Pronuncia, Parole straniere e... 九月！！

Ho perso ore della mia vita a commentare il post di Mami sull'effetto dei nomi proprio giapponesi all'estero e viceversa (nomi stranieri uditi da un giapponese). E' in inglese, ma ripropongo qui il link per gli interessati:

http://www.tofugu.com/2013/07/19/the-difficulty-of-names/

Di sotto propongo anche i miei due commenti, giusto perché sono super-lunghi e ho pensato di poterli condividere.. Mi si perdoni se sono in inglese!

<<When I was 16 I went to my aunt's place in Las Vegas, travelling alone with my little brother. Before even landing to the Us, we met this really nice girl in the airplane - she was sitting just close to us - and, once she introduced herself, we took a while to understand her name: it was Jennifer. A name quite heard by Italians - we watch like 95% of American movies, tv series etc. - but since in Italy we only watch dubbed things, we were used to the sound of the name like an Italian would say it: similarly to Japanese (we have the same vowels, that's why the transcription system is called ローマ字), the sound is nice and clear: ジェンニフェル [accent on Je, "f" like an English f, and strong "r" sound more or less like Spanish r]. But she was saying it in a way I totally couldn't figure out! 

Moreover, when I was at my aunt's, my cousins were talking about their dad's best friend, called Donato (quite an uncommon name for an Italian too). it took so long to catch the word, since what my bro and I could hear was "Donado". That's because USA English [t] and [d] are not dental sounds, like Italian and Japanese (which means, we make the sounds hitting the rear of our front teeth with our tongue), but are alveolar (it means, Americans lightly heat the rear part of their gums, just up the front teeth: the so-called alveoli or "sockets").
Again, my American cousin's name is Angelo. Quite a common name for an Italian native speaker. It's pronounced [Un-gel-o] ("E" really clearly said, like "gem"; "o" is short; accent on "A"). But in his family we heard two pronunciations: his parents called him as an Italian would; but his sister - who is an English native speaker too - called him [An-g(e)-low] (the "a" sound was like the Eng word "cat"; the "e" sound was almost deaf; and the final vowel was lenghtened, getting me to hear "o" at first and then the sound for "boot").
And, my name (Vincenza, it's more or less like [veen-chan-tsuh]) was pronounced roughly [vee-chan-zuh] lol
but it was not for the Japanese, who took some effort to catch my name. Eventually, my name changed from ヴィッキー [vikkii] into ビッキー [bikkii], and I sometimes sign myself with the kanji 美貴, so that people often end up calling me "Miki".
The weird thing is, they sometimes call me "miki" even if I say "bikkii", without showing them the kanji!
So, from Vincenza to Veechanzuh, from Vicky to Bikkii to Miki!
- Sounds like "er" are perceived as the long vowel "aa" in Japanese: japanese don't have this kind of r - which is very light - so if you say "player" they'd hear "pureeyaa". 
- in Japanese there are NO consonants alone. there is no way a consonant is pronunced without a vowel. That's why japanese try to stick a vowel to each consonant, like this --> they put [o] to sounds like t/d (trainer becomes "toreenaa"); they put [u] to sounds like k/g (credit becomes "kurejitto"); they put [i] to sounds like chi/ji (frange becomes "furenji", challenge "charenji")
- The sound w is perceived as "u" --> switch turns into "suicchi"
- the sound "f" doesn't exist in japanese, it is replaced with the sound フ [fu] where the f is a bilabial (different symbol in IPA): so, as for the other consonants, it has the vowel "u" if there are no other vowels --> flat is pronounced "furatto"
- the sounds [th] and [dh] are perceived as [s] and [z]: "Ruth" can easily become [Ruusu]. "The" is often written as [za] (deaf sound "e" doesn't exist in Japanese, so they try to replace it with "a"). "Brother" becomes [buraazaa] (since the IPA sound is /ˈbrʌðər/, you'll soon understand that "o" [ʌ] is pronunced as an open Japanese "a")
look at this link and try and click the [ʌ] and [ɑ] --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
We Italians don't have [ʌ] sound either: same problem! But I guess we like to say things the way we read them, so you could hear "Br-o-de-R" from an Italian, because we read there is a "o" in the word lol
In italian, accented syllabe gets lenghtening into Japanese: /a.'mo.re/ (love) becomes "amoore".

