Fun fact: A lot of the early pronunciations that used to be "right", actually apparently never were. That was 4Kids' fault. (4Kids was the team behind the dubbing of the first 8 seasons of the anime, before the Pokémon Company started doing it themselves)
4Kids were also the ones with the STUPID CRAZY CENSORSHIP OF SONIC X! I mean...why censor the word library and replace it with a book? What were they thinking?
@@lavenderwalrus9875 If you can't pay the cash, then you're out with the trash. Feel free to quote me. Also rest in piss forever miss, Key Ogrey and GRUdon.
What if we considered the different pronunciations of all the names as a form of regional dialect variation? This naturally occurs in language organically plus a cool new element to bring Pokemon a little more diverse like the real world. Always fun to consider it!
That's true, even happens with letters, like how some people pronounce z as z.ed however in the US you'll here it pronounced as ZEEEEEEEEEEEE lol although I also respect the official pronounciation, because I used too pronounce patrat as pat rat. I know it makes since, but that also sounds dumb to me so I started calling Patrat by the way the anime said it.
This is actually a perfect idea. Regional dialects are a thing in the real world, so why not in the Pokemon world as well? What if for example, the people from Lumiose pronounced Zygarde as Zee-gaʁd (with the heavy r), seeing as they are French influenced, and the people from Geosenge call it Zai-gard?
I can't speak for everyone, but as a British person, I do pronounce Cicada the way Nincada is officially pronounced, and, to my knowledge, languages where the word is similar tend to also use the more open /ɑ/ compared to Mikey's /eɪ/, such as Spanish's word for them, Cigarra.
@@PrinceYamiUchihaCosplay im british and pronounce it the official way. because we dont have cicadas here, who even says it out loud to know how its actually pronounced?
@@Shadowmare4575 Dalkia and Pialga are a throwback to Mikey's and John's joint Metronome randomizer playthrough of Pokemon Black and White. By sheer coincidence, one of Mikey's starter choices was a Dialga while one of John's was a Palkia. So they nicknamed them Dalkia and Pialga respectively.
While I do prefer the soft "G" pronunciation for Mismagius, it is probable that the hard "G" comes from the word Magus. This word is often associated with the occult and magic.
The thing is the English speaking community tends to forget, that their Pokémon names are not the original ones. It's a Japanese game. Also pronounciation is just part of the fun. I say Grewdon and Kaiogrrr wrong and different every time on purpose. Nincarda is the same in German for example, but you actually also don't say Zikeyda in German it's written Zikade and you say Cee-cah-deh.
I remember looking up that Charizard's Japanese name was Rizādon though Charizard is and has always been my favourite Pokémon because it looks like a dragon and I love dragons
The reason some Pokémon names where changed after the Hoenn saga is because prior to the Sinnoh era, the show was produced by 4Kids Entertainment, who weren’t official. That’s why from Kanto-Hoenn, there were a lot of mistakes, mispronunciations, and errors in the anime. But when the voice actors changed, the producers changed with them, and since the Sinnoh saga the anime is produced by the Pokémon Company International.
One of the only things I know about 4Kids (English is not my first language, I didn’t grow up with it, although we did have very similar changes) is that they make so many changes Probably so things are what children already know about instead of confusing them with japanese terms they probably don't know about That's stupid though
I always pronounced Cobalion and Co-ball-ee-on when I was younger, and still sometimes do, until I learned it’s official pronunciation. This video brought back those childhood memories of Pokémon name pronunciations lol
I used to say "Banette" like "BAN-ett" with the short 'a' sound because I thought it was a combination of "banshee" (also a short 'a' word) and "marionette." Banette's zipped mouth implied that it was known for screaming (and it learns Screech via level-up), just like banshees (which are ghosts) from the legends, so I pronounced it with the short 'a' for a while until I found out about "bane." I had a friend who pronounced it "Buh-nett" though (kinda like "barrette"), which was funny.
I somehow misread the comment and thought you were about to say its mouth was zipped because it was known for screaming things that would hypothetically get it BANned from online communities.
it was so interesting watching this as someone with a linguistics degree because a lot of the words you listed as examples are actually loanwords from other languages, which is why a lot of them don't appear to follow the rules of english :)
This! (Okay, not a linguistics degree in my case, but a very intense fascination with linguistics on a hobbyist level with a side of "I took Latin and also medical terminology which is 97% etymology".) So many of these, I pronounced the way you'd pronounce them in Greek because medical terminology also taught me to pronounce things like they're Greek 97% of the time.
English is a messy language that can't decide whether it's romantic or germanic. Word parts from all over and too many words that don't spell as they sound.
As an English teacher, I am so proud that you remembered that rule of long and short vowels based on single vs double consonants! I also find it frustrating to teach students the rules of English, just to have to teach the "unfair" words that break the rules later.
As someone who speaks fluent English, I have never understood these rules that are, yes, helpful sometimes, but then SO MANY words break that because English is not one language, it's like five in a trench coat. There are *so* many loanwords. I before E except after C, unless your feisty foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs following a heist by caffeinated weightlifters where they leisurely deceive overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits. Or when you heinously seize his conceited heifer from the ceiling. Weird.
The way phototropism works is so interesting! There's this plant hormone called ''auxin''. Auxin makes the plant cells become longer and increases cell division. When exposed to light , auxin gets damaged so it tends to go to the direction with the less light (the plant precieves which side has more light using Blue ligh receptors, and blue light is present in sunlight) ,so if the sun is hitting the plant from the right, auxin will go to the left. And we know that auxin makes the cells longer so when lots of auxin go to one direction (left) the cells on the left get a lot longer while the cells on the right stay the same thus making the plant bend to the right and making the top of the plant face the sun! It truly amazed me when I first learned it and I wanted to share it with you as well! 😊
A couple notes on the "official" pronunciations: first of all, The Pokemon Company International didn't actually handle the anime dubbing until the Battle Frontier arc, and part of the reason for that is because 4Kids kept screwing up the pronunciations. Therefore, any pronunciations prior to AG146, the 420th episode overall, are not necessarily official. Additionally, the Pokedex 3D app wasn't created by Game Freak, meaning they also got a few of the pronunciations wrong (Un-Own was a particularly egregious example). If you want the most consistent official pronunciations, your best bet would have to be the modern Pokemon anime series after TPCi took over the production.
@@samuelstannard730 The reason was bankrupcy after they got their legal asses handed to them by Konami due to the whole Yu-Gi-Oh fiasco. It turns out they were more depending of THAT rather than Pokemon.
Like for example, the official pronunciation for Raikou is “Rai-koh” due to the huge emphasis in terms of its etymology (as it originates from Japan), yet 4Kids caused many people to mispronounce it as “Rai-coo” with the Legend of Thunder special. Same with how people mispronounced Misdreavus as “Miss-druh-vis” instead of “Mis-dree-vis”.
Head Cannon time: The reason the Anime switches between pronunciations is because of regional dialects. Some places may say "Ampharose", while others say "Amphaross" and both can technically be right based on where you are. Ash switches between pronunciations because he has traveled far and wide and it sometimes gets it jumbled up in his head.
That doesn’t make sense seeing as Ash himself mispronounces it and Brock pronounced it differently to some of his despite being from the same region. I appreciate head cannon for plot holes and enjoy the unique approach, but I never understood why it’s so difficult to just say the voice actors mispronounced it bc of consistency over 1000+ episodes. I don’t need to bridge cognitive dissonance to sleep easy over that. Head cannon to address normal production mistakes just seems like a stretch to me
I'm very satisfied to find out Yahveltal's pronunciation comes simply from a meme and being fun to say. I was so scared to find what horrendous pseudolinguistic reasons there could be for that name.
My personal headcanon is that since Pokemon say their names, people name them based on what they say, and that different Pokemon in different regions have different ways of saying them in the anime
As someone who has taken several linguistics courses in college, I can tell you that many "rules" of English grammar are fake AF and made after the fact to try and explain stuff that only came about due to the shifts caused by the Norman invasions. Also, remember that English is made up of a TON of loanwords and such that didn't exist in Old English. Lastly, Pokemon is made by Japanese people first, and sometimes their vowels permeate the official pronunciation of English names, with Mismagius' "gee - us" being an example. Not a perfect example, but the point stands. Likely the same reason Ledian is "le - dee - ahn" officially.
@@madladdie7069 They usually just re-name Pokémon entirely in English. "Aron" is supposed to be like "iron," which works in English, but not in Japanese. Its Japanese name is actually "Cokodora." So, it's not even close to having the same name.
