There will be no Heisei 32

[railsquid]

29 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

As I am close to the same age as the Heisei era, this makes me feel rather old.

 

Youngster, on TV they interviewed a lady of somewhat advanced years born in the Meiji era.

[Sheffie]

14 hours ago, railsquid said:

Reiwa (令和)

Is this pronounced “Ray wah” for the benefit of the clueless westerners? Or is it a short ‘a’ sound like cat or bat?

[Densha]

16 hours ago, railsquid said:

Reiwa (令和)

I don't like how the second kanji is the same as in showa. This will make it rather easy to confuse these two time periods at a first glance of the word when you see it written down somewhere.

 

I am also looking forward to foreigners pronouncing the Japanese "r".

[railsquid]

5 hours ago, Sheffie said:

Is this pronounced “Ray wah” for the benefit of the clueless westerners? Or is it a short ‘a’ sound like cat or bat?

 

The latter.

[chadbag]

37 minutes ago, railsquid said:

 

The latter.

 

depends on how you say "cat" or "bat" I think (US vs non-US may be different?)

[railsquid]

I assume as Sheffie said "short 'a'" and IIRC originates from where English originates from, he's talking about the English pronunciation, not the US variant (which, if spelled how it's pronounced, would be more like "kyet"?)

[Sheffie]

Yes, no American kee-ats here. Not even ma wahf pronounces it that way

[chadbag]

31 minutes ago, Sheffie said:

Yes, no American kee-ats here. Not even ma wahf pronounces it that way

 

I don't know where you live, but most Americans I know don't say anything resembling kee-ats or kyets or anything like it.

 

Born and raised in the US, I speak with a mostly "non accent/non regional" American pronunciation (though I an put on a Boston "accent" if desired, as we moved to Massachusetts when I was 10, and I lived there or in New Hampshire from ages 10-18, 19, 21-23, 32-36).  I just asked my wife, who was born and raised in Japan, to pronounce the new Era name, and she definitely did not use a short-a sound that is anywhere related to the "a" in cat as a non-regional American would say it.   

 

I suspect there is still a difference in expectation.

[railsquid]

We could go round in circles trying to describe how to pronounce the Japanese "wa" based on our respective understanding of how letters match to sounds in English, so here's someone pronouncing "Shōwa" in Japanese:

 

 

And here's an example of the "rei":

 

 

 

 

[Sheffie]

From the YouTube video, I'd say it's somewhere between the totally flat "a" sound that rhymes with "cat" in British Received Pronunciation (one of the world's few 100% fake accents) and the longer "ah" sound found in "fa" and "lah" (trying to find an example that isn't followed by an 'r'). Perhaps the closest-sounding English word (if you'll forgive its Greekness) would be the second syllable of "alpha"