something ACNH related that annoys me:

[spawnpoint]

i will gladly teach him how to pronounce italian names

K

@ProbablyNotJosuke

 

[BigBadButterfree]

Names are sort of different when it comes to pronunciation. I have an aunt "Rachel" but it's not "RAY-chull" like it's normally pronounced, my grandma named her "ruh-SHELL" almost like there should be an accent or something. She goes by Shelly.

I've known plenty of girls named Briana, Brianna, Breanna, etc., and there's usually no way to know on spelling alone whether that's "bree-ANN-uh" or "bree-AH-nuh." You just have to ask.

Of course, this is a game with text. We don't hear the animals' names, nor are we given a formal pronunciation. So I think any pronunciation is valid unless canonically stated otherwise. Of course, certain references to languages do make that easier, like Soleil, but not everything is always that simple. Who's to say I couldn't name my daughter "Soleil" and insist that the final L is not silent? Or maybe I even want her name to be "so-LYLE." If her parents (obviously Hamtaro and Bijoux) wanted to name her a French name but not use its typical French pronunciation, we'd have to respect that. Although again, this game doesn't allow us to know things like that.

 

[EtchaSketch]

Pronunciations of names should be held in high respect. If I told people my name, it would be silly for another group of people to argue over the correct pronunciation to say my name.

Well good thing the animals can’t pronounce their names for you. Problem solved!

 

[Llunavale]

Zucker - Tsoocker

Zucker is actually a perfect example of one that's difficult to say has a "correct" pronunciation, the way you're pronouncing it is for the German word for Sugar, but Zucker has a different in-game name in German if I'm not mistaken (Ottokar, I believe?) - personally, I think it's actually more likely that the English name for him, "Zucker" is a pun on Sucker like @toenuki mentioned - so would be pronounced the same way, but with a "Z" instead of an "S".

That, of course, is not to say pronouncing it as the German word for Sugar is incorrect - we could both be incorrect - I just think it makes a perfect example as to how names in Animal Crossing might not have a perfect pronunciation for everyone, and why people may get it "wrong" in the eyes of others, especially when they're not real names like Pietro or Benjamin or Tammy which one could say do have correct pronunciations.

 

[LethalLulu]

Oh my god, so in acnl, you had to call Phoebe "phobe" with the megaphone. There's no way that's correct lmao.

I can speak quite a lot of french, so any french names, I pronounce as such, like for soleil. Pronunciation will always be inconsistent from person to person. I am one of the only people (besides my brother, actually) that I know who says mana like (mah-naw) not (man-uh) because of diablo 2. I also play league, and for the past 5 ish years, I have always pronounced shaco and janna different from the rest of the plyerbase. It's just something that happens. I like to remember pokemon where there aren't any official pronunciations at all. They themselves use different versions in official media often. There's an entire video on it that was extremely enlightening if anyone would be interested. It's a good watch.

 

[toenuki]

Oh my god, so in acnl, you had to call Phoebe "phobe" with the megaphone. There's no way that's correct lmao.

I can speak quite a lot of french, so any french names, I pronounce as such, like for soleil. Pronunciation will always be inconsistent from person to person. I am one of the only people (besides my brother, actually) that I know who says mana like (mah-naw) not (man-uh) because of diablo 2. I also play league, and for the past 5 ish years, I have always pronounced shaco and janna different from the rest of the plyerbase. It's just something that happens. I like to remember pokemon where there aren't any official pronunciations at all. They themselves use different versions in official media often. There's an entire video on it that was extremely enlightening if anyone would be interested. It's a good watch.

Phoebe is pronounced Fee-bee i believe! as for everything else idk what you're talking ab

 

[LethalLulu]

Phoebe is pronounced Fee-bee i believe! as for everything else idk what you're talking ab

Agreed. Phobe was so terrible to say. If we ever get the megaphone again in acnh, I'm curious how pronuciation will work.

 

[toenuki]

Agreed. Phobe was so terrible to say. If we ever get the megaphone again in acnh, I'm curious how pronuciation will work.

i keep forgetting you actually had to talk into that, i used to give them all hearing damage

 

[Uffe]

Zucker is actually a perfect example of one that's difficult to say has a "correct" pronunciation, the way you're pronouncing it is for the German word for Sugar, but Zucker has a different in-game name in German if I'm not mistaken (Ottokar, I believe?) - personally, I think it's actually more likely that the English name for him, "Zucker" is a pun on Sucker like @toenuki mentioned - so would be pronounced the same way, but with a "Z" instead of an "S".

That, of course, is not to say pronouncing it as the German word for Sugar is incorrect - we could both be incorrect - I just think it makes a perfect example as to how names in Animal Crossing might not have a perfect pronunciation for everyone, and why people may get it "wrong" in the eyes of others, especially when they're not real names like Pietro or Benjamin or Tammy which one could say do have correct pronunciations.

Despite the topic's title, I'm not actually annoyed. I just thought I'd share with people on here how the names are pronounced. And Zucker is actually a surname. Anyway, people can call him Zucker how people speaking English most likely would. I actually have a funny story from when I was in 6th grade. My teacher said Mozart wasn't pronounced "Moats-art", but "Moes-art". Lol. The z has a ts sound, though, so she was wrong.

