I am pretty sure it's pronounced like most Japanese words are; how the kana are written. "Yo-tsu-ba" or maybe closer to "Yohts-ba" (not enunciating the "u") if you're talking at a good pace.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gEtOe0soaW0

yokutobe ? yokunete yokuasobu
Azumakiyohiko saishinsaku YOTSUBATO!

If we were talking about Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, or Semitic name I would understand the confusion.

But this is Japanese; the Romanization techniques are made to mirror the Kana writing system, which are made to mirror the pronunciation.

>>115094
Tell that to the guys that dubbed azumonger.

>>115075

Exactly like in spanish.

I love to be spic.

Chiyo-(jackie)Chan?

Chiyo-CHAWN?

>>115128
The latter carries a western accent, but is more correct than the former.

>>115140
In what way is it more correct? It gets both the vowel sound, and the vowel length wrong.

Whereas the former gets both right.

In fact, I'm trying hard to think of a way it's wrong, and the best I can come up with is that the vowel is slightly too short, and the n is consonantal, as opposed to almost-consonantal.

>>115170
I would say that the rather "e"-ish sound of the "a" in "chan" is a rather major factor of why it doesn't sound like "chan" in Japanese all that much.
Though indeed, "chawn" is no better.
Conclusion? Don't try to fit foreign words into English's weird-ass pronunciation rules. Look at how much the Japanese suck at it doing it in reverse. Just listen to a native speaker pronounce it a couple of times and repeat it or better yet, learn the pronunciation rules of that language.

>>115171
Ah, "(jackie)Chan", the way (jackie)Chan would pronounce it. As opposed to "(jackie)Chan" in a brittish accent, which has practically the Japanese 'a' vowel.

In conclusion, without IPA these discussions are doomed to confusion.

----

Unrelated note: to tell an Australian accent from a New-Zealand one, look for the 'e' in 'glen'. In NZ, it's rather more 'I' like, which is why their airports have 'chicken desks'.

>>115173
You mean the way the British pronounce the "a" in can't, chance and dance? I don't think that "a" would be used in "chan", even in British English. In fact, I've never heard a British person pronounce words like pan and can with that "a".
Either way, even that "a" is not quite it. It's as close as you'll get with English, I guess.

>>115175
No, as in 'ban', 'jam', and 'hammer'.

>>115175
In fact, it's the 'dance-a' that ADV use in their dub.

>>115170
"Chawn" as you put it, is more correct for the same reason that "monga" (as in "mongler") is a more correct pronunciation of the word "manga" than "Man-guh" (as in the word "man" plus "guh").

>>115190
If this reason is so obvious, could you please take the trivial step of articulating it?

Just listen to the goddamn original dub.

>>115191
The soft "ah" sound on "mon" or "chawn" is closer to the Japanese あ than the harder "a" sound in "chan" "man" "fan" "sam" "plan" "clam" "ban" "spam" "can" "van" "clan" etc...
Neither is identical, but the former is a close match.

>>115195
Not sure what good that would do, considering they use both forms interchangeably.

>>115204
Welcome to the discussion already in process.

>>115202
But even closer to the Japanese おー than it is to あ. So you'd sound like Inspector Crabtree.

>>115215
I disagree. I think the "ah" sound of "mon/chawn" is much closer to あ than it is to お.
お is closer to a longer "oh" sound, like in "Joan" "phone" "stone" "moan" etc. which sounds nothing like the "ah" vowel sound in "mon/chawn/font/spa/claw/flaw/bra/etc.." to me.

No offence, but it's completely pointless to discuss pronunciation based on English words because their pronunciation can differ a lot between different English dialects/accents. Furthermore, 120 million Japanese of different location, age, gender won't pronounce their vowels exactly the same.

Listen to the vowels:

http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_vowels_fbmp3.html

and compare to the locations of the Japanese vowels on the chart under vowels here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

Or even simpler: Download a goddamn anime and listen to that!

If you manage not to pronounce the "o" and "e" as diphtongs and not to round the "u" your pronunciation will already be better than those of 99 percent of all native English speakers, especially of the leftpondian variety.

>>115237

>Or even simpler: Download a goddamn anime and listen to that!

And since when has that ever worked

Not even the English voice actors of most anime, who I assume have heard a lot of the original voices, pronounce most Japanese names and words correctly in the dubs

>>115261
I think either they're trying to avoid code-switching delays, or they're mispronouncing on purpose so as not to spook their audience.

>>115261

They also put absolutely no emotion into their work. Not really a good example.