06-22-2012, 05:02 AM
but with completely different meanings, as you might already know.
(I originally thought I would give you some examples, but have decided to omit them except the last one in order to shorten the whole length of my humbling post.)
The last but not the least is, sorry to say, "Xonotic". The word, when pronounced like "kso-notic" or rather "kson-otic" which I guess the majority of the Japanese would prefer, sounds like "kso-no-tek" (クソのテク), which in their language would mean "mastery of bowel movemets" or "a great skill in the act of pooping", a totally strange and stupid phrase most good and sane people would never think of even for a moment in their whole life. Actually, "kson-otic" is a bit too long to be used in spoken Japanese conversation, so it is highly likely to be abbreviated to "kso" (クソ), which simply means "sh!t" or "of the very poorest quality you can ever imagine", the exact opposite of what the game really is. Further more, bacause any Japanese person with a reasonable level of intelligence will probably understand that the suffix "-ic" creates adjectives and is actually used in his own language just like "みたい", the sound "kson-otic" itself possibly gives him a wrong impression that it might be an unfamiliar Japanese compound word meaning "クソみたい" (sh!tty) or something of that kind.
Therefore, the "zo-notic" pronounciation, which I believe just sounds like a foreign word and thus less awkward to most of the Japanese, should be strongly encouraged among them, though sensible people would avoid the embarrassing alternative by themselves.
Thank you for reading to the very end. I wonder where the word came from, by the way. The beginning X makes me guess it were a Greek word.
(I originally thought I would give you some examples, but have decided to omit them except the last one in order to shorten the whole length of my humbling post.)
The last but not the least is, sorry to say, "Xonotic". The word, when pronounced like "kso-notic" or rather "kson-otic" which I guess the majority of the Japanese would prefer, sounds like "kso-no-tek" (クソのテク), which in their language would mean "mastery of bowel movemets" or "a great skill in the act of pooping", a totally strange and stupid phrase most good and sane people would never think of even for a moment in their whole life. Actually, "kson-otic" is a bit too long to be used in spoken Japanese conversation, so it is highly likely to be abbreviated to "kso" (クソ), which simply means "sh!t" or "of the very poorest quality you can ever imagine", the exact opposite of what the game really is. Further more, bacause any Japanese person with a reasonable level of intelligence will probably understand that the suffix "-ic" creates adjectives and is actually used in his own language just like "みたい", the sound "kson-otic" itself possibly gives him a wrong impression that it might be an unfamiliar Japanese compound word meaning "クソみたい" (sh!tty) or something of that kind.
Therefore, the "zo-notic" pronounciation, which I believe just sounds like a foreign word and thus less awkward to most of the Japanese, should be strongly encouraged among them, though sensible people would avoid the embarrassing alternative by themselves.
Thank you for reading to the very end. I wonder where the word came from, by the way. The beginning X makes me guess it were a Greek word.