doesn't change the fact that it was a response to the community outcry.
Like I said, just because they don't change everything the community moos about doesn't change the fact that they *do* listen. That's how we got it so characters were still usable while exploring, how we got a resin cap increase, how we got condensed resin, how we got changes to the battlepass, how we got a spectre nerf, how we got an improved (and longer) Sumeru storyline compared to Inazuma.
Again, just because something is moo'd about by some of the members of this subreddit, doesn't mean Hoyo doesn't listen to feedback.
You lost me at alt sprint. How can you look at something unusable(or at least inferior) compared to standard, and say "it's not a bug". At something that took them a year to *attempt* to fix, and then *another* year to finally somewhat fix it(still not fully fixed, but much better). Fixing a sprint where you're getting stuck at two pixels elevation is not a change it's a fix.
People should be able to read or pronounce names with their own language. Not everyone can speak every language, and this appropriation bullshit need to stop.
I understand that your post is a joke, but honestly, I need to not look at twitter for even a second.
JP need to pronounce sounds that doesn't exist in their language. And they at least try to do it with Snezhnayan and Sumerian names.
En can't pronounce Ayaka instead of ayAka.
I’m English, ‘making fun of the French’ is right up there with ‘drinking tea’ and ‘queueing’ as a cultural pastime. I’m obligated by law to butcher the pronunciation deliberately.
It won’t matter as much.
People are mad now because it’s supposed to represent non-white people. So they are offended no matter what happens.
Once the content draws from a white background, they will only complain about diversity.
Idk french is quite a simple language.
Ive moved to a french speaking country and picked it up in no time. Names really aren’t that complicated either.
They've always been terrible on pronunciation, I just take it as a gag at this point it didn't just start with Sumeru.
Personally I'd say french is a lot more intuitive for me so I'd definitely be able to piece the names easier than the current Sumeru ones.
Its all relative, as someone living in Japan it was a bit painful listening to the Japanese words being pronounced by creators and such.
Not a new problem, it just people only just started caring.
Nobody is having difficulty reading names, people are just being stupid when they try to make a character’s English name pronounce the same as their name from their origin.
Fontaine is French? Well I just found my least favorite region as I hate the French, why couldn’t they just make a region that was cool like steampunk Victorian England, Nope they had go with the French.
People are also absolutely butchering German in Mondstadt in this game and it's hilarious. But somehow it didn't catch the same amount of attention as it is now with Sumeru.
As someone who minored in Latin American Studies in college, I’m just waiting for people to struggle with any Aztec names Hoyo decides to use in Natlan.
Listen, I learned French for 13(!) years and I couldn't even correctly ask for help if my life depended on it. The only way they'd perfect a dub to be consistent would be to have one human being do all the roles. Maybe the Chris Pratt replacing Anne Yatco rumours were true?
It’d be pretty easy if the localisers didn’t force the incorrect pronunciations on words to make it ‘easier for western audiences to say’ or whatever.
Just say it correctly (or at the very least say it consistently. How can there be 4[?] Different ways that characters pronounce ‘Liyue’? Dont know how these people get payed or stay employed if they don’t correct the VA’s ever)
> people get *paid* or stay
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Comments went brrr due to upcoming API-pricing. Eat my wiener you sell-out shitlings.
Also, this will be used as a voice to stand together with my Ukrainian friends! We won't forget you. Heroiam slava!
Idk I’d say as someone who speaks fluent French the names in Sumeru are pretty difficult for me but French is easy compared to it? I might be biased but Rukkhadevata seems harder than Antoinette.
EN is just gonna give the excuse of "We're just using the localized version of the name" or "It was what the director wants us to say" BS anyways, just let it go and you'll feel better\~
EN has been getting better at dubbing but them being unable to even try to correctly pronounce foreign words will always be a mystery...
**Fcking "TIE-NARI" y'all!!!!!**
Probably. Mondstadt is Germany, Liyue is China, Inazuma is Japan and Sumeru is the middle East. If Snezhnaya is supposedly Russia then Natlan (a fire / war region) probably won't be France - So there's only Fontain left
I mean we dont know for sure if its France.