"If the anime pronounces it in some way, it should be considered valid" *War flashbacks to the Hoenn Pokerap and how they pronounced Groudon and Kyogre.*
The first time I ever heard anyone pronounce Yavuhltal was in Mikey's shield randomizer and I didn't realize that wasn't the correct pronunciation until he published this video
I've always pronounced this one as "Hip PAH poh tas" it's a wonder how I even pronounced it the first few times, but the way mikey says it makes more sense. It reminds of Bid Daddy when they were trying to teach that guy how to read
I'm fairly certain that Mismagius's name being pronounced with a hard g would be in reference to a Magus (pronounced may·guhs) rather than Mage or Magician which would give the soft g
But then what about Mantyke->Mantine? The “tyke” in Mantyke literally means child. So unironically sounding out the “tine” in Mantine as “teen” makes sense. Upon reflection it makes me think we need a third stage like Mantitan. The name needs work but you get the point!
In UK English a Cicada is pronounced Ci-cah-dah. That’s probably where the miss-match came from. Google lists both pronunciations with UK being Cah and US being Kay.
Fun fact: The word ‘Cicada’ varies in pronunciation around the word. In US it’s “Sick-Aider”, and in UK it’s “Sick-Arda” In fact, I realise, a lot of pronunciations stem from the British pronunciation rather than the American pronunciation.
yes, i was confused when he said that he didn't know why it was called nin-card-a and then i remembered that americans say sick aider. (also i'm aus and i think most of us say sick-arda)
I pronounce Mismagius with the hard "g" myself because of the word Magus as well as because it just sounds more ominous due to it being a ghost type. And Reuniclus does make sense in that it is a nucleus and thus they just moved the long "e" around a bit.
The thing is, most of the reasoning for the right or wrong pronunciations are based off of the words the names come from, but they frequently purposefully mispronounce the word so it’s not just normal words as the Pokémon names.
The Nincada situation depends on where you are. In Australia Cicada is pronounced 'ci-KAH-dah' compared to 'ci-KAI-dah'. Thus both are correct. Hopefully that helps Mikey out
Here's a fun idea for your next playthrough: Team Sky in Johto. With the addition of the Fairy-type retconning a lot of Normal-types as Fairies from the Gen II roster, the most prevalent type now is FLYING. Generation II is now the GENERATION OF THE SKY!
alternate title: Mikey flexes on how smart he was as a kid. Like knowing (and remembering) tropism when playing a viddy game? Mikey is a genius and we all accept this as canon
I heard a video about someone jokingly mispronouncing Rayquaza on a stream say “Rek-u-zay” because they heard someone say it at an event for a Pokémon Go Mega Rayquaza Raid.
Yveltal has a running gag amongst myself and my friends we call it the “Bacon Bird of Doom!!!” and it’s shiny form “Shiny Bacon Bird of Doom!!!” every time one of us used it in battle we yell it
Whenever I come across a new Pokémon I don’t know how to pronounce my brain tends to mush together the pronunciation rules of Japanese, English and Spanish -which is my main language- so I’ve ended up with many funny pronunciations over the years given the tendency to accentuate one or other syllable (third to last in English, next to last in Spanish… which landed me the correct accentuation for Reuniclus) or that thankfully in Spanish there is exactly ONE pronunciation for each vowel (which usually matches up with Japanese).
I've always defaulted to English and Spanish; which is weird, because that was long before I started learning Spanish, before I knew Spanish pronunciation. So I basically noticed retroactively that when I see a word I don't recognize I often pronounce it in a way that just happens to match Spanish pronunciation.
@@ibriselric2 I think it might be because I used to love Dora, and I would watch it all the time as a toddler. I didn't learn much, but the pronunciation must've stuck. And it doesn't cause me all that much issue, but it did cause me to absolutely butcher the name Charlemagne.
i have the Pokemon Epic Sticker Collection Version 2, i had the outdated Version 1 when i was just a child, it consisted of Pokemon from Kanto to Alola, Ordered by the Alphabet, Height and Weight, Regional Forms, Megas, and Mega Stones. im happy to say Version 2 has Pokemon from Kanto to Galar, Ordered by Dex number, Regional Forms, Megas and Gigantamaxes, Height and Weight, Fun Facts/Trivias, and most importantly, the correct Pronunciation
Funny story with Yveltal was that, as a kid who mostly played Pokémon X, I knew that the legendary was called Xerneas (Zer-Nee-Us). But when it came to Pokémon Y, I didn’t understand that the legendaries had vastly different names so for the longest time I thought that Yveltal was called Yerneas (Yearn-Ee-Us) - Xerneas with a Y sound. Because it was Pokémon Y, you know? So I thought that made sense. I can distinctly recall having a heated debate with one of my friends from school over this, only to ultimately be wrong. To this day both of us call it Yerneas, for the gag. It’s much easier than the other names. And if we wanted to make this official we could just say it comes from urn or yearn or something.
Why do you guys keep putting "Read" at the beginning of the name. It was just "Between the Lions". Was the name changed at some point before I got to it?
As someone who had studied entomology it's actually just as common to hear people pronounce Cicada as Sick-Ah-Dah and Sick-Ay-Dah. So either is correct.
For the first one I expected the issue to be that it's pronounced with a short e sound like the metal lead instead of a long a sound like the word lady, not that he was somehow wrong with the obviously correct way to pronounce the -ian
In defense of /DOO-blade/ - Doublade was introduced in Kalos, which is based on France, and while the first half of the name could be English "double" it could also be French "doublé" (pronounced DOO-blay), which also means "double". If anything, choosing "blade" as the second half seems to point to the "doublé" reading, as the "bla-" of blade is pronounced the same as the "-blé" of "doublé".
This theory would make more sense if there weren’t official French translations for Pokemon names. The french name for Doublade is Dimoclès, which even in french has nothing to do with the fact that the number of blades has apparently “doobled”
I have always pronounced it Doo-blade, and after becoming fluent in French, I still pronounce it the same, because I think of both the word "doublé" and the phrase "du blé," just because I find the double-entendre funny.
I can actually explain a bit on the Mismagius name part: The 'Magius' part of Mismagius comes from the word Magus (May-Guhs) Which is another word for a Sorcerer/Mage and Magic. I think I've heard all three pronounciations in the anime and different media, but yeah. They are using another word basically meaning Mage with a slightly different pronounciation.
Mikey: "And whenever someone pronounces it like that I wanna *break something!"* Me: . . . Is he talking about bones? I'm pretty sure he's talking about breaking their bones.
There was one time I saw a video where someone called togepi (and I’m going to try my hardest to phonetically spell this) tojeppei, and I refused to call it anything else since then
I think the weird official pronunciation for Reuniclus is the mixture of the words "reunion" and "nucleus." It being based partly off "reunion" makes sense for spelling and why it would have that "ee" sound in the middle, but boy did it mess up that pronunciation.
Most of the words you listed that end in an "i" pronounced "ee" aren't even from English… Tsunami and sushi are Japanese, and Tiki is Hawaiian, both languages that don't use the Latin-base alphabet as their native writing system (Hawaiian wasn't even written down until, like the 19th century.) Also, "Rabbi" is Hebrew, whose alphabet is an ancestor of the Latin-base alphabet. 22:58 in the movie, Diance and the Cocoon of Destruction, a Carbink pronounces it "ee-VEL-tall".
Michael: "I can be a snob when it comes to Pokemon name pronunciations" Also Michael: Sticks to his wrong pronunciations for most of the video To be fair, pronunciations of English words vary from region to region. Sometimes you can be in a single place and people will argue about how to pronounce a certain word. If you ever ask an American Southerner how to pronounce "pecan" you can get "pee-can," "pee-cahn," or "pih-cahn." I've also heard "pee-cun" and "pih-can" but those are pretty rare.
I remember referencing that when watching a Ghibli movie with a friend (I believe it was Spirited Away) and there was onigiri on screen and I just automatically went, "delicious jelly donuts" and they were very confused and I had to show them the clip and we spent five minutes laughing. a lot of the pronunciations that used to be right were actually never right. Seasons 1-8 were dubbed by 4Kids, and they just... Did a whole lot wrong. Reminds me of those old Pokemon handbooks by Maria S Barbo. Things got better when the Pokemon Company started handling the dubs and the books.