in Japan, I had big trouble in remembering people's names. Since I had studied Japanese for years - and since Italian sound system is very similar to Japanese one - I had few problems in understanding names once people introduced themselves (the only thing is, Japanese tend to say the last mora as deaf sound: so, if they want to say Takagi, you'll hear Taka[gi]-desu). But, I came into a bunch of misunderstandings or unpolite attitudes. For example, let's take this Takagi-san. He is a guy I was working with when I was in Japan, and at first I felt comfortable with him since I knew he was slightly older than me. He introduced himself as Takagi, but unfortunately I had immediately forgotten his name and felt ashamed to ask him again. So, one day he looked really tired and I decided to make him some ice tea to cheer him up. When I gave him the glass, he tought it was for someone else having asked for it. Because he didn't get it was for him, I yelled "オマエのためだよ！" I realized it was not the best thing to say, but still, I didn't know how to say "you"... in Kyoto I called an old man with "anata", and he scolded me for saying that word. But, I didn't know I could use words like oniisan, ojiisan and so on lol

In Japan I rarely used my native name. Since Vincenzo is translated into English also as Vincent (but it's only a masculine name), I often use the nickname Vicky (which normally stands for "Victoria" /Vittoria in Italian/). It was the best option since I was at TUFS and lots of students either were native English speakers or could speak English really well; 

Last thing: since Italians have the same character [z] for the sounds [ts] and [z], it can happen that names are badly spelt so that Japanese don't get the right reading: As a beginner, I used to write ヴィンチェンザ instead of ヴィンチェンツァ!!

(..)

It actually depends on when the foreign word was borrowed and on who brought it to Japan.

Take the Portuguese, they were the very first Westeners to come to Japan in 1549. They brought the main vocabulary concerning christianity, since their aim was to christianize the Country: that's why we have イエズス会 ([Iezusu kai, "Company of Jesus"])、キリスト ("Kirisuto", Christ)、マリア様 ("Maria-sama", the holy Mary、デウス("deusu", one of the words for God). But it doesn't stop to that: the word パン is as old as the late 1500s in Japan, since it came with the portuguese and their corresponding "pao". That's why it doesn't sound like "bureddo" from bread.

But when the Americans came in 1854 (Am I right?), the majority of loanwords shifted from portuguese-dutch (in Japan since 1600) to English, and now the largest majority of loanwords comes from English: modern names included.

In short, Yohane came with the Potuguese > John comes from the Latin Ioannes, Iohannes; in Portugues it's João. The reason for the "i" sound can be due either to their pronunciation of the Portuguese word (which I don't know), or to the fact the monks stuck to the Latin version while preaching in Japan. 

Actually there are some rules to determine the realization of the loanword in Japanese. Many of them concern the way Japanese perceive sounds. it's not a thing of Japanese language alone, but of almost all students learning a second language. Each language has its own "phonetic inventory", which is, among the many phones in the world, each language picks just some of them. The native speakers are not used to phones that are not included in their phonetic inventory, so the brain tries to "fix" the unknown sound into a sound from the native language. Ex: Germans can't say "j" or "d" sounds, and they eventually end up saying "ch" or "t"; Italians can't say "th" or "dh" or "flap r", and they substitute those sounds with "t", "d", "italian r". As for Japanese:

It is useful to look up the dictionary either in English and in Japanese to get an idea of how the mind of the Japanese works when hearing unknown sounds. English speakers get puzzled because they probably look at the spelling (which also Italians do), but actually one should compare the IPA transcription of an English word with its Japanese resultant.

Then there are rules about shortening (Japanese words can hardly be longer as 4 moras, so words are shortened): te-re-bi-jo-n becomes terebi (television, 3 moras); air conditioner becomes e-a-ko-n (4 moras).

