This troper frequently hears "yakuza" pronounced as "ya-KOO-za".

As far as "Legend of Zelda" goes, this troper pronounces "Hyrule" as "Huh-ROO-lee" and "Deku" as "DOO-kuh". This troper also insists on pronouncing "meme" as "may-may" rather than "meem".

Before SuperSmashBros Melee, this troper pronounced "Ganondorf" as "Guh-NAN-dorf".

When this troper's ninth-grade English class was studying ''WatershipDown'', the Lapine terms and names were apparently a real stumbling block for many, even though there ''is'' a pronunciation guide in the glossary. What's really strange is that some people had difficulty with some of the English names in the book, with one student pronouncing Fiver as "fivver," and the teacher rather inexplicably referring to Nuthanger Farm as "Noo-thanger Farm."

This troper had a serious problem with {{Pokemon}} names. Pokemon that keep their Japanese name in English are okay with me, but other pronounciations seem to be weird, like he pronounces Grotle like Grow-tul, but Pokemon Battle Revolution says GRAHL-dul.

{{bjchit}}: My last name, Chitwood, is appearently the hardest thing in the world to pronunce. Even though the best player in the movie Hoosiers is named Chitwood, I live in Indiana (The Hoosier State), and the area of Indiana that I live in is full of us, nobody ever gets it right the first time. *sigh*

This conversation ensued after my then-girlfriend introduced me to FinalFantasyIX: #QUOTE#'''Me:''' Oeilvert. I love that name. #QUOTE#'''Her:''' I love the way you pronounce it. #QUOTE#'''Me:''' That ''is'' how it's pronounced. #QUOTE#(I pronounce it as ''oeil vert'', French for "green eye", which I'm pretty sure is what the name is based on. The reason I love the name is mostly that the diphthong in ''oeil'' is a particularly beautiful sound that doesn't occur in English.)

However, I also have some less pleasant examples. On several occasions in high school I noticed that it seems fashionable for English speakers to affect complete inability to pronounce even the simplest of foreign names. For instance, in physics class, the name ''Szilard'' came up. Now, Hungarian "sz" is pronounced just like English "s", so there is '''nothing''' difficult about actually saying this name once you know that. Yet even after I told the teacher how to pronounce it, he and my classmates repeatedly stumbled over it. My English teacher insisted on pronouncing ''Bleistein'' as "Bliss-teen", ''Charon'' as "Sharon", ''Actaeon'' as "Act-ay-on", and so forth; these are also not really difficult compared to some of the foreign names out there! Considering these and many other cases, I've come to the conclusion that English speakers like to think of foreign languages as unpronounceable because it gives them a feeling of superiority... even though English actually has a ''far'' less consistent spelling-to-pronunciation correspondence than most languages. Head, meet desk. Repeatedly.

This troper once knew a man whose last name was Oyuunnaran. He actively enjoyed this trope by feigning shyness as a child and watching teachers and grown ups in general stumble all over the pronunciation. He hung a lampshade on it in college by noting that Mongolian names in general evoke this trope pretty much constantly outside of Mongolia.

Most of the names in the Bible. I mean, seriously, who can pronounce Mahershalalhashbaz, let alone spell it right?

4400}} Mahershalalhashbaz Ali?

Fun fact, not his original name. His birthname? Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore

My family had had many a debate spent on the pronunciation of the dog breed "shih tsu" My mother and sister think it's "shit-su", with the latter using a MemeticMutation "shit-poo". I, the family otaku, say it's "she-zoo". TheOtherWiki and dog books agree with me.

Annebeeche: Really? Based on the spelling I'd assume it's shee-tsu. Is the "tsu" syllable really a mispelled "zu"? *goes to look it up* Oh, it's Mandarin Chinese and it's "SHIRR-tsə". My bad.

It's Mandarin Chinese for "lion", and Shih Tsu is Wade-Giles pronunciation, which is long-obsolete.

{{Annebeeche}}: My legal last name, Bucko, is a complicated case of this. It's a Polish name, in Polish spelled Bućko and pronounced "Bootch-ko", and despite being proudly Polish and raised by Polish parents, I was always taught the pronunciation "Buh-ko", to the point where the Polish pronunciation actually sounds wrong to me. Therefore non-Polish people pronounce it "right", while Polish people pronounce it "wrong", to my ears. As a pronunciation nazi, this dilemma really bothers me.