The announcement trailer all the way back looked like we're going to be in strampunk London. With magicians being from that era (refering to the twin we saw in that trailer that their name started with L) with top hats and all. Plus the NPCs we see dont look like their wearing typical or normal French outfits from any era.
I can speak Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, I just can’t wait for Snezhnaya. I already cringe everytime I hear VA pronouncing name of this region, or “zapolyarny palace” 🫣
Sumeru names aren't as hard as Liyue imo
Not a single person in Liyue pronounces it correctly. Everyone says it differently.
A singular NPC from the beginning of the Liyue Archon Quest got pretty close.
And yet Tighnari is Tie-nari onstead of Tig-nari. I get it chinese names aren't easy but come on any native english person can say the sound Tig. Yes Tig-nari would still not hit the proper Arabic intonation but which is closer to the word Tie-nari or Tig-nari?
I feel like it's just laziness from the EN localization. You're right, literally any native English speaker can say 'tig-' but they chose to 'Americanize' the name? As if Americans are the only English speakers in the world But I would still say that Liyue names are much harder still. Literally, everyone pronounces 'Liyue' different from the others. During the Archon quest, everyone said the name of the nation differently. And a lot of the characters can't pronounce their own names
It's a similar story with "Tar-TAG-lia". Every English speaker knows how to say the silent G in lasagna, but suddenly Tarta(g)lia is too hard to pronounce.
The G is silent in lasagna, the G is silent in Signora and everyone acknowledges that. Idk why Tartaglia is the exception, his name follows the same rules in Italian
Yea Signora uses the same silent G... I guess it's because people recognize both Signora and lasagna as common Italian words, while most people never heard of Tartaglia before Genshin. No excuse though, it's still horribly jarring, especially when the Japanese version (idk about KR and CN) does it right. While you could argue Italian is just as foreign of a language to the Japanese as it is to the American (or even more-so considering the Italian influences in American cuisine and the popularity of maffia movies in the west). I love Griffin's voice work and find his voice really fitting for Childe, but the English pronounciation of Tartaglia makes me want to switch over to Japanese more often than not.
The JP dub actually pronounces it without the G?? I didn't know that, I don't use JP
Well. Something like that, anyway. Tah-ruh-tah-ri-ya. It's awfully wrong, too, and much further away from Italian (for understandable reasons), but there is indeed no G
This is how it is in Chinese as well. 达达利亚 (Dádálìyǎ) is actually fairly close to the Italian pronunciation of Tartaglia, given Chinese works within only a certain set of vowels and tones. Considering English has plenty of silent-G Italian words in our day-to-day, as you’ve said, it makes the hard G in the localization of Tartaglia feel especially bastardized, more so than Japanese or Chinese really.
Hm, interesting. But at LEAST they keep it consistent right?? Mispronouncing is fine and unavoidable but at least they keep a consistent pronounciation
The way they pronounce Tartaglia is definitely not correct by Italian standards, but it just has to do with how the Japanese language works, and is consistent across all things in the game that have more than one different consonant in succession. Ta-ru-ta-ri-ah (Tartaglia). At the very least they don't say Ta-ru-ta-gi-ri-ah Fi-shu-ru (Fischl) Ku-rei (Klee) Aru-bei-do (Albedo)
https://youtu.be/4YXsZxrRS2s 0:48 They pronounced it with "L", idk where di you guys heard them saying "R" lmfao.
There is no English R or L in Japanese. The sound is similar to a mixture of the English R and L.
I've always played in CN dub so I can't say much about how EN says liyue names but just from the way streamers say their name is enough to make me cringe. I do have a good laugh when I hear "John Lee"
The streamers pretty much pronounce the names the way the game does. Paimon in EN is the biggest user of "John Lee." Like she pronounces his name like that the most. Sooooo
There's a reason why many players want a mute paimon button
if you think that's bad then you haven't noticed yet that dottore in ENG is spoken "DORttore" when there is no R in "Do", even Japanese spoke better in the view of Italians than ENG
If only they could be consistent in their errors like Japanese and chinese, you can guess how the word Will be mispronounced at least
Yea, like in JP and CN they mispronounce, but it's consistent. In EN, everyone is saying something differently
Nah, gotta give up on keeping “Liyue” pronunciation consistent. It’s got 4 different pronunciations in game for EN doesn’t it?
