Nis-san or Knee-san

[sblake01]

Being a black American of South American descent (both parents from Guyana, once known as British Guiana), born in Portland, Oregon, raised and still living in Southern Calfornia, I would probably be the last one to know which pronunciation is 'correct'! But I have always said "Dot-suhn" since that's the way I heard it in commercials as a teenager. As far as Nissan, well it doesn't matter to me how that's pronounced. I'm a Datsun fan. With Nissan's rather vague and ever thinning connection to Datsun, they might as well be Ford or Toyota, etc.

[Victor Laury]

Correct? I would guess Alan has it right. All others, well, what's correct for them is good for them. I don't try to correct as long as they say it admiringly.

Dot-sun is how I say it 75% of they time. Although I call 510's the Aussie "Datto" (fast rabbit?) it seems to fit.

Knee-san - san as in "two babes in the sauna and a bottle of crystal"

I grew up as a southern yankee in the big city Miami, where everone's an imigrant so inflection becomes less of an issue. Then to Los Angeles where that rule also applies.

[onuthin]

If anybody wants to really know how it is pronouced they need to go back to the origin of the Zcar. In late 1968 the head of the Nippon corp ordered 500 Z cars to be designed built and delivered to the U.S. The engineers asked when they were expected to be delivered they were told early 69. In disbelief they said " DAT SOON ? ":sick:

[hls30.com]

The Wanker in me says it this way: "The manufacturer formerly known as Prince"!

WIll

[TomoHawk]

I thought 240Z was pronounced "Twenty-four Ounce?"

[CoastGuardZ]

Alan or Sakijo - Could one of you two please post an english pronunciation for Japanese that you previously posted? And if you could do the same for Datsun, that would be great. Thanks.

Nate

[HS30-H]

Alan or Sakijo - Could one of you two please post an english pronunciation for Japanese that you previously posted?

Nate,

The problem is that proper phonetic pronunciation of Japanese is very difficult to 'Romanise' ( and try saying that with a mouthful of breakfast cereal ).

As Sakijo pointed out, the proper Chinese-derived Japanese 'Kanji' characters for 'Nissan' are:

日産 and this can also be written in the phonetic Japanese 'Katakana' characters as: ニッサン

The two Kanji characters in 日産 are - like all Chinese-derived Japanese Kanji - ideograms ( ie - to oversimplify, their meaning is an agreed concept ) and if you separate them they can read differently and mean something else. However, let's just say that the first character 日 is actually the first character of 'Nihon' ( often Romanised in the past as 'Nippon' ) from 'Nihon Sangyo' ( the origin of the 'Nissan' name ). The second character 産 is the 'San' part of 'Sangyo' ( translates as 'trading' ).

Japanese pronunciation of 日産 is - as I mentioned - difficult to Romanise, and the best I can do is say that to my ear the 'Ni' part is approximate to the 'ni' in 'nick', and the 'ssan' part is approximate to the 'san' in 'sand'. Run the two together and it sounds a little different though........

The 'Katakana' ( phonetic ) characters come out as:

ニッサン and that is two distinct syllables from four characters. However, notice that the second character ( ッ ) is slightly smaller than the others. This affects the pronunciation of that character - effectively giving it reduced power. In spoken use this modifies the first character to make it shorter sounding; a kind of abrupt 'Ni' ( not like 'knee' - but more like that 'ni' in 'nick' ).

The second syllable is a combination of サ which is pronounced 'sa' like that 'sa' in 'sand', and ン which is an 'n' sound - the two running together to make a flat-sounding 'san'.

See how difficult it is to Romanise these sounds without proper phonetic symbols? You really need to hear the original Japanese at the same time as reading the Romanised version in order to get close to saying it correctly.

'Datsun' was not originally written in Japanese 'Kanji' ( being originally derived from an acronym ) and is therefore usually written in Katakana, as: ダットサン

Here's a case where what was originally written in 'Romaji' ( 'our' Roman alphabet ) is converted into Japanese phonetic characters - the reverse of the 'Nissan' / 'Nihon Sangyo' situation. However, the Japanese pronuciation of 'DATSUN' sounds more like 'Dattosan' than anything else, and this is converted into Katakana as ダットサン which is five characters and ( I'd say ) three syllables. Key point here is that - like most Japanese - 'Datto-san' is pronounced quite flat, with little stress on any one syallable.

The whole thing is a huge minefield. You'll get different opinions on how the phonetic pronunciations should be Romanised ( and vice-versa ) but the truth is that you need to hear the sounds to really 'get' it. There's no substitute for that.

Languages - after all is said and done - are living things, and these days they change very quickly. Trying to pin current pronunciations down is hard enough without trying to 'convert' them across languages too. These words and syllables only have value as spoken currency when the majority of the people using them agree as to what they actually mean and represent, don't they?

And of course, you really ought to be asking these kinds of questions to a native Japanese speaker rather than an Englishman..........! :classic:

Cheers,

Alan T.

[Zedrally]

Big big snip

Japanese pronunciation of 日産 is - as I mentioned - difficult to Romanise, and the best I can do is say that to my ear the 'Ni' part is approximate to the 'ni' in 'nick', and the 'ssan' part is approximate to the 'san' in 'sand'. Run the two together and it sounds a little different though........

Cheers,

Alan T.

Ah, so it is Nissan after all.......

[TomoHawk]

Whatever you say, Alan-san

[HS30-H]

Whatever you say, Alan-san

See? I can't win whatever I do can I?

Nate asked my opinion and I put a bit of effort into answering him. Anybody is free to dispute what I have written if they think it is wrong.

If I hadn't bothered to answer I suppose I'd have been wrong for not answering too........

[Zedrally]

Yes, sometimes your damned if you do or damned if you don't.

I'll stop watching classic DVD's as penance...Alan you should dis-robe, scatter ashes over your body and assume a yoga position for 7 days, muttering the Mantra Kneesan, Kneesan, Kneesan...........

MOM

[hls30.com]

...Alan you should dis-robe, scatter ashes over your body and assume a yoga position for 7 days, muttering the Mantra Kneesan, Kneesan, Kneesan...........

MOM

Or you could just find me a series one console light switch assembly to buy...indeed, that would give both of us a win only situation!

Will