Japanese pronunciation Options

[xSweetAmberx]

I'm doing a presentation on the main Final Fantasy Serie and I wanted some help to pronounce the name of the big "dudes" correctly.

So here are the names

Hironobu Sakaguchi
Nobuo Uematsu
Yoshitaka Amano
Tetsuya Nomura

[Shirotatsu]

While I can't be absolutely sure about words of four or more syllables, I can try to make it as accurate as possible. A syllable in capitals will indicate primary stress. In other words, the main stress of the word will go on the syllable in caps.

Hironobu Sakaguchi - hi-ro-NO-bu sa-ka-GU-chi
Nobuo Uematsu - NO-bu-o u-E-ma-tsu or NO-bu-o we-MA-tsu.
Yoshitaka Amano - yo-shi-TA-ka A-ma-no
Tetsuya Nomura - TE-tsu-ya NO-mura

To highlight it best, these consonants and vowels have to be known. If you don't really want to read this, you can just go with the stress guideline above.

Consonants:
b - a hard "b" sound like in English "boat."
ch - English "chart."
g - like in English "game," never as in "gem." Also not gutturalized like in Dutch "geen."
h - a hard "h" sound like in English "hay." Also comparable to Russian х in хорошо.
k - like in English "key."
m - like English "mat"
n - an "n" like in English "no." Unless it comes at the end of a word without a following vowel sound, it is not nasalized like French final "n."
r - a single trilled "r" almost comparable to Japanese "d," but not quite. Any Scandinavian/Germanic "r" should suffice, like the "r" in Icelandic "fyrir."
s - like in English "say."
t - English "take."
ts - like "c" in Croatian "ulica," or the "ts" in English "cats."
y - like Scandinavian "j."

a - ah
i - ee
e - eh
o - oh
u - oo

Hope that helps. *sweatdrops*