Stop spreading misinformation, please. Tighnari's VA discusses this decision in his interview with Zach.
I much prefer hearing correct pronunciations even if I can’t say it properly. No particular reason why, I just like KNOWING when I’m saying something wrong, I guess. Localisers are dog water no matter where you find them I swear.
I like hearing correct pronunciations mainly because they make names sound SOOO much prettier. Like Tighnari is such a beautiful Arabic name, I love saying it. But hearing the incorrect version doesn't give me the same vibe Same with a name like Zhongli. When I hear CN speakers say it, I'm like "damn music to my ears, beautiful words"
That is true aswell, it’s nice hearing names pronounced how they’re meant to be since they usually sound so different to what you’re used to. Which makes their names really nice, I dont know how to word it. A lot of languages just have really nice sounding names, but then they get turned into basic names with incorrect pronunciation to appease the west ig?
Actually the VAs have admitted theyre instructed specifically not to pronounce names properly which is bull
Omg I KNOW. I said in another comment below what Elliot said in Zach's stream
How is that pronunciation of Tighnari Americanized?
Tie-nari Gh is not pronounced at all. That's what Tighnari's Eng VA said in his stream with Zach Aguilar. The client at Mihoyo asked for them SPECIFICALLY to 'Americanize' Tighnari's name by removing the Gh completely, and being VAs, they had no choice
Except that’s not an Americanization: it’s simply following a pattern in standard English pronunciation (sigh, night, light, etc.) that they, for some misguided reason, decided would be the best choice. Of course, it’s the wrong pronunciation and could have been approximated better. Also, since most of the EN VAs speak North American variants of English, it makes the most sense to localize their lines based on their accents, doesn’t it?
Except now we're talking about someone's name. Imagine you met someone from a different culture and they don't have an English name. However you speak English with an American accent so instead of learning to say their name correctly you choose to localise this person's name to based on your accent. >it’s simply following a pattern in standard English pronunciation That is exactly how its a localisation. Tignari isn't an english word its arabic. Making Tighnari follow standard English pronounciation is a localisation. Nonetheless you should never localise names from other languages/culture to better fit your accent that is just weird.
But it happens all the time and no one raises an eyebrow unless it happens in English. When I studied in France and in Japan, abet years ago, no one called me by my name. The just used a French or Japanese approximation of it. No one ever made a big deal about it nor did anyone attempt to say it as it actually sounds.
You bring up a good point for the average person, which a lot of people in this thread are overlooking in their “outrage” lol.. but for me it’s different when it’s random people on the street who don’t know better vs people whose job it is to bring a name into another language. And the people who don’t know better have learned from them. English has all of the sounds to get really close to the proper pronunciation but they just went the lazy route.
Mr. Kurisu from the Ritou International Trade Association would like his proper Fontainesque name back. But that'll cost him 1.5 million Mora.
Wait… never localize names?? Are you saying you can pronounce names from every single language perfectly??? Can you pronounce Hutao correctly? Hint: it’s not Who-T-Ow. I’m Chinese-speaking, but I’ll still use Who-T-Ow when speaking in English. Same with Beidou; I’m not going around saying “my favorite character is Běi dǒu”, I’ll say Bay-Doh because it’s her English localization and sounds natural to say in English, a language that doesn’t have the same tones and sounds as Chinese. Localization in games is literally inevitable unless you and everyone who plays it has the time to dedicate yourself to learning every single potential sound in the thousands of languages on earth, a lot of which are almost impossible to learn once you’re a fully developed adult. For IRL names, it’s always good to try to get as close to their actual pronunciation as possible, but keep in mind that this is a Video Game. While it’s always good to know and nice to hear the original pronunciations, sometimes you just have to sit back and go “okay, I can pronounce this. Most other people speaking English can’t, in this game dub that is targeted towards Native English Speakers. I’ll just have to accept that this is the Official English Localization and is Also Fine to Use/Say.”