Ironically enough, I pronounce all other Polish names correctly according to Polish phonetics. I cringe when I hear "-owski" (OV-skee or "OF-skee") names pronounced by Americans as "OWWW-skee". As much as I loved TheBigLebowski, I wasn't able to sit tight watching the movie for that reason.

This troper wishes his grandfather had fought harder to keep his name's pronunciation from being anglicized when coming to Australia... its not easy growing up with the name Kocwin.

Heheheh...cock...

This Troper's sister will never let him forget the time he discussed the mexican state of Chi-Hyuah-Hyuah

This troper's name is Marzwilk24x ______. Try to pronounce the first part and guess the last part.

On the local news at one point, the anchor had to read a list of the top-demanded toys of that year (2009, for the record). The list was full of Japanese names and other foreign, exotic-sounding names, and the poor guy stumbled from beginning to end. The most amusing example was his pronunciation of ''{{Bakugan}}'' as "bah-Coogan."

This Tropers first and last name both start with a J. She is of Spanish-Filipino descent. ONLY the last name is pronounced with a Spanish J (Pronounced as an h-sound). Doesn't stop my Brazillian coworker from jokingly pronouncing her first name as H-anina.

This troper's last name is four letters long and, apparently, impossible to pronounce ''or'' spell. The general rule is: you either spell it right and pronounce it wrong, or spell it wrong and pronounce it right. I love my last name, but for the love of god, why is this so hard? (Funnily enough, the name has two 'correct' pronunciations--one in English, and one in Russian. Many people incorrectly pronounce it the Russian way in English.)

I once heard Dalek pronounced as "DAY-lik". I was drawing a picture of a Dalek in math class when I was bored and some kid stole the picture out from under me and said, "What the heck is a DAY-lik?" and I said "It's DAH-lek, you idiot!"

This Troper's "Self EES-mah-tism was hurt when the MIL-tia told the POG-roms to take a pint (short "i", like in "sink") my my taPOIca pudding." A good portion of my pronunciation errors condensed into a single sentence. (Actually, "Self-''esteem'' was hurt when the ''militia'' told the ''pogroms'' to take a ''pint'' of my ''tapioca'' pudding.")

This Troper's friend's last name is Streltschenko (Strelt-SHANK-oe) of Ukranian origin, which I think is a reasonably easy name to pronounce, being only three syllables and fairly simple to sound out. Cue many, many facepalms when a new teacher attempts to say it(and fails miserably) before settling on just 'S'.

This tropes practically learned english by playing videogames. Well, how to write, not how to spell. This didn't stop me from trying, which lead to things like ''Chrono TRY-ger'' (like tiger), ''Sunse-TREE-ders'' (Sunset Ridders looked like a single word in the tittle screen) and ''Devil MY Cry'' (this one is from a friend).

A name in this troper's family is "Vazquez". It actually was originally "Vázquez and is pronounced in most of Spain (This troper is half Spanish) as "VAHTH-kith." ''NOT'' "Vaz-kwez".

There was a boy in this troper's class in middle school who wasn't sure how ''his own last name'' was supposed to be pronounced.

This troper's name is Galen. It's the word "ale" (like the beer) with a hard G in front (like Golf) and an N in back. Simple, right? The amount of times people have mispronounced it has lead me to start calling myself Jack just to save trouble.

Can I add a language here? anyway the language Gaelic you preety much have to here it to say it when you are first learning it

This troper had two teachers who sort of induced this:

The first one was Mr. O'Caollaidhe. The school newsletter announced him a term before he actually showed up. No-one had a clue what the name was; approximations were made. The typical one was '''oh-cal-AID-ee'''. When we actually met him, he revealed the true pronunciation: '''oh-KEEL-ee''. I blame the Irish language (he's Irish-Canadian).

Second one, Ms. Despault (another Canadian). Everyone more or less agrees this looks like it should be pronounced '''DES-polt'''. It's actually pronounced '''dh-POE''', with a schwa sound for the e. It also runs together so "Ms. Despault" sounds like "Mr. Poe."

This troper haves serious problems with Pokémon names. I always have pronounced Lopunny "Low-PUNNY" and then I heard in the anime "LOW-punny", while Scolipede was always pronounced by me as "S-cow-LEE-peh-day", but actually is "SCOW-lee-pad".

My last name is Witebsky, which is Russian. Wi-teb-ski. A lot of people will mispronounce it, and some are understandable. Like, "Wi-teb-sky," or "White-b-sky." Though, with some mispronouncations, I wonder where some of the letters come from. There are people who will pronounce it "Wit-el-sky," or something to that effect.