@@moratakki В любом языке даже у частей слова имеется логика, поэтому удивляться очевидной этимологии пусть и выдуманных названий выдуманных мест глупо 🤔 Аналогии в игре предельно четкие, присутствует множество заимствований из реальной жизни, даже сам Тейват и его культура построены на культурах наших, Земных народов. Поэтому использование русской, французской, японской и прочих лексик не является чем-то из разряда вон выходящим... Притом, правильность тамошней фонетики может отличаться, это правда, но насколько мы видим на китайском примере - у них отличий нет, поэтому можно сделать вывод, что это просто орфоэпическая ошибка.
THANK YOU, For pointing this out. I have met FAR too many people in co op thinking Genshin is a Japanese game and shitting all over the Chinese voice acting. Thank you!
@@annalisehua "Shitting all over the Chinese voice acting" That's just stupid, the original Chinese dub is arguably the best- in my opinion, by far! The voice acting is very well done. Those who say that it's bad are either not used to hearing Chinese being spoken, or are just ignorant racists.
i am one of the recording and editing engineers for genshin, and you have no idea how much we struggle to get the english VO people to pronounce “liyue” properly, to the point that we have different ways of explaining the sound yue to people 🙃
@@tgl.9078 judging by how no one ever bothered to inform Childe’s EN VA that the G in Tartaglia is silent, EN dub is just not of great importance to the Genshin team.
I love how patient you are with explaining this to those of us to whom these tones are a new concept! You have big "Cool Elementary School Teacher" energy, haha!
sidebar, reciting these as you said them was so fun fslijleisjlefijs i grew up with spanish and english so as you can imagine the mouth sounds are fairly different
4:08 Something Ying hasn't talked about here (but obviously, pronounced correctly). We have 2x 3rd tones in a row. When that happens, the first one is changed to a second (rising) tone. This is why she pronounces Bei3 as it was Bei2 instead.
I'm glad another person noticed this. The tone sandhi wasn't really explained, but I wondered if that was just me being picky when I'm not even a native Chinese speaker.
Fortunately the tone irregularities in Chinese are very few, apart from the 3rs tone rules, there are only 2 other rules that can change a tone and they only affect the words 一 and 不
As a native Chinese speaker, I would like to add a few points here： 钟离 Zhōng lí is an old Chinese family name, The origin of the surname Zhongli can be directly traced back to the Song state built by Song Weizi in the Spring and Autumn period, which is a descendant of the surname Shang Tang(Founding monarchs of the Shang Dynasty). 归终 GuiZhong, The real meaning is more inclined to "End of Life" "final destination"or"return to the end" 行秋 Xingqiu：Walking in the fall 重云chongyun ：Cascading clouds 北斗 Beidou：This name comes from the seven stars of the Big Dipper, ,Ancient China attaches great importance to the seven stars of the Big Dipper,The change in the direction of the Big Dipper's handle is used as one of the signs to determine the seasons. 凝光 NingGuang：Congeal light 魈 Xiao：Name of a type of demon whose form is large at the top and small at the bottom, Usually have only one leg.
Now I shall imprint this mostly useless on daily life knowledge into my soul. Thank you. I just love how many Asian names have meanings. I wish we had it in Brazil :(
@@hydra0229 SABE COMO?Cara eu sou um chines que mora no São Paulo!!Eu amo Brasil!O Brasil tem uma cultura rica e única, só precisa de alguma atenção e desenvolvimento.Good to you mano!
Haha I was randomly watching Tuonto's vid reacting to this and I noticed the tone chart looked familiar lol, Thank you for crediting us, we really appreciate it! Also, thanks for spreading the correct pronunciations! hearing the voice actor saying "Yay Lawn" makes me die a little inside every time. I still give them credit, I'm sure they did their best!
Which is kinda sad since they don't even bother to do a little research on the names, they're content creators and will influence a lot of people, making the people who watch them also mispronounce
Meanwhile other people pronouncing Diluc "Die Luck" Edit : Didn't notice my comment got a lot of likes. I actually pulled 3× diluc since i last posted this lol thanks for the luck i guess
YESSS! I stared at Liyue for a while when I found it. I got to Liyue harbor at nighttime which means it had all the pretty lights on and I was like soooo shocked!!! ^-^
Truly. Then there's Beidou's name wherein the character for bei means north and the dou means fight but when joined together becomes the Chinese name of the Big Dipper asterism of the Ursa Major constellation which fits very well thematically with Beidou herself portrayed as an eye-patched naval captain or admiral with profile, talents and constellations related to ocean and navigation. 😃 edit: As Vitstaya below pointed out. I got confused with the meaning of dou. If Mandarin Chinese tonal is taken into consideration, the 'dou' in her name is pronounced in the 3rd tone (dou3) and the closest translation of this is cup / spoon / dipper and thus Beidou literally translates to 'Northern Dipper'. The 'dou' that means to fight or struggle is pronounced in the 4th tone (dou4). These 2 variations have the same Simplified Chinese character but dou4 would have a different form in Traditional Chinese.
@@nguyenquanghung2344 North Star / Polaris is 北極星 (Beiji xing). Her name means Big Dipper 北斗七星 (Beidou Qixing) or simply 北斗星 (Beidou xing). edit: I may be wrong with the North Star being 北極星 in Chinese as that would be a literal translation of North Pole Star. But 北極 (Bei3 Ji2) is its own asterism in traditional Chinese astronomy and Polaris is not one of its stars. In the traditional Chinese star map, Polaris is 勾陳一 (Gou1 Chen2 Yi1) "Curved Array 1", the 1st star of the Curved Array asterism the Hellenic counterpart of which is the Little Dipper asterism of the Ursa Minor constellation (小熊座 lit. 'the little bear constellation').
@@Sarutobi2236 maybe we need someone to clarify this term. Im used to the word Bắc Đẩu (北斗) as North star in my Vietnamese language, this make me confuse since Big Dipper in Vietnamese is Đại Hùng (大熊) :)))
I am taking Chinese class as an elective for my school, and although the pronunciations are mostly straightforward for me (as a student), it was interesting learning more about the tones and characters as well. I'm so glad you made this video, as it totally freaks me out when I find someone completely butchering the pronunciation (although I am not meant to be offensive to anyone who does, just a pet peeve). Great guide!
My biggest pet peeve is that different voice actors pronounce words differently. I've heard at least three different pronunciations of Liyue in the game
@@angie0430 my french is pretty rusty, but i think it’d be more of an o sound in the first syllable, like how an english speaker would probably read it. the second syllable should sound like “ten” though, yeah, which is what they’re messing up in-game
Hi! This was helpful and interesting. Thanks! Paimon's ENG voice actor mentioned in a Twitch stream that while she wanted to pronounce it the right way, it seems Mihoyo or whoever was casting them told them they wanted it to sound more "American". She was kinda bummed about that but that's what they wanted. Of course that leaves me wanting to know what the REAL way to say it is.
It’s because Chinese games have a tendency to flop overseas when players deem the game to sound too unfamiliar and out of the their comfort zone. So to try and play it safe, they butcher the pronunciations to make the game more friendly to westerners. Perfectly happy to see them butcher words instead of Paimon.
@@veniwotwotii3936 thats kinda upsetting given how genshin is giant melting pot of different cultures, and Liyue made me especially interested in chinese
@@tjailinht9412 I’ll try to explain it- you know that lady who pronounced microwave as meecrowavé? the first time you hear it you might find it funny or ignore it, but if you keep encountering such strange mispronunciations everywhere you might start getting quite tired of them. especially when it doesn’t take much for the speakers to find out how it’s actually pronounced(since people say it so much, you’d think they’d at least search it up), and the fact that large content creators are influencing a lot more people to say it wrong is quite frustrating
Super interesting! Whenever I play Honkai or Genshin I always feel the need to understand more about the culture the developers have in mind. Thank you for bridging the gap and for sharing your knowledge. Your channel is a gem!
Holy smokes, Chinese is such a beautiful language! The depth and subtlety in the names is absolutely fascinating. That said I bet using speech to text software is as frustrating as heck.😂
After this guide, I'll probably still pronunciate it wrong. Actually, just like all my other friends, our pronuciation of these names seem to change every day actually! 😂 😂 😂
That's so true about changing. You really have to keep saying it to someone who can correct you because it will start to slowly become less accurate until it's way off the next time you hear it said properly. This happened to me every time my friend taught me something. 😂
That surely must have pissed you off...I get turned off too as well when content creators mispronounce key terminologies even if I don't speak the language.