@@spectralwiitch7544 I don't agree, I think 4Kids handled the anime better than TCPI. The only problems that 4Kids had working with Pokemon is changing obvious things like the Jelly Donut thing. I think TCPI's casting for Pokemon is so much worse than 4Kids casting with James, Ash, and Meowth being the worst of them and it's not because they're newer. James's "new" VA puts to much emphasis when he's saying stuff, Ash sounds even more like an emotional less robot than the original English VA for Ash did, and it's been a while Meowth's "new" VA sounds decent, I just prefer the original. I understand not letting 4Kids dub Pokemon anymore since they handled other shows either averagly or did so bad ANY market for it was killed like ONE PIECE but to my knowledge TCPI didn't even attempt to hire the original dub actors. Honestly the new actors is what kills the show for me now, Pokemon's anime was never complex, but the Voice Acting makes it so much more unwatchable than 4Kids, the only thing they did was make Brock look like an idiot by calling a rice ball a jelly donut. I've watched the Spanish dub for the newer shows just because it's that much better before and it's the only other accessible dub for me in the US that doesn't require me to risk getting a virus on my computer. Not that there's anything wrong with Spanish dubs I actually quite like Spanish, I just prefer to watch shows in a language I can understand, and I have a very limited ability to speak Spanish.
23:39 MandJTV escaping from Yveltal. "Oh, Yveltal again! Stop. Ha ha! I escaped the Yveltal by starting a cutscene." Here's my version of this scene as a Verbalase reference. Oh, Charlie Morningstar again! Stop. Ha ha! I escaped Charlie Morningstar by starting a cutscene.
There's so many issues with an "official" English pronunciation. English accents and dialects from across the US and around the world pronounce the same words differently based on regions and etymology. Pokemon lacks that, so it's difficult to attach any logical rules to their pronunciation. Michael's logic for many of these (looking at the origin of each name and applying English rules) makes sense, but there's a lot of words in English that are the exception to rules or are pronounced a certain way just because. Basically, say these names how you like because it really doesn't matter lol
as a Cantonese-Chinese speaking person, I thought that "Mien-" parts of both Mienfoo and Mienshao were pronounce like how Michael says it in the video because they were like "Chow Mein", the Chinese noodles. And since they have Kung Fu and Shaolin inspirations (both Chinese martial arts) my brain made the connection that the Mien was just Mein with the e and i swapped. Also, Mienshao has "noodle" like sleeves, so my brain probably also made that connection (and now typing this, Mienfoo kinda has that yellow coloring from the chow mein xd)
I say Cobalion like cobalt. I didn’t realize not many people say it like that. It’s alway interesting to me how many different people say different pronunciations of Pokémon names!
I…admittedly used to say Cobalion like Ko-ba-lion, but…in my defense I was about 5 when I played Black 2 & White 2 so I have no real excuse. Nowadays I pronounce it properly.
And then there is me who says "Cob-al-eon" as I assumed it stemmed from the word cob (which is a breed of horse, of which Cobalion is the right height).
We love to see linguistic pokemoin discussion. I've heard from a few people in my career (I'm a high school teacher), that pokemon was an invaluable tool in learning English phonics and roots. This content has a genuine place in English classes, even for students whose only spoken language is English. Also, I got a Korean Mimikyu in a wonder box trade, and saw that the Korean name is "Ddarakyu," which replaces the "mimi" of "mimic" in English with the "ddara," "to copy," in Korean. It's such a fun and profound way to see what words mean from their structure.
keep in mind that in the anime case and language-wise, that the pronounciation ability of some voice actors sometimes differs from it's original pronounce
13:23 "Hippo... POTAS?" 🤣 You actually made me snort laugh, which I never do. I've got that Pokedex game on my DS, and I remember hearing it say Hippopotas's name like that, your reaction was perfect!
"If the anime at some point referred to a pokemon with a certain name, then thaat name is valid." My country's dub accidentally calling Electabuzz "Eceltabuzz" at some point
To be fair if you put an X in front of the C in the way they mispronounced it it turns into Exceltabuzz. Which sounds like it could be an evolution for electabuzz that is fast lol
As someone studying voice and diction, these are called allophones. We all have different dialects which change the way vowels are pronounced. It varies by state, countries, etc. So no one is wrong… unless they say Cob-uh-lion
17:20 i also think Die-alga could work because of time dilation. It’s not time dee-lation, it’s time die-lation. It fits in with dialga’s theme and powers.
I just go for whatever flows off the tongue better. I don’t care about official pronunciations. Rayquaza will always be called Ray-kwah-zah for me because it flows off my tongue better than Ray-kway-zah. Some pronunciations I’m pretty inconsistent with, but it’s whatever seems to work at the moment. EDIT: Grammar
On a related note to that I usually just derive a name from the species name. Examples: Ray for Rayquaza, Galaritan for Galarian Darmanitan, Alotails for Alolan Ninetails
When I was young and first started playing pokemon, i always pronounced Xerneas as “Ecks-urn-e-uhs” because I didn’t know that “X-Er” was pronounced as “Zir”
Purplecliffe should do this but I’m pretty sure it’s just going to be the entire Pokedex 😂😂😂 Plus at 14:48 there was a missed opportunity to say “TORTELLINI” from Squidward lol
I know I'm late to this but my friend was genuinely convinced it was pronounced "Yahvultal" until I had to correct him. As you can probably guess, he was shocked to find out it wasn't actually pronounced this way.
Probably because that's the only pronunciation that makes sense. Letters make specific sounds. Y doesn't make the sound the official pronunciation wants you to use, therefore the official pronunciation is wrong.
I remember when Pokemon Go was still new, and I was talking to this middle aged lady, who told me she had recently obtained a Gyarados... Oh sorry, she pronounced it "G-Ra-Dos!" 🤦♂️ I remember just smiling and nodding, while at the same time Screaming internally. It annoyed me mostly because she had said she was a big Pokemon fan, but I quickly worked out, she had only recently got into the franchise because of Pokemon Go
My dad pronounces it that way as well. He plays Pokémon GO as well, and I constantly have to remind him how to pronounce names whenever he catches something new.
Thank you for the Pokémon Talk explanations. I was particularly confused about Arkoos since I'm a relatively new viewer. It's cool that these inside jokes have lived on for years later in the community. :P
0:20 Tangela is one of my top favourite Pokémon. I have this close friend of mine who called Tangela Tanjela, I’d always stare at him when he’d say that.
I had pronounced nearly all pokemon wrong but there.is only one meme reason for cobalion I pronounced it coblion as in a cobbler because of his fancy ass shoes
I just notice how these official names are actually really gentle with non english speakers, as a spanish I can tell those "correct" pronunciations easily, maybe because spanish, italian, portuguese (and others) inherited vowels sounds from latin and most of these pokemon names are based on species, families or genus that come from latin I think that's why Michael keep struggling with those sounds, english is a germanic language
I speak french and have the same thing, but a lot of Pokemon also have just.... Really weird pronunciations? So I'm right a good amount of the time but I'm wrong half the time too. And then someone corrects me and I'm not upset or anything, I'm just confused. In my head the vowels a, e, i, o, u make the sounds 'ah, eh, ee, oh, oo', so for example I've always pronounced Dialga as "Dee-ahl-guh". I'm also comforted by remembering that the origin of this media is Japanese, and for the most part they pronounce vowels very similarly. I will note though that I know Lapras is "lap-ras" and Pidgeot is generally "pid-gee-aht/pid-gee-oht" but I will jokingly pronounce them as if they were French and say "lah-prah" and "pee-geh-oh" because I think it's funny. I do this with other Pokemon as well, just because I think it's funny, and also to make annoying people mad.
I was thinking about this through the whole video. My first language is swedish (a germanic language but it has been influenced a lot by french and other romance languages), so many of the vowel sounds pokemon names contain makes more sense to me than to an american. The letter "I" tend to have an ee sound here while "A" usually sound like ah and not ay. I think another thing that helped me guess the right pronounciations of pokemon (at least for gen 1-4) was that I didn't get as many associations to english words due to my limited english vocabulary at the time. This way, names like Ledian didn't bother me as much.
A bunch of these were like: Him: This makes sense because it's from Latin/some other language Me: That would indeed make sense... if you were pronouncing the Latin/other lang. right. Even with English root/rules, the British (and thus the rest of the English-speaking world) would disagree.
22:22 this was such a shock to me bc I've never really heard anyone say it online and everyone I know irl calls it co-ball-ee-un like cobalt I will stick to my weird cobalion pronunciation lol
I like how Mikey explains the reasons of why he used to pronounce them different ways because he thought part of the name came from a certain word but I just pronounced it different because that's how I read it when I was younger
Remember this: Arkoos and Yahvultal gag were born in legendary Pokemon Talk Episodes
Yeah, that’s true
I can still hear "WTF happened to the floor"
MY NAME IS YAVELTAL
Arkoos* HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT THE SPELLING OF ARKOOS BY SWAPPING K WITH C
@@sleepybirdcitrine501 Today our guest is YVELTAL (you say YAVELTAL,) (and I will reply with What?)
