[andrzejpw]

A-k G

 

[morphsci]

US: A-Kay-Gee
Canada: A-Kay-Gee-Aye

 

[stuartr]

Quote:

I'm sure Sony has some Japanese pronounciation or something... maybe "saw-nee"?

Nope. It is just so-knee, like we say it in English. They actually don't write it out in characters, or even in their traditional phonetic script (hiragana), but they write it in their second phonetic script, katakana, (or just in roman letters), which is normally reserved for foreign words, advertisements and special stress. I actually don't know if the name itself is Japanese, but it is within their sound system, so it could be. There is no Mr. Sony, as the founder was Morita Akio, who died a few years ago. Yeah so anyway, that was way more than you wanted to know.
Sorry,
Stu

 

[Beagle]

Nope, you're all wrong, it was a trick question. You pronounce letters of the alphabet in your own choice of language/accent. On to the next series of questions...

How do you pronounce "STAX"? Is is "STACKS" or "STAZ" as in "XEROX"?

 

[citroeniste]

Say it Ah-Kah-Gay. And Gradoistcool, despite his questionable nom de net, got the meaning of it right.

One small addition: Ges. mbH ("Gay-A-ess-emm-bay-hah") is Oesi-deutsch for limited liablity corporation, the same words as the German GmbH, but shortened differently. It's basically the same as the American "Inc." or the British "Ltd."

 

[coolvij]

Beagle: I am under the impression that an X at the end of a word never has a "Z" sound.......

 

[mc whak]

I always wondered what the Gmbh was, now I know. Thanks.

 

[redshifter]

and now,

the larch.

i saw a funny old sony ad with these crazy animated bats screaming "saw-nee!!! saw-nee!!! saw-nee!!!". i don't know if they still pronounce it that way in japan these days.

 

[brosselle]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly In Canada, they pronounce it "eh K G", actually. Kelly

ROTFLMFAO

 

[gerG]

Shoe
Megaphone
Wankle-rotary-engine


Actually I thought it was G-K-A, but don't take my word for it cause I am rather dyslexic.

 

[setmenu]

Definitely NOUGAT.

 

[Odin]

I think the Japenese DO pronouce Sony as "Saw-nee" Cause the Chinese does, and the Korean does, and my sister who lives in Japan does, so I guess it IS "saw-nee", "o" is pronouced differently, but I personally think "Zew-nee" sounds better.

 

[stuartr]

That is interesting. I have trouble believing it though...is your sister Japanese? We are probably just describing the same sound differently. As for Chinese and Korean, they are totally different languages. While Korean has some similarities, saying the Chinese say it the same way is like saying the Hungarians say Big Mac like the Persians. It does not really get us anywhere. I was just going on the way they write it phonetically, the way I have heard my Japanese professors say it, and the fact that the "Sa" syllable and the "So" syllable are distinct in the language.

 

[Tomcat]

I am German. I can help. I know it all.

AKG doen't stand for anything anymore. Their site says that they went out of the movie theater equipment business in the sixties. Sorry, no more "Kinogeräte". Then they got eaten by Harman International Inc. in the nineties. Anyway, it's just "AKG Acoustics Ges.m.b.H." nowadays. They are just an acronym whithout meaning. And their headphones have lousy bass response, of course.

Oops.

 

[sterlingy]

Korean, if I break it down into syllables, pronounces 'sony' as sow-nee( about as quickly as the English pronounciation)
Korean is very similar to Japanese (Korea's top university, Seoul National, closed its Japanese language department citing that it has no academical value-and also because a lot of Koreans hate Japan)
so the pronounciation is exactly the same barring one or two letters.
Chinese is totally different. Korean and Japanese are Ural-Altaic from Central Asia while Chinese is native Sino-Tibetian. Chinese substitutes phonically similar ideograms(letters that stand for a syllable and specific meaning) for foreign words-Korea and Japan just remake the sounds in their own letters making it much simpler.
English: Coca Cola
Korean: ko-ka kol-la
Japanese: ko-ka ko--la
Chinese: kuh-kou kuh-la (also, it literally means-makes the mouth happy)

<--Korean highschooler learning Chinese and Japanese at school