@@bellehelene9250 try switching to Amber, charge shots, she destroys him in one go. You don't even need to level up, you need her in the end to kill the three particles. This works because you need the elemental reaction and not damage. I think Bennet should too. Or you can go superconduct instead of overloaded, but it's somewhat slower.
@@alexeeenkov I used both Diona and Amber. In case one dies. You're right I think superconduct takes a bit longer. I also learned a neat trick from someone else. You can attack it in the center while its shooting lasers coz the core will be exposed for quite a long time. I didn't realize that coz I only dodged the lasers back then. It helped reduce the time.
@@alexeeenkov you get xiangling pretty early on, theres no reason to use amber for the hypostasis. just make sure her Q is up at the end, drop her E on one of them and use the burst to take out the other two
Just discovered this video as well as the Liyue locations one and have watched them a few times each. I'm so happy I discovered them in my suggested section, as I've always struggled with the Liyue character names and locations and since you can't replay story content in Genshin it's like you only get a few chances to hear some the names spoken in game. and I just haven't really trusted the pronunciations of them by a lot of the content creators (especially in the case of Xingqiu). I feel better knowing I'm pronouncing their names better and learning a little bit about how the vowels work in the Chinese language with the accents over them, which visually make SO much sense. Great videos!
I find that cute to make the effort and lots of people should watch this , very teaching mode and also " easy " to follow , might take some time saying the names to get them as close should be but great
@@crumblesilkskin honestly I’m rly happy they’re bringing in a bit of some cultures around the world it makes the game more immersive imo (and it’s cool seeing them too, super excited for the fantasy versions of the next nations :)) )
I keep arguing with my pals who pronounce her name "Kiki" that her name is pronounced Chi Chi, and that it's not even hard to say it, as it's pronounced just like Goku's wife's name, but they just say "Fuck you, mate, everyone calls her Kiki."
Sorry, the explains have a little mistake: The simplified Chinese character of “Zhong钟” has two traditional Chinese characters “鍾”(cup, concentrate, get together) and “鐘”(bell, clock). “ZhongLi 钟离” in traditional Chinese character is “鍾離” which is a very old surname, may means “gather and depature”. Even many Chinese don’t understand traditional Chinese character, haha
i love you and i love that i came across your channel after thinking for 3 weeks straight on how everyones misspronouncing the char names and then i enter youtube after not coming here for ages and its a suggestion
Thought I add some context to the naming of the Liyue characters in the game. In the chinese version, the mandarin names provide a “window” into the background/story of the individual characters. With that, we (the players) are able to get a “feel” or understanding of the characters itself. Hope this brings value to you all 😄 P.S English is my first language. I studied mandarin from 7 to 16 years old as part of my school curriculum. I rarely speak mandarin in my daily life but I occasionally watch chinese movies so parts of my mandarin vocabulary are still “intact”. I have been playing gehsin impact in english and started playing a 2nd game with the mandarin voice over. For the translations I took out my dictionary to translate the mandarin words and spent some time to see if there are deeper meanings. Do share if you have additional insights on the game and the characters 😄 Liyue Terminology Liyue 璃月 璃 coloured glaze; glass 月 short form for moon (月亮 yue liang) Interpretation: I am unsure if I am over-reading this but I think the name, Liyue, has a deeper meaning then just simply “Coloured Glaze Moon”. In Chinese art form, glaze is applied to ceramics to give the pottery colour. Perhaps it is implying that Liyue underneath all the colour is fragile hardened clay? Or it could also imply that the city has been carefully crafted over time by artisans to achieve perfection in its final form? For the word yue 月, in chinese tradition, the full moon is a symbol of peace, prosperity and family reunion. So the combination of the words can imply that a veneer (glaze/coating) has placed over the moon to preserve what it symbolises (peace and prosperity)
Qixing (七星) 七 seven 星 stars Interpretation: The Qixing are the ones who rule Liyue from behind the scenes. It implies there are 7 of them. So we have Ningguang and Keqing. I wonder who are the other 5 stars/persons (星 xing). Members of the Liyue Qixing (璃月七星) Tianquan (天权) 天 Heaven, Celestial, Sky 权 Authority, short for 权力 Interpretation: The position held by Ningguang and is the highest rank of the Qixing. The word 天 (Tian) typically means sky but in certain phrasing of mandarin words can mean “Heaven” or “Celestial”. In China’s old dynasty history, there is this concept called the “Mandate of Heaven”, where the Emperor (King), has been given the “moral” authority by the Heavens to rule over all of the land and its people. So her position implies she was granted this post/position by the Heavens.
Yuheng (玉衡) 玉 Jade 衡 weighing apparatus Interpretation: The position held by Keqing. The material Jade is important to Chinese culture because of its beauty and importantly, social value. It represents many values, foremost of it is: benevolence, justice, truth and loyalty. The 2nd character 衡 (heng) is typically to denote a weighing scale, but in this context, I think it implies Judge (judging the rights and wrongs). Like the weighing scales used in the Lady of Justice in the modern world. Liyue Playable Characters
Beidou (北斗) 北 North 斗 Fight; short for 战斗 which means “Battle” Interpretation: It is likely her name comes from the Big Dipper constellation, which in mandarin is 北斗星 (Bei dou xing). 星 is also a short form for "star".
Xiangling (香菱) 香 fragrant 菱 water chestnut. The full word for water chestnut is 菱角 Interpretation: Very interesting choice for the character (Xiangling is a pyro user). Water chestnuts are typically eaten to cool down or reduce heatiness in the body. In chinese medicine, there is this concept where the body has “yang (hot)” and “yin (cold)” energy. If you are sick, it may be because your body has too much of one type of energy, and your body is out of balance. So if you are suffering from fever etc, your body has too much “yang” and you need to take foods that have the “yin” aspects, eg. water chestnuts etc. Is Xiangling therefore in a "state of balance" since she has both yin and yang aspects?
Xingqiu (行秋) 行 conduct; behaviour (short for 行为) 秋 autumn, harvest Interpretation: The first character is quite straightforward (in symbolism), if you played Xingqiu’s character storyline in the game, you would know he is a man of culture. The “qiu 秋” word is more interesting. A direct translation would mean “Autumn”. But it is not what the word means, but what the word “autumn” implies. In chinese thought, autumn is connected to the direction west, which is also the direction of dreams and visions. And if you played his storyline you will understand how he lives up to his name 😄
Chongyun (重云) 重 repetition (short for 重复); could also mean "cascading" or "layered" 云 cloud Interpretation: Tthe first character in his name is "repetition", I just started playing this character and his dialogue for morning, afternoon and evening all refers to him needing to train (constant repetition). Another way to look at his name, if you combine the 2 mandarin characters, is "Cascading Clouds". It's a very poetic name.
Keqing (刻晴) 刻 engraved 晴 clear Interpretation: Her name is truly fitting. Her sword strokes can engrave words into stone that are seen as clear as day 😄
QiQi (七七) 七 Seven 七 Seven Interpretation: This naming is interesting and very deep. In chinese culture, seven represents the combination of Yin, Yang and the 5 elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth). This combination is considered as “harmony” in Confucianism ideology
The pronunciation of “Qi” can also be “起” which means “rise”. Considering that Qiqi is a zombie, it is no accident the creators chose this name for her. To “rise from the grave” so to speak. Also I believe, 七七, which directly translate to “seven seven”, can also be meant as seven times seven, which will make the number 49. In Buddhism, 49 is an auspicious number for the reincarnation of the departed. To simplify, their beliefs state that after 49 days, the soul will be reincarnated in the next life.
Zhongli 钟 Bell, timepiece, watch 离 off short form for 离开 (go off, depart) Interpretation: His first character “钟 zhong” is a bell/watch, but in this story I believe it symbolizes “time”. Basically, his name means “his time has come for him to depart”.
Another interesting tidbit is his 2nd character (离) is very close to the 1st character of Liyue 璃月. Interestingly the additional strokes in (璃 Li), is the character (王 wang), which stands for King or Monarch. Seeing how well crafted the game’s backstory is, I think it was purposely intended by the creators.
Xinyan (辛焱) 辛 Spicy 焱 Flames. The mandarin character for fire is 火 (huo). Interpretation: I think the creators are definitely making a statement by choosing 焱 instead of 火. 3x 火 makes 焱 😄 Not yet released Liyue Characters
Xiao (魈) 魈 Elf
Baizhu (白术) 白 White 术 Technique, Art, Skill Interpretation: Just realised the combination of the 2 characters is actuially a "chinese" herb. Here's what I google on the herb: Atractylodes macrocephala Koidz. (Baizhu in Chinese), a perennial herb from the Compositae family, is a drug commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. It has been used as a food and medicinal herb in China for thousand years
Hutao (胡桃) 胡 Moustache, Beard 桃 Peach Interpretation: Just like the above, the combination of 2 characters is Walnut (胡桃). Hutao is the owner of 77th Master of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor and therefore deals with dead bodies. One of the uses of walnut trees (wood) is used for the making of coffins
@@velda7454 Yes. The character is written as 术 in the game. Verified by Qiqi and Xiangling voice-over options in the mandarin version. Interestingly, the english translation changed the spelling to "Zhu" instead of "Shu".