Fun fact: A lot of the early pronunciations that used to be "right", actually apparently never were. That was 4Kids' fault. (4Kids was the team behind the dubbing of the first 8 seasons of the anime, before the Pokémon Company started doing it themselves)
4Kids were also the ones with the STUPID CRAZY CENSORSHIP OF SONIC X!
I mean...why censor the word library and replace it with a book? What were they thinking?
@@heroessquad2019 lets not forget one piece with the cork guns and water guns that still killed people
@@lavenderwalrus9875 And Yu-Gi-Oh with, well, basically everything they did there
There is a reason 4kids went bankrupt
@@lavenderwalrus9875 If you can't pay the cash, then you're out with the trash. Feel free to quote me.
Also rest in piss forever miss, Key Ogrey and GRUdon.
What if we considered the different pronunciations of all the names as a form of regional dialect variation? This naturally occurs in language organically plus a cool new element to bring Pokemon a little more diverse like the real world. Always fun to consider it!
Perfect idea! It happens with real animals too. I have heard different pronunciations like zeb-ra vs zee-bra and ci-kay-da vs cic-ada
That's true, even happens with letters, like how some people pronounce z as z.ed however in the US you'll here it pronounced as ZEEEEEEEEEEEE lol although I also respect the official pronounciation, because I used too pronounce patrat as pat rat. I know it makes since, but that also sounds dumb to me so I started calling Patrat by the way the anime said it.
@@amaccoy it's zeb-ra for me
Or even the possibility that people in the anime pronounce it incorrectly
This is actually a perfect idea. Regional dialects are a thing in the real world, so why not in the Pokemon world as well? What if for example, the people from Lumiose pronounced Zygarde as Zee-gaʁd (with the heavy r), seeing as they are French influenced, and the people from Geosenge call it Zai-gard?
I can't speak for everyone, but as a British person, I do pronounce Cicada the way Nincada is officially pronounced, and, to my knowledge, languages where the word is similar tend to also use the more open /ɑ/ compared to Mikey's /eɪ/, such as Spanish's word for them, Cigarra.
I'm also British as I always pronounce Nincada the same way I would pronounce cicada
@@PrinceYamiUchihaCosplay im british and pronounce it the official way. because we dont have cicadas here, who even says it out loud to know how its actually pronounced?
@@alwaysabiggafish3305 I'd be surprised if we got cicadas in the UK
I'm from Australia (where we have lots of cicadas) and I pronounce it si-kah-dah.
As someone whose native language is spanish, that is correct. I always called them "Nin-cah-dah"s
MandJTV: "It's important to humble myself"
Also MandJTV: "The way I say them all is right and the official ways are stupid"
Technically, he did admit he would try to start calling some of them by their official pronunciation
@@joshuawenninger6439 yeah but that doesn't help my joke
true
@@joshuawenninger6439 yeah like maybe a fourth of them
*proceeds to insult me for my hippopotas pronunciation*
Mikey: "Should it be pronounced Dee-ahl-guh or Die-aal-guh?"
My brain: "Dalkia and Pialga."
Lol
Are you having a stroke?
English wise, dialguh but deealguh sounds cooler ngl
I just call it soap
@@Shadowmare4575 Dalkia and Pialga are a throwback to Mikey's and John's joint Metronome randomizer playthrough of Pokemon Black and White. By sheer coincidence, one of Mikey's starter choices was a Dialga while one of John's was a Palkia. So they nicknamed them Dalkia and Pialga respectively.
While I do prefer the soft "G" pronunciation for Mismagius, it is probable that the hard "G" comes from the word Magus. This word is often associated with the occult and magic.
I was coming here right after that to say this lol
I intended to mention the magus connection as that's the reasoning behind my pronunciation.
It comes from the word magi which is pronounced mah-gi
Mismagus is probably how i would pronounce it (drop the “i” or make it close to silent, because it doesn’t have much place in that pronunciation)
Do I renounce it right: Miss- Mage- Ee- Us
The thing is the English speaking community tends to forget, that their Pokémon names are not the original ones. It's a Japanese game. Also pronounciation is just part of the fun. I say Grewdon and Kaiogrrr wrong and different every time on purpose.
Nincarda is the same in German for example, but you actually also don't say Zikeyda in German it's written Zikade and you say Cee-cah-deh.
As long as you aren’t pronouncing Kyogre as “Kee-oh-gray” it’s fine
The day I found out I had all of the Hoenn trio wrong... I rebelled.
Grew-Don, Key-Oh-Gurr, and Ray-Qaz-Ah 4 Life
@@Want300 Japanese guy once told me: 'Ay-cuzza for Rayquaza XD
Japanese may be original but it is no longer relevant when English dominates this franchise
I remember looking up that Charizard's Japanese name was Rizādon though Charizard is and has always been my favourite Pokémon because it looks like a dragon and I love dragons
The reason some Pokémon names where changed after the Hoenn saga is because prior to the Sinnoh era, the show was produced by 4Kids Entertainment, who weren’t official. That’s why from Kanto-Hoenn, there were a lot of mistakes, mispronunciations, and errors in the anime. But when the voice actors changed, the producers changed with them, and since the Sinnoh saga the anime is produced by the Pokémon Company International.
They're also the ones responsible for the whole "jelly donut" thing
@@unitds27-delta
“Oh let’s have some onigiri- whoops I mean jelly donuts”
4Kids at it again making errors lol
One of the only things I know about 4Kids (English is not my first language, I didn’t grow up with it, although we did have very similar changes) is that they make so many changes
Probably so things are what children already know about instead of confusing them with japanese terms they probably don't know about
That's stupid though
@@1000percentreal Lolipop cigarette.
"Mikey, say the line!"
"My name is Yah-vul-tal"
*Yayyyy!*
Yes
Yes
YA VUL TAL!
Doob-blade
@@danemartinez193 B••b blade
"If the anime calls it like that at some point it is okay to be its pronounciation"
Me remembering when growlithe got called arcanine
Hahaha
Officer Jenny: arcanine Flamethrower
The growlithe: who the f*ck are you talking to
Weird way to say Growlithe but okay
And the pokerap pronounces several of them wrong. It calls oddish "ockadish" or something like that, and there's also chair-uh-zard.
I instantly thought of the exact same thing
When a scyther was called an alakazam
I always pronounced Cobalion and Co-ball-ee-on when I was younger, and still sometimes do, until I learned it’s official pronunciation. This video brought back those childhood memories of Pokémon name pronunciations lol
I used to say "Banette" like "BAN-ett" with the short 'a' sound because I thought it was a combination of "banshee" (also a short 'a' word) and "marionette." Banette's zipped mouth implied that it was known for screaming (and it learns Screech via level-up), just like banshees (which are ghosts) from the legends, so I pronounced it with the short 'a' for a while until I found out about "bane." I had a friend who pronounced it "Buh-nett" though (kinda like "barrette"), which was funny.
I somehow misread the comment and thought you were about to say its mouth was zipped because it was known for screaming things that would hypothetically get it BANned from online communities.
Yeah, banshee and marionette makes more sense
I would be fine with this personally, with that reasoning.
Yeah, I thought of the banshee before bane but apparently I’ve been calling it bane without even realizing it
I always pronounced it like the imp mobs make sounds in wind waker
it was so interesting watching this as someone with a linguistics degree because a lot of the words you listed as examples are actually loanwords from other languages, which is why a lot of them don't appear to follow the rules of english :)
Ya vah tul
yah vul tul
This! (Okay, not a linguistics degree in my case, but a very intense fascination with linguistics on a hobbyist level with a side of "I took Latin and also medical terminology which is 97% etymology".)
So many of these, I pronounced the way you'd pronounce them in Greek because medical terminology also taught me to pronounce things like they're Greek 97% of the time.
English is a messy language that can't decide whether it's romantic or germanic. Word parts from all over and too many words that don't spell as they sound.
Nnaaa more like English dont follow its own like 98% of the time
As an English teacher, I am so proud that you remembered that rule of long and short vowels based on single vs double consonants! I also find it frustrating to teach students the rules of English, just to have to teach the "unfair" words that break the rules later.
Yes, I know. The "exceptions".
Yeah I can relate
Not all books have hidden meanings
I was just joking i respect all teachers
I was never taught that rule.
As someone who speaks fluent English, I have never understood these rules that are, yes, helpful sometimes, but then SO MANY words break that because English is not one language, it's like five in a trench coat. There are *so* many loanwords.
I before E except after C, unless your feisty foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs following a heist by caffeinated weightlifters where they leisurely deceive overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits. Or when you heinously seize his conceited heifer from the ceiling. Weird.
