Poll: How Do You Pronounce These Pokémon-Related Words?

I felt my Norwegian really had an impact on these answers

I voted for things even though I know I say them the wrong way. The short and swift "Sui" and the hard K sound on Arceus are just strange.

Aloe-moe-moe-la. Ray-qwa-za. Ye-vel-tal.

I remember how I spent years mispronouncing “facade” because I had only seen the word in Pokémon games

Because i'm german we have mostly different Pokémon Names, but some of them are the same.
There was always a debate about how some Pokémon Names are pronounced and you couldn't even trust the german dub from the Pokémon Anime for this.

Yeah I can’t fill in this poll, dutch pronounciation is vastly different in spelling so these options say nothing to me.

this makes me so glad that i’ve never spoke audibly about pokemon in-depth with anyone.

I’ve never tried to pronounce any of those

Yveltal is definitely Ee-veltal. Same as Yttrium or Ytterbium.

I just don't, simple as that.

You've forgotten about Garbodor. I hear way too many people pronounce his name as Gar-buh-door. It's a combination of garbage and odor. It should be pronounced gar-Boe-dur.

My answer for a lot of these is "the way it's spelled."

Awesome article and awesome poll. Or pool? Pole?

The best answer is to pronounce it as it is done in the actual, official anime. So, no Poker-mon, Pokee-mon, but Po-kéh-mon.

And I never understood the weird, non-existent but still pronounced r's at the end of a word that actually doesn't even have an r written at the end either...

Pokemon. F...u...s. r...o. d...a...h... Pokemon.

I had to write in Lie-Nuun. Isn't that the official pronounciation? Yeesh.

It midly bothers me how many of you lot say Arceus wrong. It's a fusion of Arc and Deus, When Silvally's ability, a type changer very similar to Arceus called R-K-S was revealed, I always saw that as Gamefreak telling people they were pronouncing Arceus wrong.

Also i've never heard anyone say Sudowoodo out loud so the way I pronounce that must be a big outlier, mine wasn't even an option.

Actually curious as someone who is interested in language: where are all the R's at the end of words that don't have R's coming from? Is that a British dialect thing?

@Dodger It can be, are you thining of words like Glass and Master, where a British person might pronouce those with an R sound?

Sue-ih-scene, Sue-doe-wood-oh, and Velt-all for me. Silent Y? I don't watch the Animè anymore otherwise would probably know.

@StormtheFrontier I think you might want to read his comment again. @Dodger says R's at the end of words that don't have any. Therefore, words like Glass and Master hardly qualify...

But I actually am wondering the exact same thing, such as examples in this poll. I mean: "Ray-kwa-zar", reallly? Makes me wonder how people would differentiate between pronouncing that, and an ACTUAL quasar...

I've often come across this weird, magical r pronunciation, and I suppose it actually is a British dialect thing. I've even heard British people pronounce the name Sandra as "Sandrarrr", which sounds completely ridiculous to me, to be honest. No offense meant, though. It's just weird to me.

On side note: I do have to add that I've heard this somewhat rolling, inner-mouth R more often in Irish and Scottish regions, but it isn't exclusive to these areas.

I always figured Arceus was a combination of Arcane and Deus (like the god) so it was easy enough to figure out how to pronounce it.

Looking at the results, it was only easy enough for me haha

@ThanosReXXX I probably didn't word my comment that well, Dodger was asking why A sounds are sometimes like AR sounds and if it was a dialect thing, Glass and Master were just to illustrate the dialect thing and how certain pronounciations will make an A into an AR.

That's whether it's in the middle or the end of the word by the way,

@StormtheFrontier Well, I've honestly never heard "Glarss" or "Marster", again no offense. And he specifically said at the end of a word, much as
I also already mentioned in comment #17.

So, all that aside, what's the answer, if you happen to know it, because
I think it's safe to say that we're both still curious...

I misread that subtitle and was very confused.

@ThanosReXXX It's just that some british dialetcs stretch the A sound into an AR, so Glass would be Glarss, Master would be Marster, Dance would be Darnce and Rayquaza would by Ray-qua-zar.

@StormtheFrontier Any idea where that actually comes from, or is that a bit too far into language-knowledge for your taste? As someone who, like the other poster, is also interested in languages and dialects, I find this quite interesting, even though it's also kind of annoying at the same time...