@@DiscoveryWalkingToursTV Thanks for the info you have written, and i just ask my chinese friend yesterday, yes that word is spell 'shu', but it has another spelling to and that is 'zhu', i just know it now thought. It's meaning is a plant in china that can use for medicine, i found it ini the google. So the wasn't a mistake😅. Btw sorry if i bother you.
I don't normally comment on TH-cam, but I have watched this video several times over just to listen to the musical quality of your voice as you pronounce all of the Liyue names. I have just recently found your channel because of bullet journaling. 😂 I was shocked and had to rewind because I swore I saw a Genshin sticker on your cover (my bullet journal has fountain pen inspired stickers, but my regular journal is entirely covered in Genshin Impact stickers). That is when I started going through your channel and saw that I had found a fellow Genshin gamer....that also has ADHD. Thank you so much for all the work you put into your channel. 😊
When I was in monsdatd the voice was english, then when I reached Li Yue I switched it to chinese, then when inazuma comes out I will switch it to japanese
I started off playing it in japanese because several of my favourite anime VAs voice characters in the game and I wanted to hear them, but at some point I decided I wanted to hear the game in its original intended language so I switched it to Chinese but I'm planning on doing the same thing when we get inazuma!
I was taught _basic_ (as in, in a day or so) Pinyin pronunciation in a class I took in college, and so I'm doing better with no exposure, but it's so nice to hear the 100% correct ways to pronounce the names.
same here! there is something to her voice that attracts me to watch the rest of the video even though i am chinese and already know how to pronounce them all 😂
Beidou means the constellation Big Dipper which is more commonly describe tgt wth the word qixing(七星）as in Beidou+qixing(北斗七星) but she isn't one of the qixing members, i wonder why.. some more her ship crew is named the Crux, the opposite of the Big Dipper, one at the north, another at the south😕❔ No one asked but i wanted to put this out for a long time
I’ve been so close on a lot of these, but I’m terrible at understanding accents, so thank you for the help with that! Also glad I’ve been pronouncing Liyue correctly! Also every time I hear the word “leeway” my brain automatically thinks “you said it wrong” and then I remember most people I talk to aren’t playing Genshin and probably are using the English word “Leeway” lmao.
@@bagelbite9216 coming up with nicknames is more offensive than trying to pronounce their name properly imo Like imagine someone telling you nah I'll call you by a nickname because I cant be bothered to learn the pronunciation. Now that's offensive.
Watched this for more than 5 times since this video got uploaded and happy to see this video receiving so much love through the massive number of views ❤🎉
云 is really weird. Looking up wiktionary, it says /yn/, but she pronounces it more like [ɥin]. Her /oʊ̯/ diphthong (in Xingqiu) is a lot more forward than I learned while taking Mandarin in high school. Ningguang is another weird one. I didn't know initial /n/ gets palatalized here, we never learned that in high school. Pretty logical in retrospect. The vowel ranges from [ɪ~i], [ȵ(j)ɪŋ~ȵiŋ] Her /a/ in guang is super short and high, more like a schwa [ə], [ku̯əŋ] than the dictionary form /kwɑŋ/. Mandarin pronunciation is subtly annoying.
@@kori228 Oh wow, that is fascinating! I know only very little of Mandarin as I'm German and didn't have the chance to take it :( However that makes it really interesting to hear the the thoughts of someone who's actually familiar with the language. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment. Are you a Linguistics student as well?
@@katha310 yep, currently studying linguistics in college. I find phonology of Sinitic (Chinese) languages fascinating so I do a lot of just random wiktionary/wikipedia stuff with it. Also studied some Japanese too (cause anime), and looked at Japanese kanji readings.
@@kori228 That's cool! I haven't been studying for too long, so I don't really know if I'm interested in any phonology in particular yet, but I like Russian a lot in general. We've been focusing on German (or English at best) a lot in Phonology to learn the basics ^^" How good is your Mandarin (and your Chinese)?
@@katha310 my Mandarin is not very good lol. Haven't really used it or studied it since high school. Focusing more on Japanese in college (for the credit, I don't really use it). My parents speak Cantonese at home so I can understand daily speech (but not more advanced stuff like news), and I can speak a bit.
I've literally never played Genshin but the constant repetitions of these names just does something to my brain and helps me focus somehow, so thanks for the banger vid dude 🌺
Mondstadt is german btw and its pronounced rather like Moaned-Shtud. The voice actors do it like Mont-Statt wich is wrong. The meaning btw is Moon-City
Ye also Fischl's voice acting is really cringe, how they mispronounce german words, don't know why they use foreign words if they're not even try to pronounce them properly
@@arcturus4939 yo the Fischl thing is a whole other level xD I really think about making a video to explain it because it's not that simple to explain. Prinzessin der Verurteilung -> Princess of Judgement. Pronunciation: Princassin derr Fer-oor-tigh-loong. It's kinda like that. I know she has some other words as well, but this one stuck in my head. And remember the German R is pronounced differently.
I’m learning German and every time fischl speaks it hurts for “Mondstadt” the “mond” is pretty straightforward, it’s pronounced like Mona with a soft d at the end, but the “stadt” is trickier. The beginning “st” is pronounced with a “shh” sound with a t at the end, it’s not a sound english uses. The a is an “ah” sound like the “a” in “awesome.” The dt is another sound that’s not in English, it’s just like a soft d and t sound put together.
I love chinese, it sounds so beautiful but it's SO hard to pronounce. I'm learning japanese as a hobby and I never have trouble there but chinese is really hard for me D: this was so informative!Really happy to know how to pronounce all my fav boys names now!
Came here just to say ... I thought Japanese pronunciation was easy exactly up until I learned about pitch accent. Now I realize: Japanese is tonal, too. 😭 i.e. 父 vs 乳, both pronounced ちち but with ... very different meanings based on pitch accent. anyway RIP to our japanese study efforts (jk, gl to you! がんばれ!)
I feel you! I always get kanji reading mixed with pinyin because I learn both chinese and japanese. I got so confused with character names since the va's read the kanji pronunciation, but it's still chinese pinyin. (help me)
oh this was super helpful, thank you so much. the voice in my head kept stumbling over the character's and location's names whenever i read dialogue in the game so i googled the pronunciation and this immediately came up!! thank you, gonna keep saying these out loud till they stick
The sound is kind of like “sh” but you have to have to put on a little of a z in there, like shz and after you perfect that you’ll have to try and connect them, make them into one, or something
Gonna throw in a bit of German: Mondstadt -> Mond Stadt -> Moon Town "MonDStatt" It's a "long" O and the D isn't that eaten up, lol. Dunno if it makes sense how I've written it out, though.
Ooo good idea! It's always funny to hear the English pronunciation cuz it sounds kinda pretty tbh and then there's the proper German pronunciation that sounds like you hit someone with a rock or smth cuz it's so straightforward XDD
Really appreciate creators who decide to use names that are from the reference country. Give the game more gimmick and memorable. Also great video! I am from Thailand and I am happy to learn I pronounce most of the names right. In Thailand we have a lot of exposure to vary culture including Chinese. One of the most intriguing I must say.
Okay but like to be fair the English voice actors were told to pronounce things the way mihoyo thought Americans would pronounce them off of first glance, and even then some of them still said them correctly.
Where did you get the info, that English pronounciation is what Mihoyo thought Americans would pronounce? Do you remember? I would like to look into it some more.
The reason why people thinking its a weird pronunciation is that they forget that its from chinese culture,thus making them assuming that its english pronunciation instead of chinese.
@@owo4470 Oh, no, my Chinese bois whom I played Genshin with just read everything with a flat tone. Just like how she said Xiao's tone. At least I say Pay-dow.
Thanks for the lesson, it's very interesting. Pīnyīn is quite difficult to read for beginners so you're helping me not disrecpect those characters any longer.
I’m fascinated with the inflections and tonal differences! Of course it’s difficult to learn another language, but thank you so so much for helping us learn about their correct pronunciations. Even pronouncing the names several times after the explanation is super difficult, but at least we have a wonderful teacher! Thank you!!