The way phototropism works is so interesting! There's this plant hormone called ''auxin''. Auxin makes the plant cells become longer and increases cell division. When exposed to light , auxin gets damaged so it tends to go to the direction with the less light (the plant precieves which side has more light using Blue ligh receptors, and blue light is present in sunlight) ,so if the sun is hitting the plant from the right, auxin will go to the left. And we know that auxin makes the cells longer so when lots of auxin go to one direction (left) the cells on the left get a lot longer while the cells on the right stay the same thus making the plant bend to the right and making the top of the plant face the sun! It truly amazed me when I first learned it and I wanted to share it with you as well! 😊
Nerd
@@CouchPotato.__. yep I kinda am lmao 😂
A couple notes on the "official" pronunciations: first of all, The Pokemon Company International didn't actually handle the anime dubbing until the Battle Frontier arc, and part of the reason for that is because 4Kids kept screwing up the pronunciations. Therefore, any pronunciations prior to AG146, the 420th episode overall, are not necessarily official.
Additionally, the Pokedex 3D app wasn't created by Game Freak, meaning they also got a few of the pronunciations wrong (Un-Own was a particularly egregious example). If you want the most consistent official pronunciations, your best bet would have to be the modern Pokemon anime series after TPCi took over the production.
Yeah, the pronunciation of Pokemon names wasn't the reason why the dub was taken away from 4Kids...
@@samuelstannard730 The reason was bankrupcy after they got their legal asses handed to them by Konami due to the whole Yu-Gi-Oh fiasco. It turns out they were more depending of THAT rather than Pokemon.
@@irrespondible you're exactly right!
Fair enough, that certainly was the main reason, but my point still stands in that 4Kids pronunciations are not official
Like for example, the official pronunciation for Raikou is “Rai-koh” due to the huge emphasis in terms of its etymology (as it originates from Japan), yet 4Kids caused many people to mispronounce it as “Rai-coo” with the Legend of Thunder special. Same with how people mispronounced Misdreavus as “Miss-druh-vis” instead of “Mis-dree-vis”.
Head Cannon time:
The reason the Anime switches between pronunciations is because of regional dialects. Some places may say "Ampharose", while others say "Amphaross" and both can technically be right based on where you are. Ash switches between pronunciations because he has traveled far and wide and it sometimes gets it jumbled up in his head.
why does no one put the emphasis on the second syllable like i do?
but if the accent changes the language of the region should also change
His dim witted brain didn't really occured to me in xyz because he seems smarter or something
That doesn’t make sense seeing as Ash himself mispronounces it and Brock pronounced it differently to some of his despite being from the same region. I appreciate head cannon for plot holes and enjoy the unique approach, but I never understood why it’s so difficult to just say the voice actors mispronounced it bc of consistency over 1000+ episodes. I don’t need to bridge cognitive dissonance to sleep easy over that. Head cannon to address normal production mistakes just seems like a stretch to me
@@seanlinehan1136 they slip into the dialect?
I'm very satisfied to find out Yahveltal's pronunciation comes simply from a meme and being fun to say. I was so scared to find what horrendous pseudolinguistic reasons there could be for that name.
My personal headcanon is that since Pokemon say their names, people name them based on what they say, and that different Pokemon in different regions have different ways of saying them in the anime
As someone who has taken several linguistics courses in college, I can tell you that many "rules" of English grammar are fake AF and made after the fact to try and explain stuff that only came about due to the shifts caused by the Norman invasions. Also, remember that English is made up of a TON of loanwords and such that didn't exist in Old English. Lastly, Pokemon is made by Japanese people first, and sometimes their vowels permeate the official pronunciation of English names, with Mismagius' "gee - us" being an example. Not a perfect example, but the point stands. Likely the same reason Ledian is "le - dee - ahn" officially.
Sadly, even it being a Japanese first thing doesn't help all that much. Since Aron goes against how roumaji would pronounce it as.
@@madladdie7069 They usually just re-name Pokémon entirely in English. "Aron" is supposed to be like "iron," which works in English, but not in Japanese. Its Japanese name is actually "Cokodora." So, it's not even close to having the same name.
as someone said, English is 3 languages ina trenchcoat pretending to be 1
"If the anime pronounces it in some way, it should be considered valid"
*War flashbacks to the Hoenn Pokerap and how they pronounced Groudon and Kyogre.*
"Grooodon and Kyogreee"
I remember that well
Grudon
Keyogreeaa
Groodon
Keeogree
@@mr.redguard6702 I had to unlearn that after playground arguments.
“Go, Growlithe! Here’s a jelly donut”
The first time I ever heard anyone pronounce Yavuhltal was in Mikey's shield randomizer and I didn't realize that wasn't the correct pronunciation until he published this video
lol
Same 😭
I knew this for years cause i watched pokemon talk , but honestly , watch the series its great
I’m gonna start calling Hippopotas as ‘Hippo-poh-tas’ just to annoy people.
13:59
Mikey: *says 99.9%*
My head: *remembers that he said "if it's not 100%, then it's 50%" in the past
Lol
Lol
Lol
I've always pronounced this one as "Hip PAH poh tas" it's a wonder how I even pronounced it the first few times, but the way mikey says it makes more sense. It reminds of Bid Daddy when they were trying to teach that guy how to read
@@Sheenifier Lol*
I'm fairly certain that Mismagius's name being pronounced with a hard g would be in reference to a Magus (pronounced may·guhs) rather than Mage or Magician which would give the soft g
I waited for him to at least mention that. It felt like he doesn't know the existence of that word.
I always thought it was based off the word magi, plural of magus.
I think so to, like how magick used to have a k
Yeah, given Magus is latin based, not everyone knows it, despite it being a bit more common at this point. I thought of that one too though.
@@ReijiNRen The fact that he's a gamer makes this worse though. It's such a common word in RPGs, I think. Is Pokemon the only thing he plays?
Micheal “I wanna stay humble”
The biggest lie was told that day
Alternative Title: My beef with the “official” pronunciation of Pokémon names
@@Bigjess2you 🥩
Micheal is back!
...why do people spell Michael like that? Are you all doing it as a joke?
@@hoitem6500 Not really
In an official Pokémon book I have, it calls writes the sounded out version of Rayquaza with qua, not quae so it’s Ray-qua-za, not Ray-quae-za.
"If the Anime pronounces it one way it's valid."
Groodon and Kee-og-ree- Ya about that.
Actually, I have a friend who says "groodon." I don't know anyone who says "kee-oh-gree" though.
i pronounce ben-ee-tea
Also PIDGEOT TO PIDGET... HOWWWW
@@agentdon1760 Well Bulbapedia has said that it's name is derived from the words "pigeon" and "jet," so that one at least makes some sense
@@agentdon1760 me who pronounce dal-gia and ben-ee-tea
But then what about Mantyke->Mantine? The “tyke” in Mantyke literally means child. So unironically sounding out the “tine” in Mantine as “teen” makes sense. Upon reflection it makes me think we need a third stage like Mantitan. The name needs work but you get the point!
how about "Manman"?XD
Mantult
Mandult
what about man
Manray.
In UK English a Cicada is pronounced Ci-cah-dah. That’s probably where the miss-match came from. Google lists both pronunciations with UK being Cah and US being Kay.
Mikey: "if the anime says a name at any point in time, the pronunciation
Also Mikey: forgets about HIPPOPOTAS
Fun fact: The word ‘Cicada’ varies in pronunciation around the word. In US it’s “Sick-Aider”, and in UK it’s “Sick-Arda”
In fact, I realise, a lot of pronunciations stem from the British pronunciation rather than the American pronunciation.
yes, i was confused when he said that he didn't know why it was called nin-card-a and then i remembered that americans say sick aider. (also i'm aus and i think most of us say sick-arda)
From what I've heard, in Australia it's pronounced as (ci-kah-da)
it’s si-kah-dah in aus or at least where i am in aus
its Si-Kah-Da in australia
In spanish is also "si-ka-dah", so overall, yankees are wrong XDDD
I pronounce Mismagius with the hard "g" myself because of the word Magus as well as because it just sounds more ominous due to it being a ghost type. And Reuniclus does make sense in that it is a nucleus and thus they just moved the long "e" around a bit.
That is completely fair
@Jason Johnson I read the name as mis-magi-us; the word “magi” is usually pronounced with a soft g.
as a kid I just saw the g and pronounced it with the hard g, now it has stuck to me
Reuniclus makes sense, since I’m pretty sure reuniclus’s name is reunite and nucleus
Mis-magazine.
🙄
The thing is, most of the reasoning for the right or wrong pronunciations are based off of the words the names come from, but they frequently purposefully mispronounce the word so it’s not just normal words as the Pokémon names.
