Pronunciation of Gw related words

Tahnnakai Temple to me is either
Tarn-nah-kay
or
Tarner-key

Ybbob to me would be - Whyb-bob
where Whyb is like Why where ending is like ibe

Sahlahja im pretty sure would Sar-lar-jah, or Sar-lar-ha

I tend to call Tahnnakai temple "temple taka-taka", more as a joke as anything else.
A 'tacataca' is one of those baby-walkers kids use to make noise and crush your shins.

Same with Sahlahja, which I call "Salajala" as a joke.
That sounds a bit like: "Se la jala" which means "She gobbles it" in very informal Spanish.
And yes, it has the same innuendo.

Sahlahja

As an english speaker, my first instinct is to prounce 'j' as 'y', which would make it

Sa-la-ya or maybe a rougher starting sha-la-ya.

Arabic tends to make the j sound a rougher 'zh', as in zhed.

Sa-la-zha, kind of like how one would pronounce the current city of fallujah as fa-lu-zha.

Tahnnakai: First part ("Tahnn") is like "tar" but with N at the end. Then "akai" is just like it's written, with the a's pronounced like the a in "Tar". Factions is based on China/Japan so it's logical to assume that the names use Chinese/Japanese pronounciation (i.e. the "Tar" a). In Finland our vocals are the same as in China/Japan so it's easy to pronounce these kind of names

Sahlahja: Same as with Tahnnakai. Use the a in "Tar" and pronounce the "h" like in "hate". The "J" in "- Ja" IS NOT like the J in "joke". It's pronounced like the Y in "yak". Sah- lah - ja

This is how I (a Finn) speak those names.

EDIT: Here's roughly how I pronounce those two names:

Tahnnakai
Sahlahja

EDIT: And Ybbob. As I'm terrible at explaining pronounciation, I'm just gonna link to the speech synthetizer again

Ybbob

Ybbob is (obviously) "Bobby" backwards, so pronunciation is pretty much optional. I'd go for the simple reversal of the syllables - so Bob-ee becomes ee-bob.

I prefer, attack this guy here. What? No, the one I just pinged.

Zealous
Zeal
or Zel
umm yea>

Actually those predate the word "town".


Zealous is a word in the English language derived from Greek (zelos).
Zel-ous

Zel-us.

Not Zee-lus.

Xsshsss Zsss
gl, hf.

Just out of curiosity... For the Echovald Forest, how many people pronounce it "echo-vald", like it's spelled, or "echo-wald"? Personally, I think of it as "Echowald", since it's a forest. Echoforest Forest, basically.

Sry, I don't get the difference between vald and wald :/

@Xunlai: Shun-Lai (if it's Chinese-inspired Sh is closer to X as Z)

Are you working off English pronunciations or German?
Wald is a German word meaning Forest and is pronounced "vald". A v in German is pronounced differently however (more like an f).
I believe the German localisation of the game turns "Echovald Forest" into simply, "Echowald".

Nice thread

I grew up speaking a few Indian languages in addition to English, so I tend to fall back on Indian phonemes when I can't figure out how to pronounce words. Some examples:

I pronounce "Xunlai" like kshun-lai (Sanskrit, the Indian equivalent of Latin, has a consonant that is pronounced "ksh"--like the "ksh" sound in the word "action," for example.)

Dzagonur: Marathi, one of the Indian languages I understand, has a "dz" sound, approximated by making the "z" sound in the word "buzz," but with your tongue initially touching your palette. So I pronounce it "dzaa-go-noor."

I also tend to use retroflex t's and d's when I pronounce a lot of the Nightfall outpost names--simply because to my mind they sound more authentic than the non-retroflex t's and d's that standard American English employs. Examples are Kodlonu and Moddok.

Sorry if this is long

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Qwytzylkak

I'm pretty sure this name is a reference to a Superman villain with a name with very little vowels called Mister Mxyzptlk, but I could be wrong.

Xunlai - Zun-lye ?
Tahnnakai - Tan-ak-eye

What about these:
Mhenlo: Men-low?
Cynn: Sin?
Acolyte Sousuke?? So-suke? Swa-suke?
Nahpui Quarter? Na-poy?
Palawa Joko?

Guild Wars - g ild worz?

I always called it "Naph-ooeh"

The name sounds clearly based on the same Japanese name.

Here you can hear the real thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pv4R...lpage#t=11 6s

First she says his name two times. First she says "Sousuke-san" and then she says "Sousuke" when the subtitles say "You".
After a while, she says the his name again when she says that she only trusts Sousuke.

Japanese sometimes use the name instead 'You'.
That way you never forget your own name, since people remind it to you

Sousuke's name is spoken by Jin in a cinematic (before the mission where you obtain one of them).

Japan and China have very different pronunciation schemes. One is tonal and the other is not.

Yes.

Yes.

Like Mithran said, straight-up Japanese. So(long o) Su Ke

I mentally insert a T and get Na Fu Ti. Probably should be Na Pu Ee.
[edit: BenjZee is correct. I had this one wrong even worse than I though I did]

Phoenetically?
Pa La Wa Jo Ko.
Also, isn't it in the cinematics?

Looked it up and you're right. The evolution did go the other way. It's odd because the reverse is happening in the US; cities spelled XXXtown are falling into being pronounced XXXton.

Nahpui not Naphui so i'm guessing no "F" sounds.
I say it like Nah' (slang for no) Pwee.
Palowa is also said in a cinematic, Pal-'ow' (like gettin hurt) -ah