 

[Llunavale]

Despite the topic's title, I'm not actually annoyed.

Oh, of course - I didn't mean to imply otherwise, I just thought Zucker was a really good example of why some people may pronounce certain names differently. In our case, it is simply a language difference, and that's obviously fine. I imagine this is why many people have many different pronunciations for names

 

[Licorice]

I’m kinda surprised anyone has mispronounced those names. They seem pretty easy to me lmao

 

[Xara]

it’s not a big deal to me and i’ve never seen anyone on here say that the proper way of pronouncing a name is incorrect. i suck at pronunciations so i’ve probably been mispronouncing names for years but i never do it on purpose - i just have speech impediments that make it kind of difficult for me to pronounce certain words and sometimes things just get a bit jumbled up. and plus, my brains asleep half the time lmao

 

[Uffe]

Oh, of course - I didn't mean to imply otherwise, I just thought Zucker was a really good example of why some people may pronounce certain names differently. In our case, it is simply a language difference, and that's obviously fine. I imagine this is why many people have many different pronunciations for names

I do kind of wonder how names got pronounced differently in other regions of the world. Like Johan for example. I think most English speakers say "Yoh-hahn", but then you have someone like Scarlet Johansson that is pronounced "Joh-han-son". Or how Steven Spielberg is pronounced speel rather than shpeel like it would be in the German language. It's weird, but I've kind of wondered whenever names were brought up.

 

[Eevees]

I actually have a speech problem in real have all my life. Even went though therapy for it and sometimes I mess up common words. I dont understand why it would bother someone so much I mean sometimes things are harder for others.

 

[starlightsong]

I mean, a lot of this stuff is up to interpretation tbh, for example I saw the Merengue thread and I would have literally never considered to pronounce it like the dance and don’t think that‘s whats intended either given that she’s a food-based villager. But she doesn’t exactly say her name, so we’ll never know. I also never would’ve considered pronouncing Wolfgang the German way even if it might be “technically” correct because, I mean, he’s a wolf—I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to say his name like, well, “wolf”. And then I can see the case for pronouncing Zucker’s name like the German word for sugar but I thought it was supposed to rhyme with sucker since he’s an octopus! If someone else interprets these things differently, who am I to say they’re wrong? Then there’s the whole Tangy name discourse where I can understand both ways, and the fact is we just can’t know for sure. It’s a totally different thing if a real person told you their name and you went “well i think that sounds weird so i’m gonna day it like this” but I don’t think mispronouncing a fictional character’s name wrong is really hurting anyone, even if in some cases (Ana, Pharah, and Brigitte from Overwatch say hello, lol) it annoys me to death.

Post automatically merged: Jun 2, 2020

Actually, I also just wanna add, out of curiosity: what... other ways are there to pronounce Tia? She’s based on tea so isn’t it just tee-uh? The only other possibility I can think of is tie-uh and I don’t see how someone would get that to begin with so if there’s some other way to read her name then I’m genuinely curious as to what it is djdjdkgkf

 

[toenuki]

I actually have a speech problem in real have all my life. Even went though therapy for it and sometimes I mess up common words. I dont understand why it would bother someone so much I mean sometimes things are harder for others.

that's valid! speech issues are nobody's fault. i MEAN people intentionally messing it up or thinking the true version is wrong.

Post automatically merged: Jun 3, 2020

I mean, a lot of this stuff is up to interpretation tbh, for example I saw the Merengue thread and I would have literally never considered to pronounce it like the dance and don’t think that‘s whats intended either given that she’s a food-based villager. But she doesn’t exactly say her name, so we’ll never know. I also never would’ve considered pronouncing Wolfgang the German way even if it might be “technically” correct because, I mean, he’s a wolf—I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to say his name like, well, “wolf”. And then I can see the case for pronouncing Zucker’s name like the German word for sugar but I thought it was supposed to rhyme with sucker since he’s an octopus! If someone else interprets these things differently, who am I to say they’re wrong? Then there’s the whole Tangy name discourse where I can understand both ways, and the fact is we just can’t know for sure. It’s a totally different thing if a real person told you their name and you went “well i think that sounds weird so i’m gonna day it like this” but I don’t think mispronouncing a fictional character’s name wrong is really hurting anyone, even if in some cases (Ana, Pharah, and Brigitte from Overwatch say hello, lol) it annoys me to death.

Post automatically merged: Jun 2, 2020

Actually, I also just wanna add, out of curiosity: what... other ways are there to pronounce Tia? She’s based on tea so isn’t it just tee-uh? The only other possibility I can think of is tie-uh and I don’t see how someone would get that to begin with so if there’s some other way to read her name then I’m genuinely curious as to what it is djdjdkgkf

Tee-uh! it's also the Spanish word for Aunt

Post automatically merged: Jun 3, 2020

it’s not a big deal to me and i’ve never seen anyone on here say that the proper way of pronouncing a name is incorrect. i suck at pronunciations so i’ve probably been mispronouncing names for years but i never do it on purpose - i just have speech impediments that make it kind of difficult for me to pronounce certain words and sometimes things just get a bit jumbled up. and plus, my brains asleep half the time lmao

also valid! speech impediments are nobody's faultz i mean the intentional people.