kymarto wrote:
Having lived in Japan for 32 years, I can guarantee that there is no disagreement, since it is based on two characters with precise sylabic pronunciations. To first is "bo" and the second is "ke". It is extremely simple, but there are two things that make it very difficult for English speakers. The first is that the two syllables are pronounced with equal weight, which almost never happens in English, in which almost all words stress one syllable.
The second is that English rarely has pure vowel sounds, as most English vowels are diphthongs, in which two pure vowel sounds are combined. For example English A is a combination of the pure sounds of e and i, and I a combination of the sounds for a and I. The pure sounds for a, e, i, o, u are ah, eh, ee, oh and ooh (as in dock, every, evil, oval and do).
So the correct Japanese pronunciation is boh keh, with very short syllables, in case anyone cares about how the originators of the term pronounce it...
But Americans and Brits are famous for "anglicizing" words of foreign derivation. I remember when I was editing for NBC in Tokyo, and I stopped the correspondent recording her track to correct her pronunciation of karaoke, which she pronounced “carry okie“. I pointed out the correct pronunciation is "kah rah okay", but she said that if she pronounced it that way, nobody in America would know what she was talking about 😂
Having lived in Japan for 32 years, I can guarante... (
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