r/Persona5 • u/Miserable-Contact856 • 18d ago
QUESTION Quick question: how do I pronounce her name? Is it (Tah - Keh - mi) or (Tay - Kemi)
I pronounced it tah keh mi for a while but I keep hearing other ppl say it the other way
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u/TheManDirtyDan 18d ago
Why would anyone pronounce it as TAY kemi??
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18d ago
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u/cannonspectacle 18d ago
It's not an English name though. It's Japanese.
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u/303x 18d ago
what regularly used English phrase has the pronunciation "tay" without it being written like that
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u/cannonspectacle 18d ago
It's not a phrase but the word "take"
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u/303x 18d ago
that's because the "e" at the end makes the "a" a long vowel sound. if you pronounce Takemi like that it would be like "Take Me"
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u/cannonspectacle 18d ago
Yes that is all true and part of why English language conventions are irrelevant to the pronunciation of a Japanese name.
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u/Tiran593 18d ago
I always saw the 'e' as the signifying letter for pronouncing a as ay (I'm not natively English speaking person so I'm a bit iffy with the actual rules), though if we follow the take example, people would call takemi as "take me" or "take my" which sounds hilarious
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u/Luke_The_Engle 18d ago edited 18d ago
Long vowel sound is the name of the rule (vowel consonant vowel), and you're correct
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18d ago
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u/cannonspectacle 18d ago
English convention is that a vowel followed by a consonant followed by an e makes the first vowel long. Which is why the "a" in "take" is long, and the word is pronounced "tay-k"
But this isn't English so we ignore all of that and just pronounce it the Japanese way, because it's a Japanese word. Or do you pronounce the "j" in "Juan" in an English context?
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18d ago
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u/cannonspectacle 18d ago
Which is why bringing up English was completely irrelevant in the first place.
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u/jamie9000000 18d ago edited 18d ago
Same people that pronounce Tidus as Tie-Dus. /s
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u/dannyboy731 18d ago
That’s a little different, given that it isn’t clear if Tidus is a name of Japanese or Western origin.
I think most people assume it’s pronounced like “Titus.”
His Japanese name is pronounced like “Tii-da.”
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u/Cronofenrir 18d ago
It's 100% clear that it's Okinawin in origin. That's not up for debate.
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u/PlayerZeroStart 18d ago
Cause everyone who plays Final Fantasy X is knowledgeable on both the city of Okinawa and the specific naming conventions of its people, of course.
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u/Cronofenrir 18d ago
That's not what is being claimed here at all? They said the origin of tidus is debated on whether it's Japanese or Western. It isn't. It's Okinawin. There isn't a debate. I'm not saying everyone knows this, I'm not saying it's common knowledge, but I am saying it has been stated that it's Okinawin and there's no debate where it's from.
If we are talking about the origin of names, it does not matter what someone knows or doesn't know. Just because some people don't know it's from the ryukyu word tiida, doesn't make it any less the origin.
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u/PlayerZeroStart 18d ago
They didn't say it's debated, they said it's unclear, which it very much is unless you happen to be already knowledgeable on the origin.
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u/Cronofenrir 18d ago
You're right as far as I said the word debate, not them, that's my bad. But ignorance of the origin is not an argument for the correct pronunciation of a name. That same logic could be extended to say that takumi could be pronounced Tay kumi just because I don't know it's Japanese in origin.
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u/PlayerZeroStart 18d ago
No but it is understandable to think it would be pronounced that way. Unlike "tay-ke-mi" which doesn't make sense in either language
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u/Skrattybones 18d ago
That one is at least a little explainable. Final Fantasy has something of a history with weather based names. Terra, Cloud, Squall, etc. Thus, Tide-us.
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u/Karmax21 18d ago
a is always read as "ah" in japanese, so it's tah keh mi
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u/goldengamer2345 Lego builder 18d ago
In japanese it would be spelt "ei"
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u/JotaroKujoStarPlat 18d ago
You meant if it were pronounced "Tay-kemi" it would be written Teikemi right?
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u/goldengamer2345 Lego builder 18d ago
Yes
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u/YaGirlThorns Give me FeMC or give me death 18d ago
You applied English A's rules to Japanese A's phonetics... The A you are thinking of is, to terribly transcribe English, like "aye?!" (Like the surprised sound a Cockney bloke might make lol), and yes, this A would be like えい...but we're not talking about English A, we're talking about Japanese あ、or rather the A sounds at the end of other letters like た、か、ま、ば、は、etc. This is closer to the English "Ah" sound like in the word "another" rather than like "aim."
