I haven’t been able to converse in Japanese since I was four or five years old. ISTM though, that the ‘u’ is often dropped from Japanese pronunciation. For example, ‘desu’ sounds like ‘des’; and IIRC, ‘sukiyaki’ is more like ‘ski-yaki’. Now that you’ve brought up Matsuda-san’s name, I can see how it could be pronounced like ‘Mazda’.
Well, again, IANAJS, but as I understand it, Japanese traditionally doesn’t have consecutive consonants, so when pronouncing a loan-word that does have them a vowel gets added between them. So “Mazda” would become “Maz-u-da” which with the Japanese “z” sound just so happens to sound like the Japanese name Matsuda.
Until the advent of the floating diamond logo, Japanese-market Mazdas had the word “Mazda” in roman script as a badge, so it was definitely a different word from the name of the company which gets romanised as Matsuda.
This.
The second syllable sounds a lot like trying to say the word “devil” and leaving off the “vil” But if you if you pronounce it to rhyme with Sunday, I don’t think you would offend anyone.
Mazda was chosen as the English name for Matsuda because it sounded similar, but the Japanese pronunciations are still distinct. For one thing, Matsuda is pronounced with the 2nd and 3rd syllables pitched up. I’m pretty sure Mazda would be pronounced with the opposite pitch.
Right, but my point is that with brands like Hyundai where the name is derived from the language spoken in their home market, the pronunciation used there can be thought to be definitive so we can go back and see how Koreans pronounce it to decide whether “hi un die” or “hee un day” is closer to right.
With Mazda, though, the name isn’t native to the home market and the way they pronounce it is very different from the way the word was pronounced in its original language. So we can’t really look to the Japanese to solve the “mahhhzduh” versus “mazzzzdah” conundrum.
In US:
Knee-sahn, basically the same as the Japanese.
Hon in Honda rhymes with gone. The Japanese syllable is more clearly an I but otherwise the same. Dont know what Gone Tab is either, autocorrect?
Toyota is commonly pronounced toy yoda or toy yota. Really should be 3 syllables.
Mazda’s first syllable is a as in car, not as in cat, but as noted some speakers may use the latter.
Datsun in Japanese was dattosan, NOT da-tsu-n as the English spelling suggests.
They haven’t used the floating diamond for the last 19 years.
Missed the edit window. Honda has more of an O sound than an A sound in Japanese, the I was a typo.
Yes, Mahz-duh I can understand. Like how some people say “pah-sta” for pasta*. But Mawz-duh was really puzzling me.
- Yes I know it’s not pronounced with a short British-style “a” in Italian. But, certainly to my ears, the British pronounciation is closer to the Italian than the American/Australian drawn out paaaah-sta. John Torode on MasterChef, I’m looking at you!
My Hyundai did not start the other day and what I called did not start with H
현대
Two syllable word that means modern.
First character is pronounced Hyun, rhymes with Sun, one syllable. smashing the H + Y sound together might be a little odd for an english speaker. Best example I can think of is the “HYUK HYUK” laughing sound. but ending with an “N” sound instead of a “K”
Second character is Dai, but that is terrible… the sound is much closer to the word “DEBT” but without the “BT” portion. “Deh” as in Debt. haha, I’m bad at this.
Source: Born and raised in NYC to two Korean parents, raised by Korean aunts and granny, who didn’t speak a lick of english. I’m not quite fluent in Korean, but definitely enough to accurately pronounce 현대.
ETA: [Korean Pronunciation Guide] Samsung, Hyundai, and Daewoo in Korean [TalkToMeInKorean] - YouTube
In case my explanation made zero sense.
For those familiar with the Korean writing system, it’s quite clear how to pronounce the word: 현대. Aspriation-yeo (as in the first part of the English word “young”)-n-dai (pronounced like the English word “day”). Here (click on the little speaker icon) is an online Korean (Korean<->Korean) dictionary’s recording of the correct pronunciation.
If 'twere a native Korean speaker saying the word, then what they actually said and what you heard were different. That’s nothing against you since it’s a commonly-known phenomenon in linguistics for a people to believe they’ve heard the sounds they’ve been primed to hear, so to speak, by the sound inventory and phonetics of their native language.
I feel bad correcting the above poster, but this is SD. I’ve enjoyed innumerable threads going back and forth about rather insignificant and ultimately silly nuances. Having said that, I’m right, and these non-Korean speakers are wrong.
Many posters are close, but keep making minor (completely understandable to an untrained non-Korean ear) mistakes.
Sorry Monty, but you aren’t correct. It’s not like “the first part of the English word ‘young’”, however small the subtle difference may be. It’s “Hyuon” (to borrow your example of ‘young’ sans ‘G’). I’m 100% NYC accented, but I can tell the difference between “youn” and Hyoun". (Hyuk-hyuk laughter vs yuk yuk.)
Furthermore, it’s not “day”. It’s “deh” as in “debacle”, without the “bacle”.
I feel silly being so pedantic about such a trivial point of difference!
You should feel bad. You obviously missed where I typed “aspiration”. That would be the ㅎ. Of course there are dialect differences. Standard South Korean has the second syllable as 대 (“day”), just as the woman speaking the word in the link I provided. Now, you may or not like Daum for whatever reason, but you cannot say that they’re not authentically Korean.
One of the more fascinating, to me at least, differences in dialects is between that of the standard speech back in the “old country” and that of the immigrant community overseas, especially with the speech of the “old language” by the immigrants’ children and grandchildren. One of my professors said that a good deal of the overseas community speech was, essentially, “stuck in time”. He point was that the overseas community used the language the way it was when they left the old country.
Just so you know, not only did I major in linguistics, I have lived in Korea for a decade and am a Korean speaker. Speaking of dialectal differences, just this past Thursday evening, I went with some friends to a North Korean restaurant here in Beijing. The dialect they spoke was interesting, mostly due to vocabulary differences. The pronunciation was a bit different than Standard South Korean, but they managed to say the 대 as “day” also. Imagine that!
“He point” in my post above should be “His point”.
I stand corrected about the aspiration. Your description of 현 was accurate. I apologize for not reading your post more carefully.
However, I’m surprised you hold steadfast to your “day” pronunciation. I’m far from a linguist, I have an american accent when I speak Korean. But I know 대 is not “day”.
You have Korean friends, ask any of them to write “Sunday” or “Monday” in Korean.
I’m sure you’ll see that none of them would write “선대” or “먼대”. They would write the “day” portion as “대이”.
Thank you for providing that Daum link, it shows how easy it is to mistake “deh” for “day”. Perhaps you and I differ on the proper way to say “day”?
I see the vast majority of Koreans saying “day” as “대이”, meaning “대” is simply “deh”.
Please ask a Korean how they would write “day”. If they all agree on “대”, then you are right, and it’s “Hyun-day”.
foopyx: Thanks for the PM. Mighty decent of you! Check your in-box.
On the flip side, a couple of Koreans guessing how Americans pronounce Korean brands.
I beg to differ. Cal Worthington very clearly pronounced it “HUN-day” the first time he featured one in one of his commercials. He actually appeared to be amused that the “Y” was silent.
“Those wacky Koreans!” (He didn’t actually say that, but you could tell he was thinking it.)
I remember differently (though he may have said ‘day’ instead of ‘dye’).