<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2715.400" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman" text=#000000 bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>I'm tired of reading Kawai ads slowly.  How do you pronounce "Shigeru"??????</DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have a few comments about Japanese pronunciation. In general, understanding how to pronounce a Japanese word is very easy as long as you know where each syllable starts and stops. Japanese does not have syllable slurred together like have in English; keep each syllable nice and even.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Shi-ge-ru (she-gay-ru)</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The one the really makes me crazy is the piano manufacturer Kawai. I have honestly never herd this pronounced correctly here in the States</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>. I generally hear people say "ko-wai." That is just wrong! Kawai (ka-wa-i) has three equally stressed syllables. I guess the reason that this drives me so crazy is that there are two words in Japanese that are very similar in sound to ka-wa-i (the piano manufacturer): 1. ka-wa-i-i (cute/beautiful)  2. ko-wa-i (scary). It is so odd to hear people pronounce Kawai as "ko-wai" because it sounds so similar to ko-wa-i (scary). Although that sometimes better describes the sound of some of there models: ko-wa-i . . . </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bradley M. Snook</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>