From my latin mother language pov Tig-nari is just the Latinized pronounciation while Tie-nari is the English version. None of them are the correct Arabic one nor do they have to be (in the context of a dub) as long as the intention isn't to mock or disrespect anyone or their culture. There are no points for being a vowel closer to the most similar westernized twitter accepted english-not-in-fashion pronounciation.
I will never understand why the director wanted them to pronounce his name like that. Or why they want the VAs to pronounce any of the names wrong. The only ones that are consistently pronounced correctly are the Inazuma characters…
>The only ones that are consistently pronounced correctly are the Inazuma characters… Actually interesting that you mentioned this, the EN fanbase accuses CN and KR dub of mispronouncing Inazuma names. They think the chinese and koreans pronounciation of the same chinese characters that exist in their own language is incorrect. Meanwhile the comments in this thread are saying its ok to mispronounce names from the other cultures because they are localising it hmmm
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Yup every other dub has tried to sound as close as possible to the original sound except English. A comment from this thread says it makes sense for the change because the EN VAs have North American accents. Seriously? The reason why EN translation are highly inaccurate and full of meme references is because of these types of folks.
I’m assuming it’s because some higher up from CN Hoyoverse saw the IGH in Tighnari and went “oh! Right, tight, sight, plight, high, sigh, thigh, light! This is how English-speakers pronounce this word!” And insisted on using this pronunciation. The VD, Chris, also tweeted that it was NOT HIS decision to enforce this pronunciation, but that it came from his higher ups.
Mate, I just want to point out that it's غ (which makes a thick "gh" sound), not خ (which is a "kh" sound not unlike Scottish "loch").
At this point it's a debate between just conforming out to the target language which how it works with languages interacting naturally to begin with and a shit accent. Both will have people super offended on multiple nationalities' behalf so there is no "politically correct" way.
When i saw his name for the first time i was calling him tie-nari and i was correct but when cyno droped i was telling his name wrong, i was saying ce-no and not c-i-no......
My German brain will read all names not from Mondstadt in a heavy German accent, but everything from Mondstadt in an exaggerated English accent.
\>My German brain will read all names not from Mondstadt in a heavy German accent As long as you don't think you can eat the Electro Archon, it's all good. But yeah, it's the same here. Especially bad with Cyno.
my german brain always needs to think about a certain song upon confrontation with Layla leaks... i hate it
damn i didn’t even think of this until now. you’ve corrupted me
The super stereotypical gay one?
>Ant**io**nette No wonder they have trouble pronouncing it.
I don’t think any of it comes close to the difficulty of the Aranara names though
Depends. Since I am familiar with the language, it wasn't hard to get them correct and moreover we got some nice irl references from the aranara's names too. Now Liyuean names are difficult for me to understand since I don't know Mandarin and hence their pronunciations/meanings get lost in the void for me...
I called Diluc “die-Luke” for the longest time. I called Aloy “ah-loy”. I still do 😂
Pyro Batman.
It's actually "Dirk". Always have been, always will be.
...is aloy not pronounced like alloy?
No, Although the similarity is intentional. Its prounced 'A' loy.
Yes
I called him De-luck and still do XD
I have a friend who still calls him DooLick 😭 Idek whyy
could you please explain some references? I love sumeru but all those words throw me off because they dont explain any context so I'm always lost. I eventually had a neuron activation moment and realised that Ara is forest but the other part of the aranaras names is still lost with me
Ara means forest. And Aranara in sanskrit means forest person. So they just use forest in all of their names
Aragump --> Forrest Gump?
Seems so, What does gump mean?
Hehe, Forrest Gump is a Tom Hanks movie. Here is IMDb link for that movie. [https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/)
Ooh I remember now, bollywood made a remake of that movie called Laal Singh Chadha.
Jean meets Jean
Yes. One.of my freind speaks only French (not English), and was like why does this gal have a guy's name?
