How to pronounce "Suelle"

[Bread]

Hey everyone,

Since there's no English dub this time around, I was wondering how most of you pronounce Suelle's name. Or perhaps anyone knows if there's an official pronunciation?

Based on the spelling, I would tend to say "su - elle". However, the original romanisation was "Atelier Lydie & Soeur", the French word for "sister", which is pronounced somewhat as "surr". Her Japanese name is "suuru", too, which all leads me to believe the intended pronunciation may be "sue - ll" (as in just the name "sue" but with an L attached). What do you guys think and say?

[Arthur]

The intended pronunciation is whatever is closer to Japanese, so I gues it would be "Surr".

Probably the name change was due to the fact that in English, Soueur would sound nothing like "Surr" so they changed it to Suelle in order to make it sound closer to the original.

[vkobe]

soeur XD

[D's Journal]

Sue-L.

[Jackkel Dragon]

I'd usually avoid getting too involved in a discussion like this, but after doing some research I feel compelled to voice some of my nitpicks about the name, the way names are done in the localizations of these games, and some of the views here.

Firstly, the name "Suelle" is not a recognized French name, and was probably created by the localization team to make it easier for English speakers to pronounce while looking vaguely French. (The French word Soeur is pronounced sort of like "soor" to my ears, so Suelle would probably be "sool" like wool. This sort of fits with the idea that it's basically Sue with an L/R at the end.)

It doesn't make sense to me calling a personal name on a fake (western) way

Except that the game takes place in a Western setting (Adalet is based on France), not a Japanese setting. I can understand wanting to use the original Japanese pronunciation of Japanese names, but it's really strange to me when people insist on pronouncing Western names with Japanese phonemes. (Like Lettuce->"Retisu" and Quiche->"Kissu" from a show my friend likes.) It'd be like if Logy from Escha&Logy was offically renamed to Rogy, killing the "Eschatology" pun.

As for my nitpicks about the name itself, particularly the character's nickname (Sue), the series has been pretty odd about this in the localizations. If we're right about the intended pronunciation, Suelle is no harder or longer to say than Sue is. So why does she need a nickname at all? This was something that bothered me in Firis and the Arland games I tried to play as well. In Atelier Totori, it's actually harder for me to pronounce Totori than Totooria, and I can't think of any English or German speaker that has so much trouble saying Cecilia that they'd rather say "Ceci". Yet the narration talks about how hard it is for people to say those names, so they need the nicknames.

In Atelier Firis, this was particularly bad with Ilmeria. It's not a hard name to say, yet Firis acts like it's something that requires an alien tongue to pronounce. It makes sense in the Japanese script (Irumeria is a bit awkward), but makes Firis look like an idiot in the English version. Even just changing the line about Il's nickname to something to the effect of "this sounds cuter for you" or something would have really helped the localization. (One shouldn't need to understand the linguistics of the original language to understand a work like this. A particularly skilled translator could make even language-specific puns translate into a thematic equivalent in the new language.)

At any rate, the short version on how I think Suelle is pronounced: It's probably sort of like "wool" with an S instead of a W.

[Shylaar]

Originally posted by Jackkel Dragon:

Even just changing the line about Il's nickname to something to the effect of "this sounds cuter for you" or something would have really helped the localization. (One shouldn't need to understand the linguistics of the original language to understand a work like this. A particularly skilled translator could make even language-specific puns translate into a thematic equivalent in the new language.)

Rewrites are bad and you should feel bad for proposing this.

[Jackkel Dragon]

Thanks for generalizing and misunderstanding my point. I'll be sure to no longer make suggestions for having translations make sense in the language being translated to.

On the subject of pronunciations, how is Mathias meant to be pronounced? I originally pronounced it like the English name Matthias (I="eye"), but the voice acting sounds like something different (I="ee"). Is the name really that different in French?

[Jackkel Dragon]

I'm "obsessed" with French because Adalet names are based on French. The stories I've written about fantasy worlds and Japan aren't set in America because I wrote them in American English. They're set in the settings of those stories, with names based on those settings. They speak English in the dialogue because that's my native language, not because they actually speak only English in fantasy worlds and Japan.

Mathias is a real name, a Western name. And according to my research, none of its pronunciations are "Masiasu". So I'm trying to figure out how it's pronounced by an English speaker. I don't know how trying to pronounce a name correctly could be disrespectful.

[D's Journal]

what the ♥♥♥♥ lol

[Bread]

You guys sure get fired up about this lol

Originally posted by Jackkel Dragon:

On the subject of pronunciations, how is Mathias meant to be pronounced? I originally pronounced it like the English name Matthias (I="eye"), but the voice acting sounds like something different (I="ee"). Is the name really that different in French?

I didn't even know the pronunciation of Matthias was supposed to be with an "eye" sound. Damn, dodged a bullet for when I see my British family again. I know better now, but I would have pronounced it with an "ee" sound.

Anyway, as far as I know, "Mathias" is indeed pronounced with an "ee" sound in French, as well as Dutch, German and probably a few other West-European languages.

[Stella Polaris]

The German pronunciation of Matthias is "Mat·thi·as".
It's an old common name here in Germany.

[Freyja Victrix]

Originally posted by Bread:

Hey everyone,

Since there's no English dub this time around, I was wondering how most of you pronounce Suelle's name. Or perhaps anyone knows if there's an official pronunciation?

Based on the spelling, I would tend to say "su - elle". However, the original romanisation was "Atelier Lydie & Soeur", the French word for "sister", which is pronounced somewhat as "surr". Her Japanese name is "suuru", too, which all leads me to believe the intended pronunciation may be "sue - ll" (as in just the name "sue" but with an L attached). What do you guys think and say?

Hope this will help,
https://www.howtopronounce.com/french/suelle