CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

U-uhm, how do you say "manga"? I have been reading them for awhile, and watching anime, but, I still am not sure how you say manga.

[color="Red"](MAHN-GAH. Not Main-gah. Or however people say it wrong - I can only pronounce a word one way. Once I figure out one, I forget the other. But regardless, it's not "man" like "man" but more like a Jamaican "man". I think.)[/color]

^ You mean like "mon"?


I've always pronounced manga the right way...weirdly enough.

Oh dear, I am going to have to adjust! I have been saying main-gah :/
Thanks!! ^^ -glomps to both of you-

As long as we're on the subject of how to use the word manga, it's also the same in it's pluralized form. Instead of, "I bought three mangas," it would be, "I bought three manga." Just putting that out there, since I see that happen a lot. XD The same goes for anime.

For that matter, the same applies to almost all eastern weapons (shuriken, kunai, sai, etc) and especially "ninja."

The real reason for this post, however, is to say that since the initial question was answered, everyone should carefully consider if what they want to post is really adding something.

Just to clarify one thing: The closing n in the first syllable is not an 'n', but the closing nasal sound (i..e the sound actually used at the end of words such as 'san', 'kun', 'tankoubon', etc.) Thus, you are probably prone to saying it correctly by rhyming it with 'Tonga'. The only reason I bring this up is that a young lady I know, trying to be perfectly correct, was twisting it into 'monnn-ga', which is not only a lot more difficult to say, but dead wrong.

I've heard people pronouce anime "A-nih-may" (short "a" vowel sound) instead of "AH-ni-may". I've also heard the plural "animes" thing as well.

It's fine if you don't know how to pronounce it, but please; it bugs the ears of us experienced peoples (just kidding )

Heh. The first time I saw our mutual obsession mentioned in the mainstream media, years and years ago, was an article about Blockbuster being pressured to better monitor its video rentals.

The main problem? Japanese animations being rented to youngsters. The article explained, "These videos, referred to by their fans as 'Annie Mays', often protray graphic violence, nudity, lesbianism...'

No kidding. I swear I am not making this up. 'Annie Mays'.

EricTheFred wrote:Heh. The first time I saw our mutual obsession mentioned in the mainstream media, years and years ago, was an article about Blockbuster being pressured to better monitor its video rentals.

The main problem? Japanese animations being rented to youngsters. The article explained, "These videos, referred to by their fans as 'Annie Mays', often protray graphic violence, nudity, lesbianism...'

No kidding. I swear I am not making this up. 'Annie Mays'.

Oh my gosh, that makes me laugh Atleast I'm not that un-knowing. . .

I knew the plural is "manga/anime" atleast! lol -Is proud- But just to make sure ah-ni-may (ni as is nick). Correct? =D

I'm weird in that I have always said it "mahn-ga", but I just can't bring myself to say "ah-nime". O_o;;

[quote="ShiroiHikari"]I'm weird in that I have always said it "mahn-ga", but I just can't bring myself to say "ah-nime". O_o]

Yeah, I'm the same way. XD I always have and always will pronounce the a in "anime" like the a in "man". "Ah-nime" just sounds too strange. XD

[color="Red"](It sounded strange to me at first, as well, but after a while you get used to it and I can't even remember how to pronounce it incorrectly...)[/color]

Sohma wrote:Oh my gosh, that makes me laugh Atleast I'm not that un-knowing. . .

I knew the plural is "manga/anime" atleast! lol -Is proud- But just to make sure ah-ni-may (ni as is nick). Correct? =D

It's tough for an English speaker to hear the difference when a Japanese speaker says it, but what they actually say is 'ah-nee-may', except the 'may' isn't really what we say, either. It's somewhere between the English 'May' and the interjection "Meh". (Or, if you've studied one of the Romance languages, it's more like how they would pronounce the e.) The middle syllable is an 'ee' sound, but it's fast, like the ee in 'beet' instead of slow like in 'bee'. Again, similar to Romance languages. You can actually hear a lot of similarity between pronounciation in Japanese and Italian or Spanish.

Wait a moment? It's pronounced as "MON-ga"? Not.."MAN-ga"?

Ohh...dear...

