Walt Palmer
Senior Member
You are gonna start a fight worse than when we tried to talk about them "bokey balls".
That was really something, eh?
That was really something, eh?
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Pronouncing "Zuiko" correctly
- Thread starter Pete_CSCS
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Bobapingu
Veteran Member
It's surely hypocritical of us westerners to quibble over the finer points of the pronunciation of Zuiko when most us are so ignorant of the name of the country that inspired Zuiko that we have given it our own name Japan. So let's just settle the argument by agreeing to call it Zuko as in Danny Zuko in Grease. I'm surprised no one has thought of using John Travolta to promote Olympus lenses.
Walt Palmer
Senior Member
True, that would be brilliant, but he is probably too expensive. But what about the rights to the Danny Zuko character?
This whole discussion should be part of an Olympus promo campaign. This would create the kind of "buzz" that marketing types are after these days. Everyone in coffee shops talking about how to pronounce "Zuiko" is just the sort of thing Olympus needs to REALLY shoot the E-M1X into the stratosphere!
This whole discussion should be part of an Olympus promo campaign. This would create the kind of "buzz" that marketing types are after these days. Everyone in coffee shops talking about how to pronounce "Zuiko" is just the sort of thing Olympus needs to REALLY shoot the E-M1X into the stratosphere!
Pete_CSCS
Senior Member
Well I have heard other Americans use the pronunciation "Porsch" which I hate hearing. But I believe for many years Americans pronounced it correctly. Probably because Porsche ran television commercials here that always gave the correct pronunciation.
Here's one such example (they say the name at the very end):
And then there was the vastly popular movie "Risky Business" the film that made Tom Cruise a star:
Yes that seems in line with the way many others here are pronouncing it or at least getting it close.
Pete_CSCS
Senior Member
Good. I'll stick with the American way of saying it then "Nigh-con."It turns out that every pronunciation of Nikon is correct, so say what you usually say and be happy. Here in Oz it's "Nickon" so I'll stay with that.Actually not. I have a good friend, Midwesterner raised in Taiwan until mid teens. I asked and she said I should put a "g" on the end. Its pronounced Knee-Cong.We all have the "kon" part the same.I was just thinking that. I remember a Financial Times staff photographer getting upset at my reference to his Nikkors (pronounced knickers). It was a wind up after he corrected my reference to his NickOn.Maybe it's like the name "Nikon." The Japanese and most of the world pronounce it one way, and most in America pronounce it a different way.
He used NiKores
https://petapixel.com/2018/09/07/the-official-way-to-pronounce-nikon/
From the time I started getting interested in SLRs in the 1970s, every wedding I went to the pro photographer used either Nikons or Hasselblads. I never saw any other brand. And they all pronounced it "Nigh-con" so I was surprised when the internet age came along and I started hearing it pronounced differently by others.
It reminds me of a hockey player that played in the NHL for the New York Rangers, Walter Tkaczuk. For about the first half of his career, the radio and TV announcers pronounce his name "Tay-chuck" because the Rangers' Director of Player Personnel felt it was easier to say it that way. Then at the beginning of a new season, suddenly the announcers were pronouncing his name "Ka-Chook" and I had to wonder why it took so many years to get his name right!
Meanwhile Zuiko is zweekoh as far as I'm concerned. Somewhere online there is a sound file of a Japanese speaker that says it that way. The "koh" being a sort of short "o" sound, more like the start of the word "cough".
But today I found other sound files that do it differently. Best to search until you find the sound file that agrees with what you use.
Regards..... Guy
Pete_CSCS
Senior Member
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Yes, Porsche does actively try to get people in USA to pronounce Porsche in the official pronunciation (and is consistent in commercials), which did help it spread. A different approach than what Nikon took.
Pete_CSCS
Senior Member
Pete_CSCS
Senior Member
TN Args
Forum Pro
I don't think 'zwee' is right. Every letter is pronounced. The 'u' is pronounced 'oo' and the 'i' is so quick that you almost miss it, and pronounced as in 'ink'. So quick that instead of sounding like its own syllable, it sounds like a transition point between syllables.
The 'ko' has an 'o' sound that is not very common in English. It is not pronounced 'oh', nor is it quite like the 'o' in 'con', but as if you were saying the 'o' in 'con' and added a back-of-throat 'hhh' to it.
Photo Pete
Veteran Member
Japanese is irrelevant. You just need to be able to pronounce Leica.Why not? It's important things like this we need to get right. If we don't pronounce the Japanese correctly, how are we going to win hearts and minds in Venezuela?
Besides, what good is a really cool looking camera if you can't pronounce the name with the proper amount of snobbery and precision. It is how we separate the real elitist snobs from the the rest of the deplorable wannabes.
R Liewenberger
Senior Member
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Yes, 'Porsch' sounds awfully wrong!
Here is a nice site where you can check the correct German pronunciation of words like Porsche, BMW, Zeiss-Ikon, Voigtländer, Leica, Rollei, ....
https://de.forvo.com/languages/de/
Just type in the word, click on that magnifier symbol and then on one of those triangular icons a little further down to listen to the pronunciation. If there are several results, it is usually different speakers, so there might be tiny differences.
Loading…
de.forvo.com
That word 'Zuiko', I think in German we get it mostly correct. It is just that a German 'Z' is not pronounced like the 'Z' in the English word 'Zoo', but like 'Ts'. Tsuiko, Or 'Tsice' for 'Zeiss'.
And 'Nikon' is automatically pronounced in German like 'Nee-kon', as our 'i' is always pronounced like the English 'ee' as in Kleenex. If it is spelled like 'ie' it is just a little longer when pronounced. If it is 'ei' like in Leica, it is pronounced like the English 'aye', L-aye-k-uh. Or 'Rollei', 'Roll-aye'.
Liewenberger
EDIT: Just noticed that at the bottom of that page you can change the language to English or some other languages:
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jeffharris
Forum Pro
No kidding. Porsche is Porsche
It's like those fools (in the US at least) who say bimmer and not Beamer for BMW.
R Liewenberger
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Maybe interesting: In the land of BMW, nobody calls a BMW 'Beamer'! :-D
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Jan Chelminski
Senior Member
Zuiko, I could guess and not be so far off, but I was helpless with Sirui.
Sounds like, 'sue-ray', I believe. Like their tripods and heads very much.
Regards,
Jan
Sounds like, 'sue-ray', I believe. Like their tripods and heads very much.
Regards,
Jan
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Guy Parsons
Forum Pro
Plenty of mis-pronunciation in Australia where Porsche is Porsch, Mercedes is Mer-see-dees instead of what many say as Mer-say-dees. BMW is always BMW though.
I solved that by buying Subaru, also pronounced Pleiades.
Regards..... Guy
Nice transcription!
DrWu
Leading Member
Now that I know how the word "zuiko" should be properly pronounced I feel like my lenses became suddenly sharper, brighter and more contrasty.
So now I would like that our expert linguists would explain how "boke" (I hate that additional h in the end where it shouldn´t be) should be pronounced so that I won´t make myself a fool at the cocktail party... again when I pull out my Pen-F with Voigtländer Nokton 0.95 25mm or Zuiko Pro 1.2 25mm and begin to explain the merits of these lenses.
Pekka
So now I would like that our expert linguists would explain how "boke" (I hate that additional h in the end where it shouldn´t be) should be pronounced so that I won´t make myself a fool at the cocktail party... again
when I pull out my Pen-F with Voigtländer Nokton 0.95 25mm or Zuiko Pro 1.2 25mm and begin to explain the merits of these lenses.Pekka
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