Chocobos: How the hell do you pronounce it?!?!?

Factual Questions
1

could someone please spell out chocobo phoenetically for me??

2

You mean like in Final Fantasy? I’m pretty sure it’s Cho Ko Bo (each vowel pronounced the same).

3

Any time that I’ve heard it, it was pronounced Cho-Ko-Bo with emphasis on Cho.

4

the name “Chocobo” actually come from a Japanese candy called Chocoballs, which feature a cartoon bird on the packaging (example 1, example 2). Evidently someone at Square liked the candy enough to reference it in their early work. It is properly pronounced with all long O’s, and no stressed syllables, since it is Japanese.

5

The characters in Final Fantasy X pronounce it with three long o sounds.

6

Ultrafilter is right. The characters pronounce it thusly.
As do American’s that I know that speak Japanese.
As do Japanese that I know that play the games.

People that pronounce it: ChAH coo boos are wrong.
Cho ko bo is right. Each “o” is pronounced “oh.”

7

“Choke-Oh-Bow”

“Oh” as in “Oh, yeah”

“Bow” as in what you shoot arrows with.

That’s about as close as you can get to the sound in english. A pretty good approximation too.

The actual syllables are a bit different in the original Japanese, like MadPenguin and Joe Random said. “Cho-Koh-Boh”.
-Ben

8

Curious answers.

I beg to differ. I have it on the highest authority (my two sons, one teen, one pre-teen, both avid players)that the narration in Final Fantasy X pronounces the name:

KO-Ko-Bos

all hard O’s.

Back to you.

9

This site has a comment from someone who has the Japanese version of a Final Fantasy soundtrack. According to the author, the track listing gives the name in katakana, which is one of the Japanese phonetic alphabets. The katakana used are pronounced “Cho Ko Bo”. So, unless the name of the creature has actually changed since then, it can only be pronounced one way: Cho-Ko-Bo.

As for FFX, I would chalk it up as the America-cizing of the Japanese word by the voice actors. Happens all the time. I mean, look at the Japanese rice wine, sake. Most Americans will pronounce it “sa-key”, whereas the correct pronunciation is “sa-ke” (with the “ke” being pronounced similiar to brand of shoes, Keds).