I know this is totally unrelated but, I just wanted to thank you for making that English cover of Seasonal Feathers with Ham. Still one of my favorite songs of all time, all genres, makes me wanna cry. For Genshin Impact, thank you! I'm really good with learning phonetics and picking up foreign accents and stuff, but for some reason the name "Xingqiu" makes my brain clog up and I struggle so much with it. Your explanation is great though! Thank you!
“Let’s speed run the rest.”
Me still on the yué part of liyue: wait no
I'M SORRY HAHAAHA;KLSDFJ
don't worry, this is me on every Chinese class
Don't wrry i suck at chinese too
I struggle with it
Can't even understand-
Just assume the "U" in Yùe have umlaut instead. A weird sounding umlaut "U".
Hahahah
me: studied chinese for 8 years
also me: pronounces everything wrong
Me: a chinese
*Also pronounces everything wrong*
Me an asian and learns Chinese since kindergarten:
Me:
All pronunciations wrong-
You commented that with your pfp rn is perfect
@@nevermindthat6 relatable.
is that a saya pfp
Me trying these with my Russian accent
You may laugh me now but wait till' Snezhnaya comes
Where does the ь go?
@@slaviclad2972 it was more of a joke about how foreigners have a hard time telling the difference, but sure
@@slaviclad2972 nah man all good
Snezhnaya has Italian names so far from what I've seen
Snezhnaya will be half italy half Russia i think
For those who don’t know, Snezhnaya is commonly mispronounced as “shnezh-NA-ya” it’s actually pronounced as “SNYEZH-naya” meaning “Snowy” in Russian.
I'm pronouncing it shnezhNAya as a russian, since it is the name of the region and not some kind of characteristic
@@mitsunikolee это ошибка перевода, гений
@@Natalia-mj6ee ахахахха, перевод названия региона в игре с выдуманными названиями
@@moratakki В любом языке даже у частей слова имеется логика, поэтому удивляться очевидной этимологии пусть и выдуманных названий выдуманных мест глупо 🤔 Аналогии в игре предельно четкие, присутствует множество заимствований из реальной жизни, даже сам Тейват и его культура построены на культурах наших, Земных народов. Поэтому использование русской, французской, японской и прочих лексик не является чем-то из разряда вон выходящим... Притом, правильность тамошней фонетики может отличаться, это правда, но насколько мы видим на китайском примере - у них отличий нет, поэтому можно сделать вывод, что это просто орфоэпическая ошибка.
@@olehoole4418 чилл, это просто игрулька, я не записывался на допы к преподавателю этимологии
Chinese: Keqing.
American: Money.
Here comes the moneyyyyyyyyy
You mean mora.
Malaysian: cat (kucing)
And it fits her appearance too since she has 2 cat ears hairbuns.
@@KingGaki738 kucing hahahha
@@KingGaki738 omfg yess xD
Me, a bilingual: lets learn all accents of the 7 nations because I really have nothing to do
I'm actually so damn excited for more regions to come out and hopefully we'll get lots of pronunciation videos to follow !!!!
I'm doing the exact same thing.
Bro you really steps up on language games 😂
this is more relatable then living
MEMEMEMEMEMEME
For the people that don't already know, Genshin Impact is originally a Chinese game, not Japanese.
THANK YOU, For pointing this out. I have met FAR too many people in co op thinking Genshin is a Japanese game and shitting all over the Chinese voice acting. Thank you!
@@annalisehua oh god thats so cringey 😭
what's the dIfFeReNcE? /s
@@annalisehua
"Shitting all over the Chinese voice acting" That's just stupid, the original Chinese dub is arguably the best- in my opinion, by far! The voice acting is very well done.
Those who say that it's bad are either not used to hearing Chinese being spoken, or are just ignorant racists.
@@michaelkimmm 😦
i am one of the recording and editing engineers for genshin, and you have no idea how much we struggle to get the english VO people to pronounce “liyue” properly, to the point that we have different ways of explaining the sound yue to people 🙃
Thank you for your hard work! Do you process audio for all languages or each dub has their own people working on it?
true I watch some people play with the english dub and I hear some characters saying 'lie-yeah'
Yeah my name is Yue and people keep saying it wrong
Normally you pay a phonetics expert to explain the pronunciation to the actors, not just the crew memebers ☠
@@tgl.9078 judging by how no one ever bothered to inform Childe’s EN VA that the G in Tartaglia is silent, EN dub is just not of great importance to the Genshin team.
THANK YOUUU
LMFAO HELLO ARUVN HAPPY TO BE OF SERVICE
@@ying_verse Currently in GI hell so this was very interesting!
@@Aruvn YOU PLAY GENSHIN? I never expected to see you here woah woah woah (love your work btw)
HOLY HI ARUVN
UUUOY KNAHT
mandarin: *has 4 tones*
people: its hard
Cantonese: am i a joke to you?
_cantonese has 9 tones_
We have other dialects too tho :<
As a Cantonese myself I find Hokkien dialect hard to pronounce
PH which has 111 or more dialects:
Cantonese has 6 tones tho- I am from Canton(GZ) so I can tell lol
@@chuwanning1421 maybe we know different dialects? my dad side is from the guangzhou area but my moms side is from hong kong
@@saltysnowbrid 粤语九声六调
I love how patient you are with explaining this to those of us to whom these tones are a new concept! You have big "Cool Elementary School Teacher" energy, haha!
sidebar, reciting these as you said them was so fun fslijleisjlefijs i grew up with spanish and english so as you can imagine the mouth sounds are fairly different
@@grannys_sinister_corn_matrix Ahh I'm so glad you had fun with it!!!!!!
Really a great video made for ppl interesting to learn Chinese. It's become more interesting when being incorporated with game characters. ^.^
4:08 Something Ying hasn't talked about here (but obviously, pronounced correctly). We have 2x 3rd tones in a row. When that happens, the first one is changed to a second (rising) tone. This is why she pronounces Bei3 as it was Bei2 instead.
I'm glad another person noticed this. The tone sandhi wasn't really explained, but I wondered if that was just me being picky when I'm not even a native Chinese speaker.
Fortunately the tone irregularities in Chinese are very few, apart from the 3rs tone rules, there are only 2 other rules that can change a tone and they only affect the words 一 and 不
Shows how to pronounce Chongyun properly
My entire genshin life: cHoNgYoUnG
i thought it was pronounced like "chong-yoon" lmao
@@Happyfeetlily same
@@Happyfeetlily that sounds korean omg😂😂😂
@@Joseph6798-t6p I mean hey, a least I now know how to say it properly!
@@Happyfeetlily same here- and I probably won’t change-
Literally thank you, I've been calling my Xingqiu the "Water Sword Twink" for months
I’m officially gonna call him that now thanks
I CALL HIM THE LITTLE BLUE TWINK
“The water sword twink” is also 100% acceptable
I call him Cabelo Azul (Blue Hair) 😂
Will try to remember the right pronunciation now
I called him water boi 😂😭
“In terms of money... we have no money.”
Zhong Li is a true legend
i just finished the story then i realized that he can create mora wtf
John lee is best character
Only as long xiao and dainslev are not released haha
@@dsalainti So he invented Money and counterfeiting as well? Lol
child is also may favorite he's really cool character and I like he's story of him protecting he's little brother
I love how you explain how to “wrap your mouth around” the pronunciation, it is super helpful thank you!
As a native Chinese speaker, I would like to add a few points here：
钟离 Zhōng lí is an old Chinese family name, The origin of the surname Zhongli can be directly traced back to the Song state built by Song Weizi in the Spring and Autumn period, which is a descendant of the surname Shang Tang(Founding monarchs of the Shang Dynasty).
归终 GuiZhong, The real meaning is more inclined to "End of Life" "final destination"or"return to the end"
行秋 Xingqiu：Walking in the fall
重云chongyun ：Cascading clouds
北斗 Beidou：This name comes from the seven stars of the Big Dipper, ,Ancient China attaches great importance to the seven stars of the Big Dipper,The change in the direction of the Big Dipper's handle is used as one of the signs to determine the seasons.
凝光 NingGuang：Congeal light
魈 Xiao：Name of a type of demon whose form is large at the top and small at the bottom, Usually have only one leg.
Now I shall imprint this mostly useless on daily life knowledge into my soul. Thank you.
I just love how many Asian names have meanings. I wish we had it in Brazil :(
@@hydra0229 SABE COMO?Cara eu sou um chines que mora no São Paulo!!Eu amo Brasil!O Brasil tem uma cultura rica e única, só precisa de alguma atenção e desenvolvimento.Good to you mano!
imma tattoo Xiao's name.
Thank you so much I enjoyed reading your comment very informative and educational.
