One thing I hate about text mediums like the Internet (and most games) is trying to figure out how to pronounce things. Like Aeris and Tifa. I always pronounced them "EYE-ris" and "TEE-fa" but then some Flash animation called them "AIR-is" and "TIFF-a" (where "tiff" rhymes with "miff"). Dunno who's right on that one ...

Anyway, my bro and I usually talk on the phone when playing Starcraft (beats Teamspeak) and he whines because I pronounce Zealot "ZELL-ut" and he says it's "ZEE-lot". His pronounciation takes more effort than mine too; mine barely has a stress on the first syllable. Dictionary.com seems to agree with me, but I dunno. Whaddaya say?

Aer is said as 'air' so it is Air-is

Zea is said as 'Ze' so it is Ze-lut

Well, I'd pronounce it A-e-ris (with the a like in arrrr and the e like the first e in enemy and the ris like in riscy).
I also call zeal paladins (diablo2) ZEE-lots.

Behold! Dictionary.com! It is not pronounced either of those ways, it is pronounced

z-e(e as in pet)-l-e(e as in item)-t

As for Aeris, I would go with the latin pronunciation, Eye-rees.

Tiffa would be something like TEE-Fa in latin... can't remember 100% though, it has been a while.

I pronounce them as:

AIR-is
TEE-fa
ZELL-ot

Essentially what I said. Told you I already went to Dictionary.com.

[grammar nazi]Pronunciation[/grammar nazi]

Welcome to Canada, Nazi scum!

Yeah you tell 'em 23!

No offense though 23, but I heard that Toronto will be the next Chicago in 6 years if Toronto doesn't get its act together

I used to think Guile from Street Fighter was gull-A. Then my Dad called him GUY-ul, and I just couldn't have it.

Blame Diana; I'm a 'pegger.

The analogy is completely lost on me though, since I have no idea what distinguishing characteristic Chicago has that Toronto might wish to avoid ...

Violence? Pollution?

\o/ Toronto! It's SUCH a beautiful city

Forget games, how do you pronouse SQL? I like to use Squeel

S-Q-L, simple isn't it.

School

Squirrel.

It's easier for me, I don't pronounce the word since I don't use it .

..I believe we have a winner.

Zeal is long e, like seal.

But, zealous is zell'-es (the same e sound as in item - kind of a mix between eh and uh, depending on your accent). Rhymes with jealous.

Zealot is zell'-et, with the same sounds. Again, the first syllable is stressed.

Anywone who says "zeeeeel et" is just plain wrong.

Matthew has earned his friggin' cookie. I was going to give him the only one since his answer was so good, but then I'd get mobbed.

My brother got pwn3d. I will zealously inform him of this.

I say Zel-OOT

What you talking about, 23? The Nazi is right!

Besides, it's the Americans that have different spellings than us, not our cousins to the east.

As a joke, me and my brother pronounce Guile as GWEE-LEY. Its much funnier.

Man, those aren't that hard.

I used to use ZEE-Lot when I was little, heh.

*Bonus points to matthew for actually posting on-topic on a derailed thread*

I used to pronounce the names in games like they sound in Spanish, thinking 'heck, I won't get the English pronounciation right', and now I finf that not even native English speakers can get it right.

If you want the right pronuncation of Aeris and Yuffie, pick up a copy of Kingdom Hearts - it has voiceovers (they are pronounced Air-is and Yoo-fie).

I pronounce SQL ess-cue-ell, plain and simple.

Skål!

Ok, Let's see about this Street Fighter list. This is how I pronounce them:

Ryu (Rye-u)
Ken (K-en)
Guile (Guy-el)
Dhalsim (Dal-sim)
Blanka (Blank-a)
Chun-li (Chun-lie)
Zangief (Zang-e-ef)
E-Honda (E Hon-dar)

Balrog (Bal-rog)
Vega (Vay-guh)
Sagat (Sag-at)
M Bison (M Bi-son)

Chun-li should be "chun-lee". Guile should be pronounced like the real word, heh. I don't know how you pronounce that.

I've heard Roy-u for Ryu in some movie, I believe, but I wouldn't pronounce it like that myself.

Oh, and Kingdom Hearts also has Tidus (Tee-dus) in it.

If you go for the latin pronunciation, a and e are two different sounds. As in aero.

I pronouce them as in the japanese version of the anime. That was too easy

I have a friend that pronounced Chocobo: Cookooboo. Cookoo as in cookoo clocks or "cookoo for cocoa puffs" and boo as in what a ghost says. I think you can figure it out. Bewildered the hell out of me the first time I heard him say it.

No no no, it's Chil-jä!
(yep, another private joke)

One horrible mispronunciation I'm guilty of was the character Ghaleon from Lunar: SSC. Apparently the first time his name appeared I read it so fast it looked like Ghaelon, so from that point on I pronounced it "Gay-lon" in my head (even though I noticed the proper spelling) up until the point where someone, in spoken dialogue, said his name. Gal-E-on. It's quite funny when things like that happen.

I pronounce those names in Spanish. It's easy because Spanish has strict prounciation rules

So for me it's a-e-ris, tee-fa, ze(as in pet)-a-lot.

