Originally posted by Toshi Almost
The "bo" is actually pronounced like "boat". "Keh" is just as you wrote.
Funny thing is, in Japanese, "boke/h" is more commonly used to describe a person as an "idiot", more so in a duo comedy act.
I am not so sure. I have seen sources tout that the 'bo' part is to be pronounced as in 'bot'. Thinking about how the Japanese talk, I would have thought that this was the case rather than the way it is said in 'boat'. In otherwords, both vowels are the shortened versions. Here is an excerpt describing the pronunciation:
"A term borrowed from the Japanese, pronounced with short vowels. (ie: more like French pronunciation - bo-ké - versus long English diphthongs - bow-kay.)"
If 'bo' were to be pronounced as in 'boat' that would be similar to 'bow' as described above which they say is not the correct pronunciation, but needs to be the short vowel version as in 'bot'.
It might be nice to find someone Japanese who can settle this debate!