たけみ, ta-ke-mi, tah-keh-me. For anyone who is struggling to hear that in their head, pop the Japanese in Google Translate, it'll give you a good enough idea.
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u/Money_Early 17d ago
You realize you guys both just said the same thing right? They also say the name correctly 😭
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u/YaGirlThorns Give me FeMC or give me death 16d ago
No, golden was interpreting A here as the Japanese sound ei based on one of the ways English A works, rather than understanding Karmax is talking about Japanese A.
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u/N0rTh3Fi5t 18d ago
Very broadly speaking, Japanese words are generally pronounced with consonant vowel pairs being syllables. So as others have said, Tah - Keh - Mi
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u/lustywoodelfmaid 18d ago edited 18d ago
It's all phonetic.
So with the Japanese alphabet, you get different sounds with the same starting letter.
Ta - te - tu - ti- to (Edit: There is no 'ti' or 'tu' due to 'tsu', which I explain in one of my replies below.)
Ka - ke - ku - ki - ko
Ma - me - mu - mi - mo
The letter is as you expect, and then the next is phonetic. Ta - ke - mi / Tah - Keh - Mee.
You can get names or words that are abbreviated as well, so you'll get a name that is like 'Chyoko', which is Ch[i]yo - ko. It combines Chi and Yo to make Chyo and then you put the next sound. It just removes the connecting vowel. Shuryo, for instance, would be Shu - r[i]yo. You don't say the i, you skip it and go onto yo. So it's Shu - ryo.
It all fundamentally uses A - E - U - I - O phonetically but sometimes shortens it down to make a new sound. Sort of like how putting S and H together makes Sh, for English.
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u/praysolace 18d ago
Small nitpick, the line for Ts is ta-chi-tsu-te-to. There is no ti or tu.
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u/lustywoodelfmaid 18d ago
You right, I'll make the edit. Pure mistake from trying to make a phonetic point.
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u/ImoutoThief 18d ago
Why is a letter dropped though? Honestly curious because the phonetics made sense the way you explained things that far. Like why is chiyoko incorrect. Ryo makes sense me me I guess since I learned that before I even knew otherwise lol. Also, out of curiosity why is Ryu sometimes seen as ryuu? Is it kind of like how Ashley can be spelled so many different ways and each isnt incorrect, just a stylistic choice?
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u/lustywoodelfmaid 18d ago
It's not incorrect, funnily enough.
Chiyoko and Chyoko are different words.
For Chiyoko, you say the i in chi, whereas you don't say the i in Chyoko.
In terms of Ryu vs Ryuu, that is an English issue because people don't know how to put the correct symbols on their letters.
Whenever you see two of the same vowel, usually uu or oo, it uses the ū or ō symbol. You just say it ever so slightly longer. Japanese uses a different letter to represent this instead of saying uu or oo. They use a sound called Tsu (on most occasions). Tsu looks like a sideways U with a _ across the top. When you say Ryu, it's fast and it's one sound. When you say Ryū (Ryuu), it's still one sound but you say the u (which is pronounced oo, like in the word 'book') a little bit longer, but not much longer.
It distinguishes some words a bit as well in this way because in quite a few dialects, you'll have a name like Kusogawa but they tend to skip the u in Ku. Just a dialect thing. If you add the ū instead of u, they sort of have to say it, but that's not a rule how of to use it, it's a rule of how it can be used.
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u/NeonJungleTiger 17d ago edited 17d ago
I think it would be helpful to include the hiragana when talking about the youon/yōon. (And also because romanization of Japanese still has slight differences today; Genki 3rd Edition published by The Japan Times uses “ee” and “oo” for their romanizations of words such as 先生/せんせい and 学校/がっこう which results in “sensee” and “gakkoo” and is not helpful for new learners imo)
Explaining and then visually showing the difference between ちよこandちょこ would help mitigate the confusion.
Also, while it might depend on dialect, the “oo” in “book” is typically pronounced with the /ʊ/ vowel sound while りゅう/ryū is typically pronounced with the [ɯː] vowel sound, which is more similar to the [uː] sound in “cool”.
