Comment on Anime Questions, Recommendations, and Discussion Thread [2025, Week 51]
scytale@piefed.zip 5 weeks ago
Just wanted to say it’s mildly infuriating how people still can’t pronounce Reze (Chainsaw Man) correctly even AFTER seeing the movie. The characters literally say her name a couple of times throughout the film.
ReluctantZen@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
Tbf, isn’t that the case with most Japanese names in anime? Or any foreign name tbh. For example, my name is very close to an English name, just pronounced differently, but even after spelling out how it would be pronounced if I were to spell it in a way that matches English, it took quite a while for my English friends to pronounce it correctly.
scytale@piefed.zip 5 weeks ago
In this specific case I think it’s more of a western thing. Most people in Asia outside of Japan would pronounce the “ze” in Reze as “zeh”, while Americans for example default to “zey”, pronounced like “okay” or “today”; so they say “Rey-Zey”. If you ask me or anyone from my home country to say it the way it’s spelled, we’ll say it as “Reh-zeh” and even roll the “r” exactly like how it’s pronounced in Japanese. We read the letter e as “eh” and not “ey”.
But that’s not even too bad. The worst ones I’ve heard are “Reez”, “Rez”, and “Ray-zuh”. lmao. And that’s after hearing it being said in the movie.
nyan@lemmy.cafe 5 weeks ago
Not a Western thing, an Anglophone thing. English normally doesn’t end words with the “eh” sound, but French often does, and French words that get adopted into English tend to go through a similar sound change—for instance, “parfait” is pronounced “pahr-feh” (more or less) in French, but “par-fey” in English.
scytale@piefed.zip 5 weeks ago
Ah yeah that’s the term I was trying convey. Thanks.
ReluctantZen@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
Totally, since it’s not a common name.