Pronounce this ...

The Voice in the Booth

Pronounce this ...

​​As a Voice Artist I’m occasionally challenged with some absolute cracker pronunciations.
 
But nothing beats the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards (The APSAs). This award ceremony showcases the very best movies, movie makers, directors, producers, and actors from throughout the Asia Pacific region. The Awards night has been broadcast on SBS and in recent years is streamed live on the web to a potential audience of billions of movie buffs. So it’s a pretty big show!
 
For the past 4 years, thanks to my friends at TPD Media and Brisbane Marketing and Events I’ve had the honor of being the Voice Artist / Announcer for this spectacular.
 
Award nominees come from countries like Japan, Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Turkey and many more including Australia.
 
Because of the shear diversity and trickiness of some of the pronunciations required for this job, organizers even hire an expert in linguistic and how to say strange names – the talented Greg Saunders from Melbourne.
 
Part of my task is to give a brief a synopsis on all the nominated movies, make general announcements on the night and welcome the winners to the stage to accept their award. Now this is where it starts to get interesting. Not only do the winners get a mention, so do the director, the writer, the producer, the co-stars and anybody else who deserves a shout out.
 
Sure, these may well be household names to Asia Pacific movie buffs, but to a balding Voice Artist with his trusty Sennheiser microphone at the ready – this can present some challenges.  For example the mind races just a tad when you’re first presented with this script for the winner of Best Screen Play – Happy Hour from Japan.
 
“From Japan - Produced by Satoshi TAKATA, Hideyuki OKAMOTO and Tadashi Nohara. Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara and Tomoyuki Takahashi.
This is Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Tadashi Nohara and Tomoyuki Takahashi’s first APSA. Please welcome Tadashi Nohara to the stage to accept the award.”
 
All I can say is – thank the lord the producers of the Awards presentation thought it would be a good idea to have these pre-recorded.  Let’s just say I defently didn’t get this one first take.
 
What pronunciation pearlers have you come across – please share.