Jigglypuff: *cries in pudding*
This is also the case with many real world examples of portmanteaus, which is what many Pokémon names functionally are
The Nincada situation depends on where you are. In Australia Cicada is pronounced 'ci-KAH-dah' compared to 'ci-KAI-dah'. Thus both are correct. Hopefully that helps Mikey out
Here's a fun idea for your next playthrough: Team Sky in Johto. With the addition of the Fairy-type retconning a lot of Normal-types as Fairies from the Gen II roster, the most prevalent type now is FLYING. Generation II is now the GENERATION OF THE SKY!
There wouldn't be any fairy types :/
@@Gallarday some fan games have edited the game to where fairy types exist in the game even though its pre gen 6
yes, i think the gen 4 johto games are better
@@CocktailBoomin the only johto one with fairy types I can think of is gs chronicles
Fairy type is from kalos
alternate title: Mikey flexes on how smart he was as a kid. Like knowing (and remembering) tropism when playing a viddy game? Mikey is a genius and we all accept this as canon
learning facts and being able to recall facts ≠ smart. and definitely not genius
it just means you have good memory and recall
I mean, that def not something I had lol. My memory is so bad. Sorry if I wanted to compliment Mikey
I mean he could be a little nicer from insulting me so much when I pronounce hippopotas how I do
Michael: I'm going to keep myself humble
*Proceeds to argue the very first pokemon on his own list*
I heard a video about someone jokingly mispronouncing Rayquaza on a stream say “Rek-u-zay” because they heard someone say it at an event for a Pokémon Go Mega Rayquaza Raid.
Yveltal has a running gag amongst myself and my friends we call it the “Bacon Bird of Doom!!!” and it’s shiny form “Shiny Bacon Bird of Doom!!!” every time one of us used it in battle we yell it
The shiny would be Raw Bacon Bird of Doom
Only the shiny looks like bacon
I call the shiny "steak of death"
Whenever I come across a new Pokémon I don’t know how to pronounce my brain tends to mush together the pronunciation rules of Japanese, English and Spanish -which is my main language- so I’ve ended up with many funny pronunciations over the years given the tendency to accentuate one or other syllable (third to last in English, next to last in Spanish… which landed me the correct accentuation for Reuniclus) or that thankfully in Spanish there is exactly ONE pronunciation for each vowel (which usually matches up with Japanese).
I've always defaulted to English and Spanish; which is weird, because that was long before I started learning Spanish, before I knew Spanish pronunciation. So I basically noticed retroactively that when I see a word I don't recognize I often pronounce it in a way that just happens to match Spanish pronunciation.
@@KingNedya that’s actually interesting o.o I guess it was kinda rooted in you subconsciously? Must give you a lot of grief though
@@ibriselric2 I think it might be because I used to love Dora, and I would watch it all the time as a toddler. I didn't learn much, but the pronunciation must've stuck. And it doesn't cause me all that much issue, but it did cause me to absolutely butcher the name Charlemagne.
The problem with “if it was said in the anime it’s a valid pronunciation” is that makes Groodon and Keeogree accurate.
That was just the Pokérap luckily.
They also called Beldum "Bedlum" and Torkoal "Turkoal" in that rap. I kid you not. Go listen to it again
@@Twilit_Gamer "Bedlum" in Russian mean "mess" lol
@@ShinyShark006 lol. As much as I do like the Hoenn pokerap, it is a mess on it's own, isn't it?
Those are accurate though. It is Groodon.
i have the Pokemon Epic Sticker Collection Version 2, i had the outdated Version 1 when i was just a child, it consisted of Pokemon from Kanto to Alola, Ordered by the Alphabet, Height and Weight, Regional Forms, Megas, and Mega Stones.
im happy to say Version 2 has Pokemon from Kanto to Galar, Ordered by Dex number, Regional Forms, Megas and Gigantamaxes, Height and Weight, Fun Facts/Trivias, and most importantly, the correct Pronunciation
Funny story with Yveltal was that, as a kid who mostly played Pokémon X, I knew that the legendary was called Xerneas (Zer-Nee-Us). But when it came to Pokémon Y, I didn’t understand that the legendaries had vastly different names so for the longest time I thought that Yveltal was called Yerneas (Yearn-Ee-Us) - Xerneas with a Y sound. Because it was Pokémon Y, you know? So I thought that made sense. I can distinctly recall having a heated debate with one of my friends from school over this, only to ultimately be wrong. To this day both of us call it Yerneas, for the gag. It’s much easier than the other names. And if we wanted to make this official we could just say it comes from urn or yearn or something.
I’m gonna call it that from now on
Hahaha you're killing me, I'm gonna call it Yerneas since today.
I don’t know why, but the fact that you also watched read between the lions just makes me happy. Loved that show when I was younger.
Why do you guys keep putting "Read" at the beginning of the name. It was just "Between the Lions". Was the name changed at some point before I got to it?
Regarding Nincada and cicadas, the "cah" sound is a fairly common alternate pronunciation. I've heard both a lot.
As someone who had studied entomology it's actually just as common to hear people pronounce Cicada as Sick-Ah-Dah and Sick-Ay-Dah. So either is correct.
@@jonathanblaqk i pronounce it "sick-ah-dah" because that's how David Attenborough pronounced it (been a fan of his since childhood).
yeah even google says ci cah da
For the first one I expected the issue to be that it's pronounced with a short e sound like the metal lead instead of a long a sound like the word lady, not that he was somehow wrong with the obviously correct way to pronounce the -ian
In defense of /DOO-blade/ - Doublade was introduced in Kalos, which is based on France, and while the first half of the name could be English "double" it could also be French "doublé" (pronounced DOO-blay), which also means "double". If anything, choosing "blade" as the second half seems to point to the "doublé" reading, as the "bla-" of blade is pronounced the same as the "-blé" of "doublé".
Actually, "doublé" means "doubled". Which makes sense considering the Pokemon literally doubles when evolving into a Doublade.
I just saw it as Duo-Blade because it makes more sense
This theory would make more sense if there weren’t official French translations for Pokemon names.
The french name for Doublade is Dimoclès, which even in french has nothing to do with the fact that the number of blades has apparently “doobled”
I have always pronounced it Doo-blade, and after becoming fluent in French, I still pronounce it the same, because I think of both the word "doublé" and the phrase "du blé," just because I find the double-entendre funny.
@@akitari861 Yea that's kinda funny
I can actually explain a bit on the Mismagius name part: The 'Magius' part of Mismagius comes from the word Magus (May-Guhs) Which is another word for a Sorcerer/Mage and Magic. I think I've heard all three pronounciations in the anime and different media, but yeah. They are using another word basically meaning Mage with a slightly different pronounciation.
SUS MAGUS
Also maybe "geas"
Mikey: "And whenever someone pronounces it like that I wanna *break something!"*
Me: . . . Is he talking about bones? I'm pretty sure he's talking about breaking their bones.
No, he's talking about breaking up their minds and re-arranging them so they pronounce it right.
I think the thought process with doo-blade is duo blade
@@thienquoc5790 He sounds more like he's talking about breaking their backs...
*neck
Yes
There was one time I saw a video where someone called togepi (and I’m going to try my hardest to phonetically spell this) tojeppei, and I refused to call it anything else since then
I think the weird official pronunciation for Reuniclus is the mixture of the words "reunion" and "nucleus." It being based partly off "reunion" makes sense for spelling and why it would have that "ee" sound in the middle, but boy did it mess up that pronunciation.
Most of the words you listed that end in an "i" pronounced "ee" aren't even from English…
Tsunami and sushi are Japanese, and Tiki is Hawaiian, both languages that don't use the Latin-base alphabet as their native writing system (Hawaiian wasn't even written down until, like the 19th century.)
Also, "Rabbi" is Hebrew, whose alphabet is an ancestor of the Latin-base alphabet.
22:58 in the movie, Diance and the Cocoon of Destruction, a Carbink pronounces it "ee-VEL-tall".
English is a messed up language when it comes to phonetics. Like oMG.. English pronunciation is an ABSOLUTE mess
Hebrew isn't the ancestor of Latin-based alphabet, that'd be phoenician
I feel like sushi and tsunami are fair to link with the pronunciation of the pokemon, tho, since pokemon is japanese...
@@aaronp9344 I'll give you that.
Ok it not ya-vel-tahl it's ee-vel-tall
The thing with Michael is that you never know when he’s serious or not
Eviolite
Ev-olite
did u use mand on purpose? or jff?
It’s Michael not Micheal he always clarifies that in the early times of aspitapiay
Michael*?
Mand? im guessing your a new veiwer?