The seven stars of the Big Dipper, the Big Dipper is a constellation. As a wannabe astronomer and Beidou main, this all makes sense now-
My father: *makes me have 3 years of Chinese*
Me: oke
Genshin impact: *exists*
Me: my time to shine
Yes
Same lol
Well I’m already Chinese lol
Haha…
*remembers my school test being near fail…*
Did you got it right?
4:17 "Níng guāng, this one might be a little harder"
Me a Latinoamericano: *Laughs in Ñ*
bwahaha lmao same but from spain
Me, a Czech: Laughs in Ň
Laughs in Filipino
And Beidou is barely different from saying it in spanish, too!
We'll laugh even more when the fire nation comes 😈
Haha I was randomly watching Tuonto's vid reacting to this and I noticed the tone chart looked familiar lol, Thank you for crediting us, we really appreciate it! Also, thanks for spreading the correct pronunciations! hearing the voice actor saying "Yay Lawn" makes me die a little inside every time. I still give them credit, I'm sure they did their best!
"Ke Qing"
Rest of the world: Kaching
mihoyo: kaching *shows tons of money*
or, lighting mcqueen references.
KACHOW.
No its Catching.
Cat
Kerchoo
Meanwhile, content creators: "John Lee" "Kekking" "Kee Kee"
KEKW ING
lmfao john lee
Which is kinda sad since they don't even bother to do a little research on the names, they're content creators and will influence a lot of people, making the people who watch them also mispronounce
And my ears hurts hearing it, despite not being an ethically chinese, lmao
Fr, it made me cringe hearing them 😭
Meanwhile other people pronouncing Diluc
"Die Luck"
Edit : Didn't notice my comment got a lot of likes. I actually pulled 3× diluc since i last posted this lol thanks for the luck i guess
A japanese dude in a parallel universe: Shine Lucc
Because your luck dies after you got him
@@hornitako7006 that's fuckn correct my dude
Its how they pronounced it in korean dub and i just picked it up 😬😬
I say
"Die Luke"
as a joke with my friend my name is Luke so saying Die Luke was funny
Thank you for explaining the Pinyin of the names!
Studying chinese is hard but with Genshin it's so much easier and fun!
🥺 I'm so glad genshin has made it fun for you!!
Aside from the pronunciation can we talk about how beautiful Liyue is in the game? I was in awe when I first unlocked it
absolutely !! I remember my friend guiding me there when I unlocked it, it felt absolutely unreal
and the music just ties it all together
YESSS! I stared at Liyue for a while when I found it. I got to Liyue harbor at nighttime which means it had all the pretty lights on and I was like soooo shocked!!! ^-^
It was nighttime when I unlocked it and omg it was gorgeous
I felt what you felt but with Wangshu Inn lol (at that time I didn’t know Genshin world is sooo big I thought only monstadt is there)
Her: [correct pronounciation of Zhong Li]
Her: 😊
Me: [after several bastardizing attempts]
Me: *Chum Lee*
John Lee
i call him john lee and say it’s a joke just to hide the fact that i can’t pronounce his name 😭
Chun Li
this isn’t funny actually and it’s actually kinda racist (John Lee is the same)
😐
The character meaning for Zhongli and Guizhong is so cool and interesting.
Thats big storyline itself just by their name.
Truly. Then there's Beidou's name wherein the character for bei means north and the dou means fight but when joined together becomes the Chinese name of the Big Dipper asterism of the Ursa Major constellation which fits very well thematically with Beidou herself portrayed as an eye-patched naval captain or admiral with profile, talents and constellations related to ocean and navigation. 😃
edit: As Vitstaya below pointed out. I got confused with the meaning of dou. If Mandarin Chinese tonal is taken into consideration, the 'dou' in her name is pronounced in the 3rd tone (dou3) and the closest translation of this is cup / spoon / dipper and thus Beidou literally translates to 'Northern Dipper'. The 'dou' that means to fight or struggle is pronounced in the 4th tone (dou4). These 2 variations have the same Simplified Chinese character but dou4 would have a different form in Traditional Chinese.
@@Sarutobi2236 beidou mean "the North star"
@@nguyenquanghung2344 North Star / Polaris is 北極星 (Beiji xing). Her name means Big Dipper 北斗七星 (Beidou Qixing) or simply 北斗星 (Beidou xing).
edit: I may be wrong with the North Star being 北極星 in Chinese as that would be a literal translation of North Pole Star. But 北極 (Bei3 Ji2) is its own asterism in traditional Chinese astronomy and Polaris is not one of its stars. In the traditional Chinese star map, Polaris is 勾陳一 (Gou1 Chen2 Yi1) "Curved Array 1", the 1st star of the Curved Array asterism the Hellenic counterpart of which is the Little Dipper asterism of the Ursa Minor constellation (小熊座 lit. 'the little bear constellation').
@@Sarutobi2236 maybe we need someone to clarify this term. Im used to the word Bắc Đẩu (北斗) as North star in my Vietnamese language, this make me confuse since Big Dipper in Vietnamese is Đại Hùng (大熊) :)))
I am taking Chinese class as an elective for my school, and although the pronunciations are mostly straightforward for me (as a student), it was interesting learning more about the tones and characters as well. I'm so glad you made this video, as it totally freaks me out when I find someone completely butchering the pronunciation (although I am not meant to be offensive to anyone who does, just a pet peeve). Great guide!
This woman can pronounce english and chinese perfectly while I'm here struggling to pronounce 再见
再见 to you my friend
i don't even know what i just read
@@smievil It means bye
ah yes, noodle language
@@veniwotwotii3936 再见我的朋友
Me claiming myself as a Keqing fan when I kept calling her "Cake King"
I'm stuck calling Keqing as KeKing because of Sykkuno's streams................
I pronounce her name as "kuching"
@@lord_reii It mean "cat" in Indonesia or Malaysia lmao,its really suit because she have cat hairstyle
I've been laughing at this for five minutes now... help me
@@cakephone7893 in Phillipines, it means kitten which is a baby cat
Bless this video. Hearing Zhongli pronounced as "John Lee" makes me so sad.
💀oh gosh
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
4kids dub : WRITE THAT DOWN!!! WRITE THAT DOWN!!
its jonly
John Lee sounds like your local small town insurance agent
I finally got to Liyue in my Genshin playthrough and I really appreciate this video! Thank you for taking the time to share with us!!
I find it so sad that the Official channel of Mihoyo doesn't even pronounce any of the Chinese names properly. The way they pronounce Liyue hurts me
sHiAoW
@@玖-d3n Lee-yuhWay
You mean the one in English? Well, yeah, none of the English vas know Chinese
If it's about en voice it's understandable
They localized it so it's easy to understand
My biggest pet peeve is that different voice actors pronounce words differently. I've heard at least three different pronunciations of Liyue in the game
Me trying with my French accent: ig I'll just wait for Fontaine 🚶🏻♀️
*the time to shine has come*
even this early they’re already pronouncing fontaine wrong lol
@@shadycactus6146 I learned French in elementary school I would pronounce it fun-ten is it correct?
@@angie0430 my french is pretty rusty, but i think it’d be more of an o sound in the first syllable, like how an english speaker would probably read it. the second syllable should sound like “ten” though, yeah, which is what they’re messing up in-game
Ah yes, my quebecois ass will laugh at the Americans when French names come and they just butcher them
Hi! This was helpful and interesting. Thanks! Paimon's ENG voice actor mentioned in a Twitch stream that while she wanted to pronounce it the right way, it seems Mihoyo or whoever was casting them told them they wanted it to sound more "American". She was kinda bummed about that but that's what they wanted. Of course that leaves me wanting to know what the REAL way to say it is.
It’s because Chinese games have a tendency to flop overseas when players deem the game to sound too unfamiliar and out of the their comfort zone.
So to try and play it safe, they butcher the pronunciations to make the game more friendly to westerners.
Perfectly happy to see them butcher words instead of Paimon.
@@veniwotwotii3936 thats kinda upsetting given how genshin is giant melting pot of different cultures, and Liyue made me especially interested in chinese
remember to use "they/them" for paimons english voice actor
@@eu4hria Oh, right I forgot. Thanks, that's what I meant!
Sad. Its add more in depth and world building. A different culture, race and nation add more variety. Now we all are american but asian
I’ve always had a hard time trying to differentiate the pronunciations of Zhongli and Xiangling so this helped sooo much💗💗
Me able to speak Chinese and cringing at everyone calling Keqing "Kaking"
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
kiki
I don’t speak mandarin but it’s still painful to hear 🥲
Some people say her name like that?!
@@CloudyCoraYT Yes its painful
when you’re bilingual and watching this just to make sure you’re pronouncing it right.
