Okay who's been calling it "Gay-den"?

[Dark Jaguar]

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I've always said "Guy-den" and so has everyone I know who's actually aware of the series. Weird...

I did say "Helena" though, because it's got an H in it! Also I'm pretty sure I've met people named Helena who say the Americanized version.

Japanese names are... unusual. I tend to be mostly close when I hear them actually said, just way off on the timing (I say them too slow I guess). Of course it helps that usually Japanese names are all pretty directly transliterated and, for me anyway, are usually easier to pronounce after having only read it than a lot of Enlish words, that carry the baggage of long confusing etymologies. Like, say, "knight".

[A Black Falcon]

Helena doesn't have a slient H either... there are several different pronunciations of the name, of course, but the main ones definitely include the H -- Hel-ay-nah, Hel-eh-nuh... I'd think one without the H would be spelled, well, Elena... maybe there's somewhere which pronounces Helena like Elena, but I don't know about it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=205671

It seems that there are some parts of the (non-English speaking, mostly) world that might indeed say Helena like Elena, but I've never heard it said that way in either its normal British or American pronunciations, that's for sure.

Japanese names are... unusual. I tend to be mostly close when I hear them actually said, just way off on the timing (I say them too slow I guess). Of course it helps that usually Japanese names are all pretty directly transliterated and, for me anyway, are usually easier to pronounce after having only read it than a lot of Enlish words, that carry the baggage of long confusing etymologies. Like, say, "knight".

Japanese is pretty much pronounced as it's spelled (by syllables of course, since it's a syllabic language). If it's in the Latin alphabet instead of Japanese characters it's not too hard to pronounce decently as long as you know the basics of how the letters are said... once you know the rules there are very few tricks, I'd say. Though yes, it is often spoken quickly.

In English, of course, unlike most languages, spelling tells you very little about pronunciation a lot of the time... :)