17:28 you don’t say DEMON-d you say
💎diamond💎
DIE-alga
Palkia and Pearl???
@@splashmanej3Perlkia
@@VeryTastyAlmondszx91 *gasp*
Michael: "I can be a snob when it comes to Pokemon name pronunciations"
Also Michael: Sticks to his wrong pronunciations for most of the video
To be fair, pronunciations of English words vary from region to region. Sometimes you can be in a single place and people will argue about how to pronounce a certain word. If you ever ask an American Southerner how to pronounce "pecan" you can get "pee-can," "pee-cahn," or
"pih-cahn." I've also heard "pee-cun" and "pih-can" but those are pretty rare.
Don’t even get me started on read and read
@@crystalfurry17 and grass and grass
Or caramel
@@crystalfurry17 Remember that read rhymes with lead and read rhymes with lead, but read and lead don't rhyme and neither do read and lead.
Or how my teacher (who is from New York) says “yad stick”
If I ever meet Michael in person...
Mikey: Hey, how you doing?
Me: Hippo-POH-TOSS.
Lol
It’s POH-ta-TOSES 🤣🤣🤣
@@Xradbley TOES
@@UFO_Monchi I wrote it wrong as part of the joke, because it’s about a video about pronunciation so if you read it how I wrote it, you see the joke
@@Xradbley i know its a joke when you said TOSES I had an Idea TOES
"I'm of the opinion that if the anime pronounces it a certain way at any point in time, then that pronunciation is valid"
The anime: JeLlY DOuGhnUts
I remember referencing that when watching a Ghibli movie with a friend (I believe it was Spirited Away) and there was onigiri on screen and I just automatically went, "delicious jelly donuts" and they were very confused and I had to show them the clip and we spent five minutes laughing.
a lot of the pronunciations that used to be right were actually never right. Seasons 1-8 were dubbed by 4Kids, and they just... Did a whole lot wrong. Reminds me of those old Pokemon handbooks by Maria S Barbo. Things got better when the Pokemon Company started handling the dubs and the books.
@@spectralwiitch7544 I don't agree, I think 4Kids handled the anime better than TCPI. The only problems that 4Kids had working with Pokemon is changing obvious things like the Jelly Donut thing. I think TCPI's casting for Pokemon is so much worse than 4Kids casting with James, Ash, and Meowth being the worst of them and it's not because they're newer. James's "new" VA puts to much emphasis when he's saying stuff, Ash sounds even more like an emotional less robot than the original English VA for Ash did, and it's been a while Meowth's "new" VA sounds decent, I just prefer the original. I understand not letting 4Kids dub Pokemon anymore since they handled other shows either averagly or did so bad ANY market for it was killed like ONE PIECE but to my knowledge TCPI didn't even attempt to hire the original dub actors. Honestly the new actors is what kills the show for me now, Pokemon's anime was never complex, but the Voice Acting makes it so much more unwatchable than 4Kids, the only thing they did was make Brock look like an idiot by calling a rice ball a jelly donut. I've watched the Spanish dub for the newer shows just because it's that much better before and it's the only other accessible dub for me in the US that doesn't require me to risk getting a virus on my computer. Not that there's anything wrong with Spanish dubs I actually quite like Spanish, I just prefer to watch shows in a language I can understand, and I have a very limited ability to speak Spanish.
@@spectralwiitch7544 yeah lmao 4kids we’re trying so hard to make it understandable for English speakers but they were also high
*brock holding a rice ball* “these JELLY DONUTS are great”
Also Quoting Squirtle "You Can't Use The Anime As A Pronunciation Guide They Pronounced Hippopotas Hippopuhtoss"
23:39 MandJTV escaping from Yveltal.
"Oh, Yveltal again! Stop. Ha ha! I escaped the Yveltal by starting a cutscene."
Here's my version of this scene as a Verbalase reference.
Oh, Charlie Morningstar again! Stop. Ha ha! I escaped Charlie Morningstar by starting a cutscene.
There's so many issues with an "official" English pronunciation. English accents and dialects from across the US and around the world pronounce the same words differently based on regions and etymology. Pokemon lacks that, so it's difficult to attach any logical rules to their pronunciation. Michael's logic for many of these (looking at the origin of each name and applying English rules) makes sense, but there's a lot of words in English that are the exception to rules or are pronounced a certain way just because. Basically, say these names how you like because it really doesn't matter lol
Yeah English weird af and I say that as a native speaker…it takes up so much of my few brain cell’s space that I can’t learn anything else
4:30
Alright it's official, Growlithe is now pronounced Arcanine
And it's official that poliwag is pronounced poliwrath
I understood that reference
Scyther is now pronounced Alakazam
Where’s my main man *jelly donuts*
Bulbasaur is now Nidoran
"if the anime pronounses it a certain way at any time it's valid"
Well I guess I'll call Growlithe Arcanine, thanks officer Jenny
LOL I forgot about that anime mistake. And I guess water types are weak to fire types like brick said
@@randomcommenter4246 lol brick
I'll call Poliwag Poliwrath, thanks Pokerap
Dammit, beat me to it
@@randomcommenter4246 hey Ash Greninja lost to Mega Charizard X that rule still applies to this day.
I pronounce Cobalion (Koba-lion) because I just go with the writing of the name and one thing I now I’m not the only one.
as a Cantonese-Chinese speaking person, I thought that "Mien-" parts of both Mienfoo and Mienshao were pronounce like how Michael says it in the video because they were like "Chow Mein", the Chinese noodles. And since they have Kung Fu and Shaolin inspirations (both Chinese martial arts) my brain made the connection that the Mien was just Mein with the e and i swapped. Also, Mienshao has "noodle" like sleeves, so my brain probably also made that connection (and now typing this, Mienfoo kinda has that yellow coloring from the chow mein xd)
same here XD
The word "cicada" is pronounced in the "official" way in many countries. I'm Australian and have always pronounced it with a soft A.
yes ty
same , I'm also australian
Ninja cicada. Ninja has a soft a. Thats why it has a soft a
I always said “Sick-Æ-da”
It's cicada in American and cicada everywhere else
I say Cobalion like cobalt. I didn’t realize not many people say it like that. It’s alway interesting to me how many different people say different pronunciations of Pokémon names!
I also say it like that.
Same!
Same here lol
I…admittedly used to say Cobalion like Ko-ba-lion, but…in my defense I was about 5 when I played Black 2 & White 2 so I have no real excuse. Nowadays I pronounce it properly.
One time I was playing the card game with my dad and he had cobalion and I said “corn on the cob”
This is when Mikey learns he’s been pronouncing Cicada wrong
To be fair on the DOO-blade thing, it is consistent with how double is pronounced in French (Kalos is based on France, after all).
Actually the french duex (two) is prounuce as a weird imbetween duh and doo.
doo-blahd
@@sticks4632 lot of nasal in that language. Portuguese too
Dooblade is still better than shdninja
*Shedninja
'' What's the mix between an milk an a tank?'''
Normal people: ''Miltank''
Mikey: '' Stupid pink cow''
"I haven't heard anyone call it Koh-bahl-ee-un"
Me whose been calling it that ever since I remember: 👁️👄👁️
He is the messiah!
Same. That's how I've been pronouncing it for years.
Same always said it that way
I always call it like that
And then there is me who says "Cob-al-eon" as I assumed it stemmed from the word cob (which is a breed of horse, of which Cobalion is the right height).
I watched this video and when i saw hippopotas in game later, i said the official pronunciation. Please help its in my brain now.
We love to see linguistic pokemoin discussion.
I've heard from a few people in my career (I'm a high school teacher), that pokemon was an invaluable tool in learning English phonics and roots. This content has a genuine place in English classes, even for students whose only spoken language is English.
Also, I got a Korean Mimikyu in a wonder box trade, and saw that the Korean name is "Ddarakyu," which replaces the "mimi" of "mimic" in English with the "ddara," "to copy," in Korean. It's such a fun and profound way to see what words mean from their structure.
As a written I find that interesting myself.
keep in mind that in the anime case and language-wise, that the pronounciation ability of some voice actors sometimes differs from it's original pronounce
13:23 "Hippo... POTAS?" 🤣
You actually made me snort laugh, which I never do. I've got that Pokedex game on my DS, and I remember hearing it say Hippopotas's name like that, your reaction was perfect!
Imagine if anyone called it Hippo-Potus
I always just said Hippo-tato or Hungry Hungry Hippo as a kid. It's like anemone, my mouth just refuses to make those sounds in that order.
I’ve always pronounced it hippo-pa-toss like the official pronunciation
I was amazed by him not drawing parallels to the Wingardium Leviosa pronounciation in Harry Potter. I was waiting for it to be mentioned for so long!
