Pronouncing English with Katakana

One of the small benefits of the Japanese language is its syllabic nature, which eliminates some of the nuance of how words are pronounced. I was listening to some music on my iPhone the other day when a song by Dido came up, and I realized that I had no idea how to pronounce her name properly — was it DIE-doh, or DEE-doh? In Japanese, you’d generally have katakana written above a name which would provide a way for everyone to know with 100% accuracy how it should be pronounced. When I was a boy I loved dinosaurs, and I remember trying to figure out how on Earth you were supposed to pronounce names like diplodocus and acrocanthosaurus properly. This wouldn’t be an issue in Japanese, though, since katakana syllables are always pronounced the same way. There are downsides to using a system like katakana for pronunciation, though. When I order Indian food in the U.S. I probably speak with a Japanese accent since I got into Indian curry after arriving in Japan, and to this day I have no idea how to pronounce camembert cheese properly, since I first ate it here.

The talented singer’s full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong, by the way