I always forget if Regice is one i or two.

Also @dartmonkey Unova is pronounced like "issue" (Isshu or イッシュ) if you're Japanese. (I think that's the only region whose name was actually changed in localization.)

@ThanosReXXX I don't know the origin sadly, i'd be interested to find out though.

When they are still Japanese names, I just default to the Japanese pronunciation. Some of them are portmanteaus, so they are pronounced based on the associated words. Others you can't tell either way.

I am honestly surprised that there's any confusion over Linoone. Rhymes with Zigzagoon, replacing zigzag with line (especially with the whole thing of how both run in straight lines and zigzags, respectively).

Sudowoodo is obviously (to me anyway) Pseudo-wood, with an extra oh because it's a playful sorta-kinda rhyme.

And even though I consider it incorrect, I'm surprised the Regice poll doesn't have an option for the incredibly common (in my experience) "Redgi-ice". So common, some people even mistakenly spell it with 2 consecutive I's.

Poor Chinchou. So many people treating it like a Dynasty Warriors game.

My mind was blown when I learnt that Shaymin was pronounced shaymi in Japanese because it’s supposed to be Xiemi like xie xie in Chinese (for thanks) then its whole lore finally made sense.

I still pronounce Ratata as “Rat-a-tat” as that’s how my brain saw it as a kid

What kind of sick joke are the poll options for Regice? The correct answer is Regi-ice, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool.
Yes, there was the frontier brain guy who said Rej-ice, but the anime also used Regi-ice in the Lucario and the mystery of mew movie. Lastly, if you look at the Japanese name, it's clearly Regi-ice, but you can't write that "ee-ai" back to back in English, at least not without it looking very odd and confusing people more. Regiaice would only confuse people more.

So for the very first one I said Evil-tal although the way I actually pronounce it is Ee-vel-tal like the video game series Y's. Two of the choices being Yevel-tal and Yeevil-tal to me sound like you are pronouncing the "Y" similarly to "Yell" which just sounds off to me. In Spanish the word "y" which means
"and" is pronounced as the letter "E" so that might be where my bias comes from.

@Northwind I am... it's the weekend man! I mean...

Lol. I remember the fights back in school about this topic.

Seeing as I am German, I have difficulties giving a clear answer here because sometimes I didn't even see the option how Germans pronounce it. See... Germans like to pronounce everything the simple German way. So most people I know say stuff like Ar-Zeus or Regi-Ice. Yeah I know the last one makes no sense since there is only one "I". I guess most hate the idea that every other Regi Pokemon is caled Regi-Something but not Regice due to only having one "I". Who at the Gamefreak headquarter came up with this anyway? Phobia of using double "I" in a word? ^^

Where’s gyro-dos

You guys at Nintendo Life really need to learn IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet, not the beer).

@NorseGamerTommy for me it was German and French jeez! I never knew that they have such a big impact on me, and on lesser extent Chinese too...

Ah, Arceus, that 'mon that even Pokémon can't decide on how to pronounce. I first started pronouncing it 'Arr-see-us', then Battle Revolution pronounced it different, so did the movie, then someone explained that 'Ark-ay-us' is probably closest to the actual stuff it's based on. shrug

@Dodger British Dialect is all over the place. For example the word “book”, depending on your location could be pronounced buh-k, boo-k, buk, bew-k and that’s just the ways I’ve heard. Some some might add ‘r’ on the end, but it’s not a standard British thing, nothing really is here.

I’be changed it in recent years but for such a long time as a child I pronounced Suicune as ‘Su-sane’ and Meganiun as ‘Mega-num’

As a kiwi who spent twenty years in England, and now lives in Australia ... I pronounce them however I damn like

Teaching ESL over the last few years has given me so much more appreciation for how broken and inconsistent English pronunciation/spelling is. It's something even as a native English speaker I didn't like as a kid and I feel bad for my students because English is a lot harder than Japanese when it comes to pronunciation based on written words.

Japanese phonetic characters are consistent. たべる is always ta-bey(bay)-ru and I am forced to use "bey(bay)" to explain how it sounds in English because of the different ways "be" could be read. When you come from a language where "た" is always "ta" in every, single, case that you see it, then English must seem absurdly illogical.