I had the same thing! Made the mistake of watching this while drinking tea and now I have a huge stain on my shirt lol
7:12 Ah yes, Ay-Ay-Ron. My favorite Steel and Rock-type Pokémon.
I unironicly call aaron that before I watched the substitute teacher skit.
*hippo-po-tas*
@@lolexguywe don’t care
"If the anime at some point referred to a pokemon with a certain name, then thaat name is valid."
My country's dub accidentally calling Electabuzz "Eceltabuzz" at some point
To be fair if you put an X in front of the C in the way they mispronounced it it turns into Exceltabuzz. Which sounds like it could be an evolution for electabuzz that is fast lol
I always thought doublade was pronounced “dool-blade” since it looked like “dual blades”
I just realized “Manectric” fits Jolteon better
Yeah true
Voltage the Jolteon is pissed that this makes sense.
(Sorry grammar edit)
SUSan reSUScitate verSUS unSUStainable SUStainable
I don't get it...
It worked word as it would have to with eon
As someone studying voice and diction, these are called allophones. We all have different dialects which change the way vowels are pronounced. It varies by state, countries, etc. So no one is wrong… unless they say Cob-uh-lion
if every pronunciation is wrong, then none of them are wrong (with some exceptions).
"He is not just making pokevids, he is teaching Science and English" -Me 2021
OK but like theoretically if the poketubers were teachers what would they teach? I feel like lockstin would be a history teacher
@@M0thMage Poketubers as teachers sounds sick! I would love to
have them as teachers lol. Maybe Pokemen7 will be a P.T Teacher?
Reference to Dhar Mann?
A long time ago Mikey did a series where he applied certain Pokemon to real life physics.
@@syedannankamran6266 Yeah
17:20 i also think Die-alga could work because of time dilation. It’s not time dee-lation, it’s time die-lation. It fits in with dialga’s theme and powers.
Literally every time I encounter an Aron I think about that one scene from substitute teacher. "Ya done messed up aaron" lmao
A A RON
Is there a A-Aron?
Fuckin same, bro
I just go for whatever flows off the tongue better. I don’t care about official pronunciations. Rayquaza will always be called Ray-kwah-zah for me because it flows off my tongue better than Ray-kway-zah. Some pronunciations I’m pretty inconsistent with, but it’s whatever seems to work at the moment.
EDIT: Grammar
On a related note to that I usually just derive a name from the species name. Examples: Ray for Rayquaza, Galaritan for Galarian Darmanitan, Alotails for Alolan Ninetails
Its pronounced ray quay za because its a space thing based on a quayzar
I dont know about you but i dont think a qua zar exists
@@rebeccagray4440 it's qua "sar" not zar lol at last it's all about pronounciation
ur wrong tho
"I don't know anyone who says Koh-BALL-ee-uhn."
I've been calling it Koh-BALL-ee-uhn since Gen 5 first came out.
That's how I pronounce it. Makes the most sense, since it gets part of its name from cobalt.
that's how i've always pronounced it, too.
Well that means theres 4 people here that say it that way. Always thought it referenced cobalt
When I was young and first started playing pokemon, i always pronounced Xerneas as “Ecks-urn-e-uhs” because I didn’t know that “X-Er” was pronounced as “Zir”
Purplecliffe should do this but I’m pretty sure it’s just going to be the entire Pokedex 😂😂😂
Plus at 14:48 there was a missed opportunity to say “TORTELLINI” from Squidward lol
Lmao
Hey mods ban this guy
@@drakox9603 Mods...do it
Lmao
Tanjelly
Kadabrah
Abrah
8:38 that sounds like a really weird thing someone would say drunk
"yo dude look at muh neck tric"
**snaps neck**
Things that Mikey's fans/viewers pronounce wrong
Yveltal-Yavaltal
Arceus-Arkoos
Mikey-Mickey
Well the first two are acceptable
Agreed
Mikey's fans don't pronounce it Mickey, or spell it Mickey, that's for PokeMEN7 fans.
Well yeah actually, but maybe a small percentage of Mikey's viewers😂
The last one is people not being able to spell an actual name people have and needing their ears checked
The feeling of him being mad and saying a pronunciation and then the dex cheerfully saying the "incorrect" pronunciation. I find it funny 😂
I know I'm late to this but my friend was genuinely convinced it was pronounced "Yahvultal" until I had to correct him. As you can probably guess, he was shocked to find out it wasn't actually pronounced this way.
Probably because that's the only pronunciation that makes sense. Letters make specific sounds. Y doesn't make the sound the official pronunciation wants you to use, therefore the official pronunciation is wrong.
I believe the pronunciation from its name is based on "evil" because it's the Pokémon who kills others at the end of its lifespan.
I remember when Pokemon Go was still new, and I was talking to this middle aged lady, who told me she had recently obtained a Gyarados... Oh sorry, she pronounced it "G-Ra-Dos!" 🤦♂️
I remember just smiling and nodding, while at the same time Screaming internally.
It annoyed me mostly because she had said she was a big Pokemon fan, but I quickly worked out, she had only recently got into the franchise because of Pokemon Go
My dad pronounces it that way as well. He plays Pokémon GO as well, and I constantly have to remind him how to pronounce names whenever he catches something new.
I think I used to pronounce it as Gi-ra-dos or Gay-ra-dos
But now I pronounce it as Gare-a-dos
@@ryousuke_superior GAY RA DOS
@@camypasteria6344 XD yeah
@@ryousuke_superior LMaoooo
Thank you for the Pokémon Talk explanations. I was particularly confused about Arkoos since I'm a relatively new viewer. It's cool that these inside jokes have lived on for years later in the community. :P
If you hear people mention what the f happened to the floor that's a pretty well known one too
I checked in my new Pokémon book from the Palade region Pokémon and on mantin it’s name was Man tin but it’s pronunciations were Man teen
0:20 Tangela is one of my top favourite Pokémon. I have this close friend of mine who called Tangela Tanjela, I’d always stare at him when he’d say that.
"Every pokemon i pronounce wrong!"
**Video 24 minutes long**
Me: *Mikey how the-*
I had pronounced nearly all pokemon wrong but there.is only one meme reason for cobalion I pronounced it coblion as in a cobbler because of his fancy ass shoes
I just notice how these official names are actually really gentle with non english speakers, as a spanish I can tell those "correct" pronunciations easily, maybe because spanish, italian, portuguese (and others) inherited vowels sounds from latin and most of these pokemon names are based on species, families or genus that come from latin
I think that's why Michael keep struggling with those sounds, english is a germanic language
Michael struggles with sounds because his accent features random a-splitting.
I speak french and have the same thing, but a lot of Pokemon also have just.... Really weird pronunciations? So I'm right a good amount of the time but I'm wrong half the time too. And then someone corrects me and I'm not upset or anything, I'm just confused. In my head the vowels a, e, i, o, u make the sounds 'ah, eh, ee, oh, oo', so for example I've always pronounced Dialga as "Dee-ahl-guh". I'm also comforted by remembering that the origin of this media is Japanese, and for the most part they pronounce vowels very similarly.
I will note though that I know Lapras is "lap-ras" and Pidgeot is generally "pid-gee-aht/pid-gee-oht" but I will jokingly pronounce them as if they were French and say "lah-prah" and "pee-geh-oh" because I think it's funny. I do this with other Pokemon as well, just because I think it's funny, and also to make annoying people mad.
Nah, Pokemon just have some really dumb offical pronunciations that don't make any sense
I was thinking about this through the whole video. My first language is swedish (a germanic language but it has been influenced a lot by french and other romance languages), so many of the vowel sounds pokemon names contain makes more sense to me than to an american. The letter "I" tend to have an ee sound here while "A" usually sound like ah and not ay.
I think another thing that helped me guess the right pronounciations of pokemon (at least for gen 1-4) was that I didn't get as many associations to english words due to my limited english vocabulary at the time. This way, names like Ledian didn't bother me as much.
A bunch of these were like:
Him: This makes sense because it's from Latin/some other language
Me: That would indeed make sense... if you were pronouncing the Latin/other lang. right.
Even with English root/rules, the British (and thus the rest of the English-speaking world) would disagree.
22:22 this was such a shock to me bc I've never really heard anyone say it online and everyone I know irl calls it co-ball-ee-un like cobalt
I will stick to my weird cobalion pronunciation lol
I like how Mikey explains the reasons of why he used to pronounce them different ways because he thought part of the name came from a certain word but I just pronounced it different because that's how I read it when I was younger
According to the Super Deluxe Essential Handbook Ledian is pronounced: "LEH-dee-an" so I would go with that and say you're pronouncing it right.
True dat.