Lastly, there are some cases of distinction between words: the word "pizza" is the same either for English speakers and Italians (btw, WE invented pizza! u.u). But, in Italian is pronounced as [pitts-uh], in English as [pee-zuh]. The Japanese which way should adopt? 

The first to introduce pizza into Japan were the Americans, not the Italians. So Japanese adopted the English pronunciation (ピザ). But, since the 80's, Japanese people discovered the different taste of Neapolitan pizza, and to distinguish it from the American type, they call it pittsa --> ピッツァ! So, we have Domino Piza （ドミノピザ）and Napori pittsa (ナポリピッツァ)>>.

Ok, adesso invece presento qualcosa di più carino: parole che sarebbe meglio non pronunciare!

Di cosa sto parlando? Di parole del giapponese che in italiano suonano tutt'altro, e viceversa :)

Una delle più famose è la parola "cin cin": in italiano è il termine più noto per il brindisi, ma un giapponese non la vedrebbe così, poiché significa "pisellino"... Sì, l'affarino! In giapponese, il pene viene chiamato [chinko]（チン子）e quindi Chinchin （ちんちん）non può che esserne un suo vezzeggiativo!

A Roma (ma non solo) esiste il Cin Cin Bar... e non manca che ci sia qualche giapponese a fotografarne l'insegna:

Parliamo invece di una parola che gli studenti di giapponese adorano: 月（がつ）. Una delle letture per il carattere di "mese" è infatti "gatsu"... somiglia ad una parola molto ma molto usata dagli italiani, non trovate? Soprattutto se bisogna dire "settembre": 九月（くがつ）, ovvero [kugatsu]!

Un'altra parola molto più allusiva del nostro mese di settembre è, invece la cotoletta: sapete come si dice in giapponese? カツレツ [katsuretsu], comunemente abbreviata in カツ[katsu]. Non a caso, quest'anno una ragazza in borsa di studio all'Orientale ha raccontato il suo momento imbarazzante con il padrone dell'appartamento dove ha soggiornato, quando con molta ingenuità ha esclamato: "a me piace molto katsu!"

Il katsudon (カツ丼) che ho mangiato a pranzo quando ho lavorato per Asuka (Miki Travel). E' un donburi (piatto colmo almeno fino a metà di riso) con la cotoletta sopra, e uovo.

Altra parola molto simpatica: "calcagno". Una volta chiesi a una mia amica come si dice in giapponese, e lei esordì prontamente con: かかと[kakato].

Non è riuscita a sorprendere mio fratello, che essendo istruttore di karate sapeva benissimo cosa fosse un kakato-geri (かかと蹴り, "calcio dato di calcagno"), ma di certo l'indovinello <<sai come si dice "calcagno"?>> ha suscitato lo scalpore di mio padre!

Ancora, più divertenti: 

- Le Terme di Caracalla sono dette Karakara yokujoo in giapponese (カラカラ浴場), perché appunto il nome dell'imperatore viene traslato così - ricordiamo che in giapponese non esiste la "l". Tuttavia, karakara vuol dire anche "secco, aver sete" --> nodo ga karakara ni kawaku (喉がカラカラに渇く), "aver sete". Quindi, i giapponesi trovano divertente che l'imperatore Karakara (l'imperatore "essiccato") abbia fatto costruire delle terme! (cit. di Toru)

Testa di Caracalla al Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Terme di Caracalla

- un'altra molto carina mi è venuta da una cliente:

「Tabernaというのは、ローマ時代の「居酒屋」という意味だと言えよう」。

io: <<possiamo dire che la Taberna era come un'ostera della Roma Antica>>.
客：「そうですか！日本語でタベル・ナだから、食べれないのに食べれる場所だね！ｗｗｗ」

cliente: <<Ah, vedo! in giapponese si leggerebbe "taberu na": quindi è un posto dove, anche se non si può mangiare, si mangia! hahahaha>>.

In effetti, "Taberna" viene percepito dai giapponesi come "taberu na" (食べるな), che significa <<Non mangiare!>> (forte imperativo negativo).

Insomma, da una lingua ad un'altra si può incorrere in tante incomprensioni, ma anche giochi di parole (a volte non graditi). 気をつけよう!