In relation to this topic, this problem rarely-never exists for the original Japanese for Pokemon. Because the Pokemon names are written with Japanese phonetic characters (Hiragana and Katakana) カント is always read as "Kanto" there is no other way to read it. ピカチュウ is always read as "Pikachu" there is no other way to read it.

Clearly the only correct way to pronounce these are following Japanese phonetics, as others such as Heavyarms55 have said.

At least for the Legendaries and Mythicals, whose names by and large remain the same across languages.

For the others, it really requires thinking about the pun intended by the translators, and building from there.

i mean chinchou is literally chonchii so

@Northwind I was just gonna jump in about the discussion about r being added to the end of words as I am from Boston and it is definitely a thing here. And it's not just the North End it's found in. Pretty much any neighborhood of Boston, you're gonna find r added to the end of words. When everyone does it, you don't necessarily think anything of it until others not from the area bring it up. So to me, idear wasnt wrong or ever corrected.

Also, my wife has wondered if it's also something that's native to city areas. My mother in law is from and grew up in Springfield, Mass. A city about 100 or so miles west of Boston. And according to my wife and her siblings, they grew up hearing her pronounce words that don't normally end in r with an r.

As for the topic at hand, I never really gave Yveltal much thought. I think I just assumed with it's connection to Yggdrasil, it was pronounced something akin to Yevel-tal.

Regice as Rej-ice,

Sudowoodo as Sue-doe-woodoe,

When Gold and Silver originally were released, I recall pronouncing Suicune as Sooweesoon before hearing it pronounced Swee-koon once in the anime and that seem to make much more sense and stuck with me.

These all have set pronunciations in the anime. Although, the oddest case is Regice, which has one pronunciation in the standard anime but a different pronunciation in the 8th movie.

@marandahir Usually, the pun is the way to go, but there are exceptions like Diancie. In those cases, I prefer to defer to the anime or "Pokédex 3D Pro."

@Cinaclov There's also the pronunciation of Arceus used in "Detective Pikachu." Yeah, the ones where the official sources actually contradict each other are the most bothersome. See also my comment on Regice.

As a professional phonetician / linguist, I could talk about this for hours and would happily advise Nintendo Life on this topic in future. In a way it would be good if The Pokémon Company could provide official pronunciations for all Pokémon names using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), but these would no doubt be based on an American accent that many fans with other accents would pronounce differently, thus leading to more arguments. So maybe it's best that they don't give an official pronunciation beyond those heard on the anime (which as others have noted, sometimes change over time).

One example in particular is quite interesting. As others have said, the pun in Arceus' name comes partly from the Latin word 'deus' (god), which would suggest that it was originally supposed to rhyme with 'ay-us' rather than 'ee-us'. I remember reading somewhere that the 'c' in Arceus was supposed to be pronounced as a /s/ sound in English (as in its Japanese name), but they changed it to a /k/ in the English dub of the anime as 'Arse-ee-us' sounds like a rude word in British English. I haven't watched the anime for a long time so I can't remember if this is actually the case. The 'arc' part of its name is supposed to come from words like 'arch', 'arcane', etc, which have a /k/, so it's weird that this turned into a /s/ in Japanese in the first place.

The shape of Pikachu's mouth in that pic almost makes me wonder if he's going to say "Yip Yip Yip" instead of "Pikachu".

I'm british, so I am aware that Arceus is pronounced "Ar-Kee-Us" but I prefer to say "Ar-See-us". Same with Rayquaza. I know it's pronounced as "Ray-Kway-Zah" but I prefer "Ray-Qua-Zah".

These Pokemon have pretty much the worst sounding names possible.

What about Arcanine. I say Arc-ani-ine. You know, with it being a combination of 'arcane' and 'canine'. Where'd people get 'Arc-uh-nine' from? Makes zero sense.

@ThatNyteDaez

Japanese kana makes it clear that it's Ar-See-Us, even though the English anime has said Ar-Kay-Us. The dub is known for these sorts of errors.

Similarly, Rayquaza is Rekkueza in Japan, So Reh-Quay-Za.

@Rensche

You are correct, but the anime Pokérap and Gary Oak in the anime called it Ar-cuh-nine, so people stuck with that, similar to the Arceus issue above.

Japan, however, has a completely different name - Windie.