For Street Fighter names (stressed sylabe bolded):

Ryu: Ree-u
Ken: Ken (again as in pet)
Guile: guee-le (or whatever. I don't know how to write it in english to achieve the pronunciation (the u is mute) )
Dhalsim: Dal-shim
Blanka: Blan-ka
Chun-li: Chun-lee
Zangief: Zan-guee-ef (guee like in Guile again, so same comment here)
Honda: On-da

Balrog: Bal-rog
Vega: Ve-ga
Sagat Sa-gat
Bison: sometimes Bee-son, sometimes Bi-son

"I liked Oracle, but I didn't like the SQL"

Figure out how to say that understand the joke and you get how I pronounce it.

FAILURE: Sentence parsing error! Please rephrase.

I would pronounce Guile as guy-l or maybe guy-lee and Aeris as air-is. Why do you guys have to make anything so complicated? English sucks!

Some people pronounce sql as sequel, it's incredibly weird imo. I just read the acronym rather than trying to pornounce it!

Marcello

Pornounce it? Something on your mind?

For being the most widely used language on the planet, English sucks arse. Other languages might have a few quirks, but not so much.

Zealot - ( Zell - lot )

Now Tifa should never be mistaken. Tee fa. You would need another f to make it Tiff a

in poland Aeris is pronounced like aa-ae-rees, if that gives you the idea. ('ae' is not a soft vowel)

My friend (okay, I wouldn't call him that. He was THE most annoying person I have ever met. But I have to thank him for getting me into Final Fantasy.) Used to pronounce Aries. Airy eyes.

Thank you; right on another one!

Looks like I have zealot and Tifa right, but goofed on Aeris. I think it's dumb to pronounce Yuffie YOO-fee though. Considering how "yuppie" is pronounced ...

You pronounce ya-fee? That sounds plain awful

I pronounce "yuppie" as "YUP-pee" (aka the correct way). So it's kind of an informal compound word.

Now sub f's for p's.

yoo-fee sounds best. i don't mind it being incorrect.

Well, regardless, Yoo-fie is the official pronunciation. The Gods of Square say that it's Yoo-fie and Air-is, hence that's what it is. Not much room for alternative interpretations...

How about Motörhead and Da Möb.

Since they insist using ö, I insist pronouncing it like it is pronounced in Swedish or Finnish. Or German.

Pöyzen Böyzen!

On another note, I always pronounce 'integers' as In-tea-gers.

in'-teh-jers is how I say it

Yep, that's the (boring, cough cough) normal way of saying it.

I call integers "buggers". Small ints are "little buggers" chars are "too little buggers".

So, when will somebody attach an mp3/ogg so we can actually hear how you pronouce stuff?

Spell: Now you're just being silly.

I pronounce ZEE-Lot. Though I do know it's Zell-ot.
I pronounce it "Chalk Oh Boo", even though I know it's choke a bow. (Chocobo)
..Air-iss..
and TEE-Fa.

Sounds like you are drunk again there Derezo!

What about "Psionic"? Dictionary.com has no pronunciation (there; happy?) example for that. I guess SIGH-on-ick. Or just say it "sonic", like Psionic the Hedgehog.

Pi**yonick?

The 'P', like many posters here should be, is silent!!

Did you know Taito is tie-ee-toe and Konami is koh-nah-mee, not koh-nam-ee?

Gideon is gawd-uhv-fore-uhm.

Then why's it there in the first place?!

Thats why I love japanese. Pronounciation rules are quite strict, it's a phonetic language, and the concept of morae is interesting and helps you with your own language( at least with me).

Sigh on for Psion.

So my first guess for Psionic was right ... that's an odd sounding word.

AFAIK its "Choke oh bow".

Errr, yeah, that's what I meant. Not "a".
I was just trying to put it in a sentance I guess

I don't get it. How is that hard? My english (obviously) sucks and I know that.

Psionic. How else would you pronouce "psi"? Pee-sigh?

You must be psychic!

And for zealot, I think it's like "zehluht" like in "He is zealous in pursuing his religion"

I'd pronounce it psi- onic. Like Psssy-onic.
Why should I omit the "p". It's there. For a reason.

I wouldn't pronounce the P, but instead I'd lengthen the S a bit. So Psionic woudn't be quite the same as Sionic.

I use to pronounce it like that, SC. Then I realized the P was silent

Do you pronounce pneumonia as "p-nuh-mone-yah""? I can't even do that.
Or all those ts- words in japanese.. where you never pronounce the T...

It's clearly 'Chi-mear-a" too!

of course!

I use to pronounce that 'shimera' as a child. Yeah, I hit my head a lot..

hehe I pronounced chun-li like shoon-lee

I pronounce chimera as Ki-mare-ah.
And while I'd pronounce psychology with a silent "p", I still pronouce "Psi" with a p. It's a made up word, so I don't even feel bad about that

Psionic isn't a word?
Webster disagree's.

Well, I didn't say it's not a word. It's a made up word.
See, if I take a letter from the greek alphabet and add a "onic" this might create a new word, but it's still made up
Esp. if you take into account how the word "psionic" and "psi powers" were created.

...so how exactly is "psi" a made up word? And every other word in the world not, for that matter? Could you please elaborate?

"psi" is not a word. Psi is a letter.
If I say you have got A-powers, and thus are aonic would be the same.

ψonic

About Ryu, it's actually pronounced indirectly in the games. When you do a dragon punch with Ryu or Ken they say SHO-RYU-KEN. link with sound
I don't know if saying it by itself would pronounce it differently.

No no no... there is only one thing that Ruy and Ken say in their dragon punch:
Håll i kuken!

I think this depends on how the s sounds in your own native language because I distinctly hear them pronounce the t. It is faint but still there. Then again I have the tendency to pronounce their ai as "eye" instead of a-i as it should be :-)