[carpents]

It really depends on the context and situation it's used in. If you're talking about photography boke can be used to describe the blur. If a person seems like they're spacing out, you can say boketeru.

And I read that someone arbitrarily added the 'h' to the end of boke simply to help with the English pronunciation of the word?

At least, that's what Mike Johnston says:
Bokeh in Pictures

[Lance B]

I lived in Japan for six years and taught Japanese for ten years after that back here in Oz but I am not Japanese. Sooooo I can't resist adding my 5yen.

Everyone is partly right but in making comparisons to a word in another language it then depends on how the writer pronounces that word.

bo = /bo/ in bop and ke(h) = /ke/ in Ken, which incidentally is also a Japanese male first name.

(The h is sometimes used to transcribe the Japanese sound, as a final e when put into English causes the vowel to be mispronounced by first language English readers by generalising the rule from their first language e.g. ton/tone, sit/site, tam/tame etc)

Another pronunciation of bokeh the way I thought it was.

[jsundin]

But, the yard game is called crouquet (Crow-kay). Don't you just love language? Let's all play croooo-kay! ;-)

Dough and tough and slough are all great examples of words that can confuse many people learning the language.

Just having fun here.

Jeff

Not to nit pick, but "bouquet" is correctly pronounced "boo-kay". Bokeh is pronounced like "bo-kay", though.

Hey, I did not take 4 years of French for nuthin'.

Funny thing, the very first time I read the word "bokeh", I thought the poster mis-used and mis-spelled bouquet - like a quality of wine - to describe the lens...

[Photochop]

LoL It's been said that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Just to throw in a few more confusing words, how about:

reed read red and read Now say that 3x fast!
rite wright write right...the list goes on!

But, the yard game is called crouquet (Crow-kay). Don't you just love language? Let's all play croooo-kay! ;-)

Dough and tough and slough are all great examples of words that can confuse many people learning the language.

Just having fun here.

Jeff

[Toshi]

And I read that someone arbitrarily added the 'h' to the end of boke simply to help with the English pronunciation of the word?

At least, that's what Mike Johnston says:
Bokeh in Pictures

Most likely, since "boke" would normally be pronounced like "poke" by English speakers. When writing in romaji you would normally use "boke".

[snostorm]

Born and bred in the US?

Are there differing ways to speak Japanese like there are differing ways to speak English? Like tomato, potato etc.

From the sources I have seen, bokeh has shown to be pronounced the way I have intimated, so who's right?

Hi Lance,

I'm also of Japanese descent, but born and raised in the US. I did a brief stint in Japanese school as a kid, and the one thing I remember, other than the word for "dog" (it was a real long time ago ), is that the Japanese "vowel" sounds are pretty consistent. I'll side with Toshi on this one.

Scott

[Toshi]

bo = /bo/ in bop and ke(h) = /ke/ in Ken, which incidentally is also a Japanese male first name.

Just curious, if you were to write boke in hiragana, wouldn't you use "ho" with a dakuten, then "ke". Or would you use "ha" with a dakuten to create "ba", such as in bot and how you say it should be pronounced.

[SpecialK]

Well, however you say "bokeh", "boutique" is still "boo-teek" in CA - thats the state on the left side of the country and not chromatic aberation. There may be a purple fringe in Hollywood or San Francisco, however.

And "ghoti" (American version) still rhymes with "fish".

[Arjay Bee]

Toshi, I'm not sure who you are addressing your question to, but /ho/ plus dakuten (") is my answer. Not sure what a bot is nor how it is pronounced in any dialect of English, but /ha/ with dakuten is not my way of reading this syllable. I think we are in agreement on this one Toshi. I just wish this software/browser supported the phonetic alphabet.

[jfdavis58]

I kinda/sorta warned everybody that this would take on a life of it's own! Ha! This is one that never fails...

Seems like a lot to do over just blur, dont'cha think? Ahh, but it's quality blur!

Thankfully, in a forum we get to spell it out, read it and make the pronunciation silently to ourselves. Anybody want to explain how to pronounce vignette? I say it's "dark corners", but...

[Arjay Bee]

JFDavis asked

Anybody want to explain how to pronounce vignette?

Spelt phonetically /vi'njet/ with the /j/ being the velar y as in yellow. From the french word for small vine which was commonly used as a motif in the corner of illuminated texts (Collins Dictionary). While in photography itrefers to the shaded corners it also refers to small illustrations that are added to the beginning or end of a piece of text. The word may also be used metaphorically to refer to a small example or motif to illustrate an idea. Sorry for being a teacher on Easter break.

But then people say words however they like in their language community - clarity of meaning is the key and if I say something the 'correct' way and my listener doesn't understand then I have said it wrongly. (Doesn't mean that I don't get irritated by the news readers rendering of the Keyoto Agreement when every one knows that the Kyo syllable has a single vowel and the middle o is long.

[Toshi]

Toshi, I'm not sure who you are addressing your question to, but /ho/ plus dakuten (") is my answer. Not sure what a bot is nor how it is pronounced in any dialect of English, but /ha/ with dakuten is not my way of reading this syllable. I think we are in agreement on this one Toshi. I just wish this software/browser supported the phonetic alphabet.

Hi Arjay, the question was addressed to you, thus the quote

In your earlier post, you mentioned that "bo = /bo/ in bop". Bop would be pronounced with a "baw" sound correct? If so, then how you would write it in Japanese and how you would pronounce it using "bop" would be contradicting. That was why I was curious how you would write it out in Japanese. (For clarification, bot would be pronounced like in robot.)

So we're definately in agreement that it would be spelled as ぼけ (hope that shows up right on your screen) and should then be "bo" as in boat

[Arjay Bee]

Toshi asked

Bop would be pronounced with a "baw" sound correct?

No, in my idiolect (Australian English) the /o/ in bop and bot are the same sound hence the earlier confusion, (as I said depends on how you say the words being compared to) while in boat is subtly different .

ぼけ shows very well for me as my computer is Japanese aware For some reason all the screen commands in the Blogspot website are in Japanese, even when reading blogs in English. Good reading revision for me...

[Toshi]

Toshi asked

No, in my idiolect (Australian English) the /o/ in bop and bot are the same sound hence the earlier confusion, (as I said depends on how you say the words being compared to) while in boat is subtly different .

ぼけ shows very well for me as my computer is Japanese aware For some reason all the screen commands in the Blogspot website are in Japanese, even when reading blogs in English. Good reading revision for me...

Ahh, okay. Now I see where it got confusing for me


And now, back to everyone's regular schedule programming ...

[Lance B]

Hi Lance,

I'm also of Japanese descent, but born and raised in the US. I did a brief stint in Japanese school as a kid, and the one thing I remember, other than the word for "dog" (it was a real long time ago ), is that the Japanese "vowel" sounds are pretty consistent. I'll side with Toshi on this one.

Scott

Sorry to harp on about this, but I think it must be a case of different people using different ways of saying things. Funnily enough, I ran into a Japanese woman on Friday and I asked her opinion as to the way it should be pronounced and she said it the way I have been suggesting, not the other way. I guess it really is a case of "you say toe may to and I say ta mah toe."

Maybe we should just agree to disagree as it seems even the Japanese say it differently to each other.