I'm Chinese myself and watching this video to see if I pronouns them right
And yes I suk at Chinese tq @Maou Sama
@Maou Sama I know
I've always known the pronounciation but not the tone of the words.
I pronounce xingqiu, keqing and chongyun wrongly as 星球，可晴 and 重运 respectively
bilingual really helps cause you have a better range of pronouncing stuff~
Me: never spoke a lick of chinese
also me: trying to say everything throughout the video and fixing my mistakes
you don’t know how much I, a chinese person, appreciate you for this hahaha
@@updated_autopsy_report I really don’t understand why people give a damn.
@@tjailinht9412 why are you so angry?
@@tjailinht9412 I’ll try to explain it- you know that lady who pronounced microwave as meecrowavé? the first time you hear it you might find it funny or ignore it, but if you keep encountering such strange mispronunciations everywhere you might start getting quite tired of them. especially when it doesn’t take much for the speakers to find out how it’s actually pronounced(since people say it so much, you’d think they’d at least search it up), and the fact that large content creators are influencing a lot more people to say it wrong is quite frustrating
also me: forgetting all the pronounciations
Super interesting! Whenever I play Honkai or Genshin I always feel the need to understand more about the culture the developers have in mind. Thank you for bridging the gap and for sharing your knowledge. Your channel is a gem!
Just came here for Xingqiu... No srsly, i had no clue how to pronounced it and i just kept calling him "Chongyun's boyfriend" 💀
In russian it's "Син Цю" - "Sin Tsyu"
@@haykor7165 That's actually not that far off from the actual pronunciation
I cannot tell you how many times I want to strangle someone for pronouncing it as “Sing-kwee.”
LOL HES THE ONLY ONE I CANT SAY
I know how to say his name Bc I always say it, I main him aswell LOL
Me: *learning chinese my whole life and never using it*
*plays genshin*
All my suffering has come to use
mee - 6 years of compulsory putonghua babey 🤙🤙🤙
Years of me failing Chinese going to finally improve
> 6 years learning Chinese in elementary school
I may not be fluent enough, but I still can remember how the pinyin works imo
SAME,, i live in a hispanic neighborhood so everyone speaks some varient of spanish. and i have the curse of having no interest of learning spanish
yess
As a Filipina who’s a Spanish speaker as well I’m so glad I’m a ningguang main because it’s like the only name I can comfortably pronounce lmao
Ñ is really easy, as a Filipino.
ikr 👁️👄👁️
I only know how to speak English but Ningguang was the easiest for me to pronounce
Indonesian here, also having fun on saying her name, so easy lol
que onda mi pana
Holy smokes, Chinese is such a beautiful language! The depth and subtlety in the names is absolutely fascinating.
That said I bet using speech to text software is as frustrating as heck.😂
After this guide, I'll probably still pronunciate it wrong. Actually, just like all my other friends, our pronuciation of these names seem to change every day actually! 😂 😂 😂
LOL but you'll be close now!!! I believe in you!!!!!!!!
it takes a long while to pronounce chinese properly.
i speak chinese ethnically and i still cant pronounce it properly xd
18 years and ongoing
That's so true about changing. You really have to keep saying it to someone who can correct you because it will start to slowly become less accurate until it's way off the next time you hear it said properly. This happened to me every time my friend taught me something. 😂
You ain’t alone. My Chinese artist friend- just lost hope for me :,) because I keep pronouncing the names differently each time.
me too, i'll just feel more guilty
i remembered that one streamer who got beidou and said "BIDOO!"
BIDOOOF!
tectone?
That surely must have pissed you off...I get turned off too as well when content creators mispronounce key terminologies even if I don't speak the language.
@@rosaria8384 no im uhhh im fine with it though... i feel like im not in the position to get mad cause im not chinese, you know what i mean??? xD
I've heard one said "Bye-Doo" 💀
The fact that the official VA pronounced zhong li as “john lee” is really funny to me i just cant take his name seriously bcuz of that 😂
the big man himself JOHN LEE
that's his straight-up 4kidz name oml
and this is why my friends and I call him johnathon leeward.
@@Scrofar dude yeS
I pronounce it as it is spelled 💀
Your descriptions of where the sounds are placed in the mouth helped a lot!
Thanks
Heyo Moga chan ❤️
LMAOOOO
Yooo
Uwu
When mogawty is here lol
Them: "Bei dou"
Me: "Bae tho."
I say baid-o
I see that you're a man of culture as well
*bae doe
*Captain Thighs
Bro my little brother always call her bytheway
Lyrratic: "zhong li"
Paimon: "Shawty like a melody..."
"Can I eat you yet Paimon.........."
God damn it, that song is stuck in my head now >:(
It's impossible for me to read that line without thinking about Snow Halation anymore
zonkli :v
I appreciate you calling Xiao the "One last good boy"
He is best boy
Me: *trying to pronounce everys single, but not succeeding*
My mother who thought I was trying to summon a demon: *barges into my room*
If that demon is Xiao (I know he is the Conqueer of Demons but meh, his mask looks like one) she should be summoning too
Or your mom is the demon you summoned lmfao
lmao😂
Her earrings are like those small shards which you destroy while fighting electro hypostatis.
No wonder i feel like i've seen them before. Electro hypostatis bugging my mind.
Goddd i hate those. Took me five tries to finally kill one.
@@bellehelene9250 try switching to Amber, charge shots, she destroys him in one go. You don't even need to level up, you need her in the end to kill the three particles. This works because you need the elemental reaction and not damage. I think Bennet should too. Or you can go superconduct instead of overloaded, but it's somewhat slower.
@@alexeeenkov I used both Diona and Amber. In case one dies. You're right I think superconduct takes a bit longer. I also learned a neat trick from someone else. You can attack it in the center while its shooting lasers coz the core will be exposed for quite a long time. I didn't realize that coz I only dodged the lasers back then. It helped reduce the time.
@@alexeeenkov you get xiangling pretty early on, theres no reason to use amber for the hypostasis. just make sure her Q is up at the end, drop her E on one of them and use the burst to take out the other two
"And one last good boy...
Xiao"
I mean she's not wrong
Just discovered this video as well as the Liyue locations one and have watched them a few times each. I'm so happy I discovered them in my suggested section, as I've always struggled with the Liyue character names and locations and since you can't replay story content in Genshin it's like you only get a few chances to hear some the names spoken in game. and I just haven't really trusted the pronunciations of them by a lot of the content creators (especially in the case of Xingqiu). I feel better knowing I'm pronouncing their names better and learning a little bit about how the vowels work in the Chinese language with the accents over them, which visually make SO much sense. Great videos!
That "one last good boy " = xiao 😭♥️
HE REALLY IS SUCH A GOOD BOY
Razor and Xiao are best boys
i pronounce razor as razz-or
I have a small sense of pride knowing I've said these names better than the English va by just instinct
Ikr. But then again i live around chinese people so it's familiar
samee
same
Same
Jaja me to but only in a few of them.
If zhōng lí had 1 mora for every time someone said lí yuè differently or incorrectly he wouldn’t be a broke god
HEKP THIS COMMENT IS UNDERRATED
@@lucalucanightfever *Bakugo is no longer bakugo*
He ain’t broke, he just doesn’t bring money
I find that cute to make the effort and lots of people should watch this , very teaching mode and also " easy " to follow , might take some time saying the names to get them as close should be but great
Me being German and learning Chinese: this game is perfect for me, I can pronounce everything
Mihoyo introducing new area with new culture:
Hahah now suffer with the rest of the plebs
Inb4 they add the other five nations with all the new cultural aspects 😂😂
@@crumblesilkskin honestly I’m rly happy they’re bringing in a bit of some cultures around the world it makes the game more immersive imo (and it’s cool seeing them too, super excited for the fantasy versions of the next nations :)) )
@@potatolover4580 can't wait for France-
@@ApoIIogetic I'm so excited that it's gonna be ongoing for a few years so I'll actually stay interested
Everybody pronouncing Qiqi as "Kiki"
Me, an intellectual, knowing the Qing dynasty is not pronounced like "king": dschidschi
every chinese does xd
I get most of the correct pronunciations from the Genshin impact ads I get before every TH-cam video I watch.
My FBI argent knows what’s up 😎
@@matryoshka3861 yeah be careful with those. Some are very wrong, and I know for a fact that every German word in the game is butchered.
@@Chefmaks you make a good point 🤔
I keep arguing with my pals who pronounce her name "Kiki" that her name is pronounced Chi Chi, and that it's not even hard to say it, as it's pronounced just like Goku's wife's name, but they just say "Fuck you, mate, everyone calls her Kiki."
zhong li refers
zhong 钟--bell, time, clock
li 离--departure, leave, away
so Morax choose Zhong Li as his mortal name, which means" it's time to leave"
Sorry, the explains have a little mistake:
The simplified Chinese character of “Zhong钟” has two traditional Chinese characters “鍾”(cup, concentrate, get together) and “鐘”(bell, clock).
