# How do you pronounce "manga"?



## mezzoforte

I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "maynga" and others pronounce it "mawnga".

In Japanese, it would be pronounced mawnga, so I thought that was the right pronunciation. It's like "karaoke"...most English-speakers pronounce it "kary-oh-kee", but in Japanese it's "kara-oh-kay". When we borrow a word from another language, should we pronounce it how it's supposed to sound in that language, or adapt a slightly different pronunciation for us English-speakers?


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## Xenos

MAING-Guh, with the first G soft like in fang and the second G hard like in ghost. The G works a double shift.


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## Joe

Man - Ga But I guess thats the same as Mawnga isn't it?


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## Cronos

Mawnga.


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## Charmander

Man-ga.


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## sebastian1

^ That's how I say it too. Man (as in adult male human) - ga. Mawn-ga sounds too weaboo to me. I bet both of these pronunciations are wrong anyway because the Japanese 'a' sound simply does not exist in the English language. If I pronounce it in my Spanish accent (manga means "sleeve" in Spanish btw) that's probably closer to the Japanese pronunciation.

On second thought, maybe English speakers from the Caribbean can pronounce it correctly.


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## SpaceOfMind

I pronounce it maynga. I'm aware of how it's supposed to be pronounced in JP but I always found it awkward trying to mix foreign words in English sentences.


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## sebastian1

^ now explain Yawshi plz


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## komorikun

It's really crazy how Americans pronounce karaoke.


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## NoHeart

The Japanese way.


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## AceRimmer

Hentai.


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## komorikun

Hentai just means pervert in Japanese. Kind of a harsher form of sukebe or yarashii.


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## Fledgling

The second option.


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## ltrain

The Japanese way


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## rdrr

mon-ga


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## Fruitcake

People tend to say mahng-ga or mang-ga here.


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## hammerfast

mangau


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## zojirushi

juggy-brodleteen


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## kiirby

komorikun said:


> It's really crazy how Americans pronounce karaoke.


I'm intruiged. Can an american kindly oblige with a vocaroo clip of themselves saying 'karaoke'?


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## Revan

I pronounce it how it looks. Man-ga.


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## O Range

komorikun said:


> Hentai just means pervert in Japanese. Kind of a harsher form of sukebe or yarashii.


I heard it was just a harsher way to say "weird," not "pervert" specifically, but it can be used in that way.

Also; I pronounce it "Mon-ga."


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## komorikun

O Range said:


> I heard it was just a harsher way to say "weird," not "pervert" specifically, but it can be used in that way.
> 
> Also; I pronounce it "Mon-ga."


No. Hen is weird. Hentai is pervert.


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## TeenyBeany

main-guh (the "g" as in "ghost")


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## Paper Samurai

sebastian1 said:


> ^ That's how I say it too. Man (as in adult male human) - ga. Mawn-ga sounds too weaboo to me. I bet both of these pronunciations are wrong anyway* because the Japanese 'a' sound simply does not exist in the English language.* If I pronounce it in my Spanish accent (manga means "sleeve" in Spanish btw) that's probably closer to the Japanese pronunciation.
> 
> On second thought, maybe English speakers from the Caribbean can pronounce it correctly.


None of the Japanese sounds 'exist' in the English language par say. We make approximations based on our own standard phonetics. (and they do the same with English)

Coincidently enough you're right about the Spanish similarity, Spanish is probably the closest European language to Japanese in terms of purely sound. The vowels in particular (a,i,e,o,u) are said to be pretty much identical.


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## O Range

komorikun said:


> No. Hen is weird. Hentai is pervert.


 Thank you for clearing that up.


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## sebastian1

Paper Samurai said:


> None of the Japanese sounds 'exist' in the English language par say. We make approximations based on our own standard phonetics. (and they do the same with English)
> 
> Coincidently enough you're right about the Spanish similarity, Spanish is probably the closest European language to Japanese in terms of purely sound. The vowels in particular (a,i,e,o,u) are said to be pretty much identical.


When I wrote that I was only thinking in terms of American English. I'm beginning to think that closer approximations to the JP 'a' sound may exist in other English dialects such as Jamaican, Irish, Scottish, some varieties of English English (lol, I'm no linguist as you can see) and Australian English (the "far' in this commercial).


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## Sion

From my own personal experience in the UK, I've never heard anyone pronounce it MAWN-GA (if you're English it sounds like you are saying MONGA), only ever MANN-GA, but maybe that's to do with English accent having less 'AW' sounds?


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