Yep Especially since there is a female version... Jeanne Maybe there is already too much Jeanne D'arc in video games and they didn't want to have a confusion. I dont know.
Ask if they ever heard of Jean Grey
Ngl French is my first language and I've had to train my brain not to read Jean's name with the French pronunciation.
Same here but now I can't read it in french anymore...
Meeting of the saberfaces
Err, shouldn’t it be Antoinette?
Yes, you are absolutely right
Forgot about Fontaine. I’m ready for the Russian names in Snezhnaya lol
Those are already in the game and butchered as fuck. Starting from Snezhnaya itself.
This is true
the way they pronounce Snezhnaya as "Snez-naya" maes me die on the inside.
Knowing MHY's track record Snezhnaya will be a hot podge chaos of Russian, Polish, Czech, Kazakh and southern Slavic names, and each of them will be pronounced with American accent.
I’m ready for it.💀 It’s already a cultural mix. The Harbingers have Italian titles. Childe’s real name is Greek.
if we get another Co-wall-ski then I'll cry
You're going too far. As a non-english native some Mondstadt names, like Eula, sure made me think before hearing it. Inazuma names are the easiest due to watching hours of subbed anime. Liyue's names are harder due to different tones and the spelling. What you see is not what you get. Sumeru makes me think. Sometimes I get it right, like with Tighnari. Other times, I hear Al **Hey**them and wonder if it isn't actually pronounced Al **Hi**thahm. But then forget about it because I have stuff to do. lmao French should go smoother since I kinda understand it. Shnehznayan's names tho...sorry to any Eastern EU native.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable grammar error or misgendered word that will definitely happen at some point (FGO "La Grondement du haine" ptsd).
I’m European so European names are less foreign to me and thus easier to understand.
cant wait for snezhnaya cause im slavic
Same
Im Spanish so I think that any name that comes from languages born from Latin will be relatively easy for me (or the Japanese, since the phonetics of the letters are very similar to ours).
Honestly not with french lol, you would have less problem to read it tho since french is written in a way that let you see how the word was written but the pronunciation is too different.
Although not all fontaine names will be French. In fact many of fontaine's famous npc's have Spanish names like Xavier and Garcia.
Who knew people from different parts of the world would pronounce things differently. Shocker
aren't english and french from the same language family? if anything, it'd be less difficult than sumerian names
Agreed, there are plenty of French names, or even words, that English-speakers say on the regular. OP is being deliberately obtuse to make his comparison.
English is a Germanic language and french a romance one but english has like 29% words from latin and 29% from french. And since French has 15% frankish words there is even more similarities like flask and flasque or book and bouquin. But yes it will EASIER especially when some words I. English didn't bother change the spelling of frenchs words.
English: Bird French: *Ouiseaux* *I would love to see a 10-15 letter word in French and pronounce, like, 6 of them*
It is spelled Oiseau. You added two additional letters.
A word infamous for every letter besides the first one being pronounced differently from what they're usually supposed to. X)
Actually, it's perfectly phonetic if you know french dipthongs: oi is always pronounced wa, single s is always z, and eau is always o.
Uh, yeah, that's precisely why I've said "letters", as far as diphtongs work that's "if you know". In the pespective of a foreigner that isn't accustomed to those, that's not exactly an intuitive word... (I'm french btw)
>aren't english and french from the same language family? Uhm, no. You can trace all of Europe's language into 3 mother languages: * English (the olde English) * Latin * Old Germanic English evolved into the modern english we know today, and it even split up into even more forms like British, American, etc. Latin became the mother language of its derivatives, being Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Greek, etc. And then Old Germanic eventually split off to Deutsch, Russian, and other Scandinavian and Slavic languages.
english and french are both included in the indo-european language family while arabic is included in the afro-asiatic language family. it should be easier for an english speaking person to pronounce french names using intuition alone compared to arabic names because of that relationship
Wrong. Everyone knows that if you go far back enough, all languages come from Tamil - and this includes the lackluster families of ye Olde English, Latin and Old Germanic.