“ZhongLi 钟离” in traditional Chinese character is “鍾離” which is a very old surname, may means “gather and depature”. Even many Chinese don’t understand traditional Chinese character, haha
@@長坂滾栗 yeah
@@長坂滾栗 there is also 锺 in s. chinese
@@ngaikwok5392 but we dont use it. for example “造化钟神秀” in mainland textbook , use “钟” not ”锺”
@@長坂滾栗 china uses simplified chinese, mihoyo is from china, official uses simplified Chinese, so is in this video 2:22 so..
i love you and i love that i came across your channel after thinking for 3 weeks straight on how everyones misspronouncing the char names and then i enter youtube after not coming here for ages and its a suggestion
Thought I add some context to the naming of the Liyue characters in the game. In the chinese version, the mandarin names provide a “window” into the background/story of the individual characters. With that, we (the players) are able to get a “feel” or understanding of the characters itself. Hope this brings value to you all 😄
P.S English is my first language. I studied mandarin from 7 to 16 years old as part of my school curriculum. I rarely speak mandarin in my daily life but I occasionally watch chinese movies so parts of my mandarin vocabulary are still “intact”. I have been playing gehsin impact in english and started playing a 2nd game with the mandarin voice over. For the translations I took out my dictionary to translate the mandarin words and spent some time to see if there are deeper meanings. Do share if you have additional insights on the game and the characters 😄
Liyue Terminology
Liyue 璃月
璃 coloured glaze; glass
月 short form for moon (月亮 yue liang)
Interpretation: I am unsure if I am over-reading this but I think the name, Liyue, has a deeper meaning then just simply “Coloured Glaze Moon”. In Chinese art form, glaze is applied to ceramics to give the pottery colour. Perhaps it is implying that Liyue underneath all the colour is fragile hardened clay? Or it could also imply that the city has been carefully crafted over time by artisans to achieve perfection in its final form?
For the word yue 月, in chinese tradition, the full moon is a symbol of peace, prosperity and family reunion.
So the combination of the words can imply that a veneer (glaze/coating) has placed over the moon to preserve what it symbolises (peace and prosperity)
Qixing (七星)
七 seven
星 stars
Interpretation: The Qixing are the ones who rule Liyue from behind the scenes. It implies there are 7 of them. So we have Ningguang and Keqing. I wonder who are the other 5 stars/persons (星 xing).
Members of the Liyue Qixing (璃月七星)
Tianquan (天权)
天 Heaven, Celestial, Sky
权 Authority, short for 权力
Interpretation: The position held by Ningguang and is the highest rank of the Qixing. The word 天 (Tian) typically means sky but in certain phrasing of mandarin words can mean “Heaven” or “Celestial”. In China’s old dynasty history, there is this concept called the “Mandate of Heaven”, where the Emperor (King), has been given the “moral” authority by the Heavens to rule over all of the land and its people.
So her position implies she was granted this post/position by the Heavens.
Yuheng (玉衡)
玉 Jade
衡 weighing apparatus
Interpretation: The position held by Keqing. The material Jade is important to Chinese culture because of its beauty and importantly, social value. It represents many values, foremost of it is: benevolence, justice, truth and loyalty. The 2nd character 衡 (heng) is typically to denote a weighing scale, but in this context, I think it implies Judge (judging the rights and wrongs). Like the weighing scales used in the Lady of Justice in the modern world.
Liyue Playable Characters
Beidou (北斗)
北 North
斗 Fight; short for 战斗 which means “Battle”
Interpretation: It is likely her name comes from the Big Dipper constellation, which in mandarin is 北斗星 (Bei dou xing). 星 is also a short form for "star".
Ningguang (凝光)
凝 Congeal (Solidifying, take shape)
光 Light, Ray, Brightness, Shine, Luster
Xiangling (香菱)
香 fragrant
菱 water chestnut. The full word for water chestnut is 菱角
Interpretation: Very interesting choice for the character (Xiangling is a pyro user). Water chestnuts are typically eaten to cool down or reduce heatiness in the body. In chinese medicine, there is this concept where the body has “yang (hot)” and “yin (cold)” energy. If you are sick, it may be because your body has too much of one type of energy, and your body is out of balance. So if you are suffering from fever etc, your body has too much “yang” and you need to take foods that have the “yin” aspects, eg. water chestnuts etc.
Is Xiangling therefore in a "state of balance" since she has both yin and yang aspects?
Xingqiu (行秋)
行 conduct; behaviour (short for 行为)
秋 autumn, harvest
Interpretation: The first character is quite straightforward (in symbolism), if you played Xingqiu’s character storyline in the game, you would know he is a man of culture. The “qiu 秋” word is more interesting. A direct translation would mean “Autumn”. But it is not what the word means, but what the word “autumn” implies. In chinese thought, autumn is connected to the direction west, which is also the direction of dreams and visions. And if you played his storyline you will understand how he lives up to his name 😄
Chongyun (重云)
重 repetition (short for 重复); could also mean "cascading" or "layered"
云 cloud
Interpretation: Tthe first character in his name is "repetition", I just started playing this character and his dialogue for morning, afternoon and evening all refers to him needing to train (constant repetition). Another way to look at his name, if you combine the 2 mandarin characters, is "Cascading Clouds". It's a very poetic name.
Keqing (刻晴)
刻 engraved
晴 clear
Interpretation: Her name is truly fitting. Her sword strokes can engrave words into stone that are seen as clear as day 😄
QiQi (七七)
七 Seven
七 Seven
Interpretation: This naming is interesting and very deep. In chinese culture, seven represents the combination of Yin, Yang and the 5 elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth). This combination is considered as “harmony” in Confucianism ideology
The pronunciation of “Qi” can also be “起” which means “rise”. Considering that Qiqi is a zombie, it is no accident the creators chose this name for her. To “rise from the grave” so to speak.
Also I believe, 七七, which directly translate to “seven seven”, can also be meant as seven times seven, which will make the number 49. In Buddhism, 49 is an auspicious number for the reincarnation of the departed. To simplify, their beliefs state that after 49 days, the soul will be reincarnated in the next life.
Zhongli
钟 Bell, timepiece, watch
离 off short form for 离开 (go off, depart)
Interpretation: His first character “钟 zhong” is a bell/watch, but in this story I believe it symbolizes “time”. Basically, his name means “his time has come for him to depart”.
Another interesting tidbit is his 2nd character (离) is very close to the 1st character of Liyue 璃月. Interestingly the additional strokes in (璃 Li), is the character (王 wang), which stands for King or Monarch. Seeing how well crafted the game’s backstory is, I think it was purposely intended by the creators.
Xinyan (辛焱)
辛 Spicy
焱 Flames. The mandarin character for fire is 火 (huo).
Interpretation: I think the creators are definitely making a statement by choosing 焱 instead of 火. 3x 火 makes 焱 😄
Not yet released Liyue Characters
Xiao (魈)
魈 Elf
Baizhu (白术)
白 White
术 Technique, Art, Skill
Interpretation: Just realised the combination of the 2 characters is actuially a "chinese" herb. Here's what I google on the herb: Atractylodes macrocephala Koidz. (Baizhu in Chinese), a perennial herb from the Compositae family, is a drug commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. It has been used as a food and medicinal herb in China for thousand years
Hutao (胡桃)
胡 Moustache, Beard
桃 Peach
Interpretation: Just like the above, the combination of 2 characters is Walnut (胡桃). Hutao is the owner of 77th Master of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor and therefore deals with dead bodies. One of the uses of walnut trees (wood) is used for the making of coffins
Ganyu (甘雨)
甘 Sweet
雨 Rain
Yaoyao (瑶瑶)
瑶 means Mother of pearl
Yunjin (云菫)
云 Cloud
菫 Violet
This is a quality comment👍
this is so interesting, thanks for sharing!
Wait, baizhu chinese spelling is like that?? Wasn't that shu (术)
@@velda7454 Yes. The character is written as 术 in the game. Verified by Qiqi and Xiangling voice-over options in the mandarin version. Interestingly, the english translation changed the spelling to "Zhu" instead of "Shu".
@@DiscoveryWalkingToursTV Thanks for the info you have written, and i just ask my chinese friend yesterday, yes that word is spell 'shu', but it has another spelling to and that is 'zhu', i just know it now thought. It's meaning is a plant in china that can use for medicine, i found it ini the google. So the wasn't a mistake😅. Btw sorry if i bother you.