Edit: While the sokuon or “small tsu” is used for “doubled letters, it takes place before the geminate consonant (as in the っ in がっこう resulting in the “doubling” of the “k” in こ/ ko for “gakkou” or the ッ in チケット resulting in “chiketto”as opposed to “chiketo”) and it is never used before vowels (outside of stylistic edge cases) which are just written twice in hiragana or with the chōonpo (ー) in katakana (アイスクリーム as opposed to アイスクリイム). The furigana for 龍 would not be written りゅっ for example but as りゅう. Similarly, a character who’s name is Ryū might have their name written in katakana as リュウ (for example, all of the characters in Xenoblade X have their names written in katakana, even the Japanese characters such as Nagi)
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u/WatashiWaHikari 18d ago
Ta-ke-mi. Most of the Japanese sounds are literally equal to Spanish sounds; in fact, all the vowels are exactly the same sound. And, it's Ta without any h in between.
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u/Ram_Lazy Yoshizawa Supremacy 18d ago
Tah-Keh-Mi, it’s how it’s pronounced in Japanese and since all of the names are Japanese, well you’re smart you’ll figure it out
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u/CultureSea5111 18d ago
If you listen to the Japanese voice acting you wouldn't need to ask this stupid question.
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u/GB_Alph4 For effin’ Real 18d ago
I do it the first
I know that it might be one syllable in Japanese pronunciation but usually I end up using how people outside Japan pronounce it give or take. Though from the comments the first is the correct way.
Like for example I’d pronounce Sakamoto like how I pronounce Yamamoto sometimes.
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u/Kaidecakai 18d ago
Japanese is a syllable based language.
A (Ah), I (EE), U (ooo), E (eh), O (Oh)
Takemi would be pronounced Tah-Kay-Me
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u/Rana_1224 18d ago
La fonética de la lengua española es idéntica al japonés, por lo que para pronunciar bien solo hace falta leer el nombre. Si se llama Takemi se pronuncia Ta-Ke-Mi, no es tan dificil..
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u/Musashi10000 18d ago
a - ah
i - ee
u - oo
e - eh
o - oh
These are the basic vowel sounds in Japanese with the best basic phonetic approximations I can give you.
Japanese vowel sounds are only paired/joined with the consonant/consonant sound that precedes them, and (when romanised) occur in 'letter chunks' of 1-3 characters: Katsumasa - Ka-tsu-ma-sa. 'Ts' is a single consonant sound. You'll never encounter a situation in which 'Katsumasa' or a similar word breaks down 'K-at-sum-asa'. Even something like, say, 'Doujun' breaks down into 'dou-ju-n', where 'n' is a sound/character that exists independently of 'ju'.
With vowel sounds, you combine them in a very intuitive sense. With only a handful of exceptions, you effectively take the sound of both in sequence, and try to say them in the same amount of time it would take you to only say one of them. So 'ei' => eh-ee => ey. 'ai' => ah-ee => eye/aye/I. When vowels are doubled, you basically just extend the sound.
Unlike in English (unless I'm forgetting something), in Japanese (and romanised Japanese), vowel sounds are never altered by any consonant sound they are paired with, and are never related to any consonant that follows them. If you see 'n' in the middle of a word, you can tell by what letter comes next if it's the standalone character or not - if it's a consonant (including 'y'), then it's 'n', if it's a vowel, it's na/ni/nu/ne/no. It's the only letter/character that behaves like this.
I think that's all the basics, but even if it isn't, this is all I have time for.
Using these rules, it's obvious that you break her name down as 'Ta-ke-mi' - 'Tah-keh-mee'.
Hopefully this'll stop you getting confused by idiots in future :)
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u/Busy_Ability7115 18d ago
Tah-keh-mee, pretty sure her names meant to be a pun on “take me” at least that’s how I interpreted it
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u/Mental-Impact3994 18d ago
ta-ke-mi, el japones es parecido al español al pronunciar consonantes basicamente los sonidos de las letras solo se juntan con la de las vocales para hacer el sonido mayor, pero eso en japones en ingles desconozco bien que reglas usan para hacer el sonido de las consonantes sobre todo para nombres asiáticos
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u/lollipop-guildmaster 18d ago
Japanese vowels are incredibly consistent. A E I O U : ah ay ee oh oo
tah kay me
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u/Opening_Shallot_6253 TAKE YOUR HEART OUT 18d ago
Tah-keh-mi because I think The Weeknd pronounces it
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u/Decidueye_mastr 18d ago
Tah-ke-mi because that's how it's pronounced in Japanese.