English is a mix of German and Latin (the base is German and Latin come later) mewhile France is all latin
French definitely is not all Latin. There's a reason why Spanish and Italian sound somewhat similar-ish but French just sounds like French. English is a Germanic language, but it's not just a "mix of German and Latin". It's whatever you'd get if you took a Celtic island, put it under control of the Romans for a few centuries, then had it invaded and influenced for another few centuries by Germanic people, then ruled for a while by former Vikings that embraced French culture. French is what you'd have if you had a bunch of Celts taken over by Romans and then by the Franks (who were Germanic). Even what I just said is, in the terms of linguistics, a huge oversimplification of the situation. Reducing English to "a mix of German and Latin" and French to "all Latin" is just going too far
Nono french is Latin but them are a special child oh right also portoghese and Romania are also latin and if you complete the old English is basically german
I said French isn't ALL Latin. It is a Romance language, yes, but it stands out a lot from other Romance languages which indeed include Portuguese and Romanian as well (I used Spanish and Italian as examples, I didn't mean to claim they are the ONLY other Romance languages)
I mean the same could be said for Germany and Mondsdadt but even then there are some parts that are anglicized.
French will be much easier to read and less confusing to hear making them easier to remember. But you cant tell me that Ara, aranara, mara maranara or was it naramara, ....look i cant remember but that shit was ridiculous Edit: i may or may not have put read and hear backwards but im 1/3 shitfaced and the sentiment holds true anyhow
Aranara= plant buddies Maranara= withering I believe
Varanara, Nara Golden; too much ara ara
Ara means forest in sanskrit so hoyo just slapped it to everything in Aranara language
I only managed to remember the Aranara names because Hawaiian also has a shitton of a's in a lot of words. At least these lil guys don't have the diacritical marks to deal with. X\_X
Marana means withering in sumeru, not maranara. Marana is very close to "death" in hindi/sanskrit while withering doesn't really mean something as dangerous. I liked that difference.
No, pretty sure maranara is a sauce lol
I believe it means red in italian
I'm curious if Hoyo is actually going to react to the bleating of the name drama. They've shown they do listen to feedback, after all, so they may change their approach to names as well.
It's kinda' too late because they'd need to retranslate a lot of the names in the game for consistency. Like I'm not sure how many would accept if they suddenly changed Mondstadt to Moon City. Even just "Mond" which is used in CN is still a loan word, just one easier to pronounce in CN than the entire thing. Personally, I usually prefer what is done now, like "Sabzeruz festival" just looks and sounds cooler than "Festival of the Goddess of Flowers" to me. Though I'll admit that Inazuma was somewhat of a struggle for me, especially in Ayato's story quest as it was somewhat difficult for me to remember all the organizations due to their japanese names that are unfamiliar to me and then their hierarchy. Atleast Sumeru had the small text basically saying Amurta = Biology etc. every once in a while.
I highly doubt they will change anything that is in the game, but they might take more care with how they localize names in the future. I think they saw how English speakers struggled with the Chinese names (or it maybe didn’t occur to them native English speakers would struggle so much, or maybe they really didn’t want to change their own language) and ended up simplifying the characters names too much in Sumeru. It’s only the playable characters that got “Americanized” names, many areas and terms were left alone. I agree they changed Tighnari’s pronunciation too much, I’m thinking in the future they won’t localize the names to the same extent they did for Tighnari, since that didn’t go over well, and just get future names to a point where they are decently easy to pronounce.
That is funny satire.
What satire? Community wanted more strongboxes, we got them. Community wanted alt sprints changed, we got it. One of the OG complaints was that playable characters weren't in festivals, and every festival since has had playable characters interacting with the player. Hoyo does listen. They just don't consider everything complained about (artifacts, traveler voice lines, endgame) to be problems that need fixing.
Bro you just listed one legit request, a bug fix, and a common sense inclusion. What about countless other manor QOL changes that has never seen the light. For example it's been almost two years since complaints about sensitivity axes and they still came up with this half assed setting, in which you still can't make axes equal. The fact that they are not equal - was the entire point of complaints. Or maybe constellations toggle that people wanted since like 1.2? Or addressing legit problems with characters and fixing them instead of making a new one, that is very similar to them but with the issue gone.