I have to give my sister a serious apology now. XD

And speaking of mispronouncing moments...

There was this one girl whom I explained what my interests where, and she passed on the information to another friend. "He likes, what was it called, Anne May?" EXACTLY like that.

And my mother, always, ALWAYS pronounces manga as mango or mangies. I've suggested to her that she just call them graphic novels. XD

I haven't heard of 'main-ga' or 'mon-ga', but I would expect it would be closer to 'mun-ga' (or would that be 'mun-guh'?).

Having done Japanese for numerous years, I would say say the 'me' in anime is closer to 'meh' than 'may'.
But of course, we English-ise it.

Haha! I'll keep all of this in mind! I hope to study and learn Japanese at some point in my life, I'd like to learn soon, but around my town there is no one to teach me, and I don't know if a computer program would really cut it. So, who knows? (:

Annie Mays. That's awesome.

Main-ga is very common and should be acceptable. It's certainly much closer to right than man-ga. To actually say the word correctly – or at least more like the Japanese themselves do, let me share a bit of grammar.

When the N is by itself (not directly followed by a vowel), it is treated as a syllable – in other words it gets just as much time and emphasis as any other syllable.

Vowels also have only one sound in Japanese, unlike English. (Think Spanish)

“a” is always short as in momma.
“e” is a long a like in made
“i” is a long e like in neat
“o” is a long o like in moat
“u” is like the oo in moo
(There is a caveat to the U sound – when U follows a U or and O (and sometimes i) it elongates the sound of the previous vowel so the sound is one continuous sound that takes up the same amount of time as two syllables. So tou would not be pronounced as to-u (toe-oo) but like toe with the long o sound extended for an extra beat.)

Another trick to saying it right is the Japanese do not tend to place emphasis on any syllable. Each syllable tends to have the same inflection – which is very foreign to English speakers.

So, in Japanese, the word is pronounced ma-n-ga. Seeing the N by itself there, you are going to be tempted to place emphasis on that syllable, but practice not doing that – each syllable should have the same emphasis. You also do not want the first a sound to devolve into the “an” sound creating man-ga. Keep the a sound crisp – mah-n-gah.

Anime has a similar problem. We tend to say an-i-me, but it is a-ni-me (phonetically ah-nee-may – although Annie May works pretty well, too )

I get yelled at by my sister if I pronounce anime as "ah-ni-may." She seriously yells at me and tells me to pronounce it the way americans do.

So I feel like I am lying when I tell people to pronounce "manga" as "Mawnga."

Its like a double standard?

So exactly how do Americans pronounce it? (And exactly what am I?)

Just now, trying to look at the word as if this is the first time I ever saw it, I ended up rhyming it with " A dime".

^^; well I hear people pronounce it the "Right way" Meaning (ahw-ni-may)
Most people I know pronounce it "an-i-may"

I will say mah-n-guh but I think I will stick to an-i-may. That is the way most people I know pronounce it and I think I'd be looked at weird if I said ahw-ni-may.
An-i-may is the way! <<God blessed me with spiffeh rhyming abilities.

I always used to pronounce it wrong. I mean, it's spelled almost the same as mango, so I thought it'd be pronounced the almost the same, too... Once I found out I was saying it wrong, it took me forever to actually start saying it the right way... lol.

Mah-n-ga is actually well-accepted, but in spite of my grammar knowledge, I say an-i-may, too - with a short i sound. Mostly because anime is now a common word in the American lexicon and that's the way it is spoken here. So I say an-i-me because it is the accepted way to say it and saying a-nee-may sounds pretentious.

Sorry for digging this up, but Ive always had problems pronouncing things. Like in AP class, I would pronounce Banquo as Bancow. Really this is how Ive always seen it.

So when you said you pronounce anime Ahw-ni-may, I flipped. I mean Ive been watching anime for quite a few years and have always pronounced it An-i-me. This is the only way Ive heard people pronounce the word, and even on those Newtype USA dvds they pronounce it an-i-me. Really this is a big change. But I think I may stick with an-i-me considering everyone I know pronouncing it that way as Sohma has said,
"An-i-me is the way!"

And when I was 10 or so I did pronounce manga as mango(Except with an a).) But luckily I learned how to pronounce it later on.