Chihiro Onitsuka Pronunciation

[Dektol]

The pronunciation of Japanese names is very difficult to figure out from the spelling. How does Chihiro Onitsuka pronounce her name? A phonetic transcription would be very helpful!

[overthesky]

Going from her kanjiji name in last.fm, it would be Tihiro (T as in "tip", H as in "hi") Ônitsúca.

Sorry if my phonetic transcription is a little weird, I haven't learned how to do it in English...

[Ayamael]

Actually, Dektol, Japanese is pretty much pronounced as it is romanized, but I'm guessing it's easier for a French speaker to pronounce that type of romanization, as 95 % of the sounds actually exist in French... I'd say it's English that's hard to pronounce based on spelling, because there are inconsistencies like : "foot" and "boot", or "read" (as reed) and "read" (as red), etc. Japanese is fairly simple in comparison with only 5 vowels and something like 20 consonants.

And, overthesky, the "ch" sound in Chihiro is more like the "ch" in "chips".

So CHIHIRO:
CH as in "church"
I as in "tip"
HI as in "hip"
ro as in "romance", but actually, this is a bad example as the japanese "r" sound doesn't exist in English, it's a mix of "r" and "l"

ONITSUKA:
O as in "hot"
NI as in "nil"
TSU as in "tsunami"
KA as in "cat"

It's the best I can come up with, the best is to just listen to her name. In this video, they give her name in the first 3 seconds YouTube - Onitsuka Chihiro Talk & Sign LIVE. The first few seconds go as follows :"Saikyou wa, Onitsuka Chihiro-chan no... "

[Ignis]

ayamael has explained it pretty well and given good pronounciation examples. as someone who isnt an english native speaker, i, my language, and my pronounciation are naturely used to pronounce most words according to their respective romanization or "as-if". sorry, i find it hard to describe it in sentences.

anyway, for example, the word "smile". we know how to pronounce it in english. but if i were to pronounce it "as-if"; using my natural way of pronouncing, then i would read that word as follows:
"smi" as in "smith"
"le" as in "lethal"

ayamael's examples are good enough but i dont think the "ka" in onitsuka is as if in "cat". if i may give my own examples, but it doesnt mean that ayamael is wrong and im 100% correct.

"chi" as in "CHEAt"
"hi" as in "HEEd"
"ro", it goes exactly as ayamael said

"o" as in "Over"
"ni" as in "moNEY"
"tsu", i cant find a better example
"ka" as in "CAr"

but then again, it is better to listen directly to a native speaker like ayamael had suggested.

[Dektol]

Thanks! The YouTube video was really helpful.

[wmcnair370]

But Japanese tend to do funny things with the sounds. Take Otsuka Ai for example. Her name is not pronounced as O tsu ka, but more like Ot ska. Wonder how this would change the way Onitsuka is pronounced by a native speaker.

[Ayamael]

But Japanese tend to do funny things with the sounds. Take Otsuka Ai for example. Her name is not pronounced as O tsu ka, but more like Ot ska. Wonder how this would change the way Onitsuka is pronounced by a native speaker.

That's because Japanese speakers tend to devoice (skip) the "i" and the "u" when it's possible when they speak, like at the end of words. For example, you can drop the "u" on "masu" and desu" and make the "s" sound a bit longer... Onitsuka is sometimes pronounced : Onits'ka. I don't really have an example in English.. (I would have plenty in French, but that won't help much here ^_^')


And ignis, I had thought of "heed" for the "hi" in Chihiro, but scrapped it because I thought it looked more like a long "hii" in Japanese, a bit the same for "cheat"... oh well! You're probably right for the "car" versus "cat"... I'm not English myself (as implied in my 2 posts, I'm a French speaker) so it's a bit hard to come up with good examples ^_^'

And Dektol, you're welcome for the video