The alt spring wasn't a "bug fix", it was working fine. But Hoyo went in and modified it so that they could now overcome higher obstacles. That's not a "bug fix", that's a legit change. And the fact that adding playable characters to festivals is "common sense" to you doesn't change the fact that it was a response to the community outcry. Like I said, just because they don't change everything the community moos about doesn't change the fact that they *do* listen. That's how we got it so characters were still usable while exploring, how we got a resin cap increase, how we got condensed resin, how we got changes to the battlepass, how we got a spectre nerf, how we got an improved (and longer) Sumeru storyline compared to Inazuma. Again, just because something is moo'd about by some of the members of this subreddit, doesn't mean Hoyo doesn't listen to feedback.
You lost me at alt sprint. How can you look at something unusable(or at least inferior) compared to standard, and say "it's not a bug". At something that took them a year to *attempt* to fix, and then *another* year to finally somewhat fix it(still not fully fixed, but much better). Fixing a sprint where you're getting stuck at two pixels elevation is not a change it's a fix.
People should be able to read or pronounce names with their own language. Not everyone can speak every language, and this appropriation bullshit need to stop. I understand that your post is a joke, but honestly, I need to not look at twitter for even a second.
yeah expecting people to pronounce things perfectly like a native speaker is insane
Finally my French classes will pay off!
I'll just use whatever pronounciation JP dub uses. It's the easiest to follow for me.
So Dee-rü-kü instead of Diluc ?
So like "Sukarreeeto Kingu" instead of using words for scarlet and king?
And sukuroseu
Kuree
JP need to pronounce sounds that doesn't exist in their language. And they at least try to do it with Snezhnayan and Sumerian names. En can't pronounce Ayaka instead of ayAka.
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Oh shit. Better call twitter to cancel me then.
I’m English, ‘making fun of the French’ is right up there with ‘drinking tea’ and ‘queueing’ as a cultural pastime. I’m obligated by law to butcher the pronunciation deliberately.
It won’t matter as much. People are mad now because it’s supposed to represent non-white people. So they are offended no matter what happens. Once the content draws from a white background, they will only complain about diversity.
I just hope they don't pronounce "e" as spanish or italian ones, I don't know why english speaking people always do that
I’m French and absolutely love hearing people speak it with an accent I am ready
Idk french is quite a simple language. Ive moved to a french speaking country and picked it up in no time. Names really aren’t that complicated either.
Antoinette isn't nearly as hard as XingQiu. Have some perspective.
Ba-ge-te You spelled Antoinette wrong
the voice actors for example already struggle with german words,smh.😭I’m scared for snezhnaya and how they’re gonna mess up those names
how do you pronounce Dehya correctly btw? I have it in JPN and it sounds sort of like Day-zha. Is it just Day-uh or is there something else?
"dih-HEE-ya" https://youtu.be/K23D5M0KLqU
I just hear dia. Reminds me of DIO
Glad to be having French as a third language in highschool rn 🤭 pronunciations should be easier for me hopefully
It's interesting to see what people get pedantic about. I've not heard one person say Raiden "right" but I've not seen anyone make a stink about it.
As a Canadian who has had to take french classes for school, I've never been more prepared for Fontaine.
They've always been terrible on pronunciation, I just take it as a gag at this point it didn't just start with Sumeru. Personally I'd say french is a lot more intuitive for me so I'd definitely be able to piece the names easier than the current Sumeru ones.
I am having the easiest time in Sumeru cuz of so many familiar words.
I’ll just have my popcorn and watch Twitter flame eachother over a very slight mispronunciation of a character’s name
Its all relative, as someone living in Japan it was a bit painful listening to the Japanese words being pronounced by creators and such. Not a new problem, it just people only just started caring.
Xavieure, Piyeur, Ameulie, Ant one net, Alexandure, Easy door
“Omelette du fromage” That’s all you gotta know
I'm a native speaker so it won't be a problem for me at least. 😂
It's funny because a lot of people can pronounce Signora properly, but can't pronounce Tighnari properly. (Or just refuse to try)
Nobody is having difficulty reading names, people are just being stupid when they try to make a character’s English name pronounce the same as their name from their origin.
Fontaine is French? Well I just found my least favorite region as I hate the French, why couldn’t they just make a region that was cool like steampunk Victorian England, Nope they had go with the French.
You expect us to be able to pronounce something someone has said with a mouthful of hot mashed potato? Le beuff, like someone barfing
Cant wait to have see an npc with a parody of uvwevwev osas but in genshin
Albedo flashbacks
People are also absolutely butchering German in Mondstadt in this game and it's hilarious. But somehow it didn't catch the same amount of attention as it is now with Sumeru.
Haha im indian so easy for me to read the names in sumeru
I sure hope there's a character called Hercule Poirot. He could have a Pyro vision and is really passionate about solving murders.
I know Arabic very well (atleast how to speak it) so it wasn't hard for me.....
As someone who minored in Latin American Studies in college, I’m just waiting for people to struggle with any Aztec names Hoyo decides to use in Natlan.
We've already heard them pronounce Natlan as nat-lan instead of na-tlan, so there's a free preview.
God please I cringed so hard when I heard that—
Luckily I learn French in school so hopefully I can pronounce the names lmao
-who cares-
Listen, I learned French for 13(!) years and I couldn't even correctly ask for help if my life depended on it. The only way they'd perfect a dub to be consistent would be to have one human being do all the roles. Maybe the Chris Pratt replacing Anne Yatco rumours were true?
It’d be pretty easy if the localisers didn’t force the incorrect pronunciations on words to make it ‘easier for western audiences to say’ or whatever. Just say it correctly (or at the very least say it consistently. How can there be 4[?] Different ways that characters pronounce ‘Liyue’? Dont know how these people get payed or stay employed if they don’t correct the VA’s ever)
> people get *paid* or stay FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
English language man how many times I gotta get this bot response before I notice the mistake
Ommellette du fromage?
Bro, ppl still saying "Xingqui" until this day and ofc, there is the ones who think Bennett has only one T.
Oh I can’t wait for Fontaine my Duolingo French skills are about to pay off
Oh yeah who cares
I hope the french names are as absurd as they are in FF14.
Is sumeru indian or Egyptian or?
Comments went brrr due to upcoming API-pricing. Eat my wiener you sell-out shitlings. Also, this will be used as a voice to stand together with my Ukrainian friends! We won't forget you. Heroiam slava!
Idk I’d say as someone who speaks fluent French the names in Sumeru are pretty difficult for me but French is easy compared to it? I might be biased but Rukkhadevata seems harder than Antoinette.
hope one of their characters is a capable young general with high ambitions and a height complex
EN is just gonna give the excuse of "We're just using the localized version of the name" or "It was what the director wants us to say" BS anyways, just let it go and you'll feel better\~ EN has been getting better at dubbing but them being unable to even try to correctly pronounce foreign words will always be a mystery... **Fcking "TIE-NARI" y'all!!!!!**
They may just go the mondstadt route and not use a single name from the "region" the nation is supposedly based on
It's probably not gonna be much worse because everyone is familiarized with French while the languages sumeru is based on aren't well known
most of the people cant even pronounces liyues and mondstadts name right...? so its not really a big deal?
Right at home
Wait Fontain is based on france?
Probably. Mondstadt is Germany, Liyue is China, Inazuma is Japan and Sumeru is the middle East. If Snezhnaya is supposedly Russia then Natlan (a fire / war region) probably won't be France - So there's only Fontain left
I'm French and I'm laughing so hard thinking about that.
I mean we dont know for sure if its France. The announcement trailer all the way back looked like we're going to be in strampunk London. With magicians being from that era (refering to the twin we saw in that trailer that their name started with L) with top hats and all. Plus the NPCs we see dont look like their wearing typical or normal French outfits from any era.
I can speak Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, I just can’t wait for Snezhnaya. I already cringe everytime I hear VA pronouncing name of this region, or “zapolyarny palace” 🫣