Me, already knowing Chinese: yea this is great let’s watch it
Even worse: me: already speaks chinese and doesn't even play genshin
@@sharonzhong oh lol you should try it its fun
@@noprimogemsleft i tried playing it but i got bored after 15 mins 😅 games are just not for me
tbh same and since the english ver doesn’t have pinyin i guess how the names sound like and oh boy i thought of xingqiu’s name as xíng qíu 🤦🏻♀️
@@sea-vi5ss same lol
Based on how everything else is pronounced, I've been pronouncing Qingxin as "CHING-shin."
You got it!!!! Good ol pattern matching hahaha well done!!
same here
whenever I'm asked to say a chinese word I know I'm too shy to say it scared that I might say it wrong-
your comment made me realize I've never said Qingxin out loud :o
Chinese is pretty easy to pronounce once you know how words are romanized, but fuck its convoluted
I don't normally comment on TH-cam, but I have watched this video several times over just to listen to the musical quality of your voice as you pronounce all of the Liyue names.
I have just recently found your channel because of bullet journaling. 😂 I was shocked and had to rewind because I swore I saw a Genshin sticker on your cover (my bullet journal has fountain pen inspired stickers, but my regular journal is entirely covered in Genshin Impact stickers). That is when I started going through your channel and saw that I had found a fellow Genshin gamer....that also has ADHD.
Thank you so much for all the work you put into your channel. 😊
When I was in monsdatd the voice was english, then when I reached Li Yue I switched it to chinese, then when inazuma comes out I will switch it to japanese
Big brain
Main reason i don't wanna delete any languages yet just to try this
I started off playing it in japanese because several of my favourite anime VAs voice characters in the game and I wanted to hear them, but at some point I decided I wanted to hear the game in its original intended language so I switched it to Chinese but I'm planning on doing the same thing when we get inazuma!
Bruh I do the same thing
Mondstat is apparently supposed to be based on German culture.
why am I watching this while I'm actually Chinese .-.
可能是这个姐姐太可爱了
@@yihongguo90 wow so perseptive huh?
你们都是来看美女的哈哈哈
检查一下自己拼音学没学好？（逃
叉着腰看完整个视频
me: a chinese person who studied mandarin for 9 years
also me: pronounces them wrong
the way I still butcher them even when my parents are fluent Chinese speakers-
I just use my country's pronounciation eventhough i'm 2nd gen chinese immigrant. I studied chinese but still it isnt my first language. Lol.
I still butcher the pronunciation of words despite learning mandarin for most of my life :(
I was taught _basic_ (as in, in a day or so) Pinyin pronunciation in a class I took in college, and so I'm doing better with no exposure, but it's so nice to hear the 100% correct ways to pronounce the names.
The devs naming Keqing knowing damn well how many people would drop hundos trying to wish for her: "Ka-ching indeed."
I got her for "free" (just used the primogems i earned) and I love her so friggin much
I'm Chinese and bilingual in Mandarin and I'm only watching this because your voice is just really soothing
LOL I'm honored that it's enough of a reason for you to watch redundant material omg
Not chinese, but i do know chinese, so the reason is the same
Agree.
Her voice kinda like Karen Carpenter.
(´ ∀ ` *)
same here! there is something to her voice that attracts me to watch the rest of the video even though i am chinese and already know how to pronounce them all 😂
Sameee
Yes... I always knew my girl beidou was
“Bae-tho”
Same. I mean you can hear it in game in the profiles so.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Beidou means the constellation Big Dipper which is more commonly describe tgt wth the word qixing(七星）as in Beidou+qixing(北斗七星) but she isn't one of the qixing members, i wonder why.. some more her ship crew is named the Crux, the opposite of the Big Dipper, one at the north, another at the south😕❔
No one asked but i wanted to put this out for a long time
Some also call her Bae Dough
@@tedykar1121 oml LOL
bae dough
I’ve been so close on a lot of these, but I’m terrible at understanding accents, so thank you for the help with that! Also glad I’ve been pronouncing Liyue correctly!
Also every time I hear the word “leeway” my brain automatically thinks “you said it wrong” and then I remember most people I talk to aren’t playing Genshin and probably are using the English word “Leeway” lmao.
me: alright let's see how you pronounce them
me after 6 mins: nicknames it is.
-__- it's not that hard dude, this is my first time hearing their pronunciation
@@xenoer maybe it’s difficult for them and they don’t wanna mispronounce it and hurt anyone, jfc
@@xenoer Some languages don't have the sounds that others have, so it's often very hard to pronounce stuff from these ones.
For Zhongli it’s rock tower for me and Bei dou is electro sword 😂😂
@@bagelbite9216 coming up with nicknames is more offensive than trying to pronounce their name properly imo
Like imagine someone telling you nah I'll call you by a nickname because I cant be bothered to learn the pronunciation. Now that's offensive.
never in my life have I felt so glad about being able to pronounce Chinese names correctly
edit: I was really dumb for thinking that xiao’s name was 小
魈 not 小
Xiao is smol so it would make sense regardless of the hanzi used.
@@joannamysluk8623 truee
hHAHA SAME
smol
When there's like 10 different pronunciations of Liyue from the story quests npcs
cause they can’t seem to standardise it rip
Lmao i feel you. I am fluent in Chinese/Mandarin and even I feel confused with all the different pronunciation by the VA.
One of them pronounced it like Leah with two syllables and I was so confused
@@florasion. haha this makes me glad I’m not using the english voiceover
Watched this for more than 5 times since this video got uploaded and happy to see this video receiving so much love through the massive number of views ❤🎉
A waifu gacha has motivated more people to learn Mandarin than all of the Confucious Institutes combined.
LOL It's so true
I’m crying because I used to love listening to the philosophy he had.
"so for those of you who have played through the guili plains area-"
me: *intense sobbing*
*sobs*
@@rocket_cat4289 It’s been months, It’s time to explore past the peaks.
what why
As a Genshin Player and Linguistics student this is extremely interesting and helpful! Thank you!
云 is really weird. Looking up wiktionary, it says /yn/, but she pronounces it more like [ɥin]. Her /oʊ̯/ diphthong (in Xingqiu) is a lot more forward than I learned while taking Mandarin in high school.
Ningguang is another weird one.
I didn't know initial /n/ gets palatalized here, we never learned that in high school. Pretty logical in retrospect.
The vowel ranges from [ɪ~i], [ȵ(j)ɪŋ~ȵiŋ]
Her /a/ in guang is super short and high, more like a schwa [ə], [ku̯əŋ] than the dictionary form /kwɑŋ/.
Mandarin pronunciation is subtly annoying.
@@kori228 Oh wow, that is fascinating! I know only very little of Mandarin as I'm German and didn't have the chance to take it :( However that makes it really interesting to hear the the thoughts of someone who's actually familiar with the language. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment. Are you a Linguistics student as well?
@@katha310 yep, currently studying linguistics in college. I find phonology of Sinitic (Chinese) languages fascinating so I do a lot of just random wiktionary/wikipedia stuff with it. Also studied some Japanese too (cause anime), and looked at Japanese kanji readings.
@@kori228 That's cool! I haven't been studying for too long, so I don't really know if I'm interested in any phonology in particular yet, but I like Russian a lot in general. We've been focusing on German (or English at best) a lot in Phonology to learn the basics ^^" How good is your Mandarin (and your Chinese)?
@@katha310 my Mandarin is not very good lol. Haven't really used it or studied it since high school. Focusing more on Japanese in college (for the credit, I don't really use it). My parents speak Cantonese at home so I can understand daily speech (but not more advanced stuff like news), and I can speak a bit.
I've literally never played Genshin but the constant repetitions of these names just does something to my brain and helps me focus somehow, so thanks for the banger vid dude 🌺
Mondstadt is german btw and its pronounced rather like Moaned-Shtud. The voice actors do it like Mont-Statt wich is wrong. The meaning btw is Moon-City
Ye also Fischl's voice acting is really cringe, how they mispronounce german words, don't know why they use foreign words if they're not even try to pronounce them properly
Thank you for this! Ummm how about the things Fischl is saying?? I want to know how to say them
@@arcturus4939 yo the Fischl thing is a whole other level xD I really think about making a video to explain it because it's not that simple to explain. Prinzessin der Verurteilung -> Princess of Judgement. Pronunciation: Princassin derr Fer-oor-tigh-loong. It's kinda like that.
I know she has some other words as well, but this one stuck in my head. And remember the German R is pronounced differently.
@@diamondcalun2084 fischl’s thing might be intentional since she’s super chuuni
@@snow2268 the Immernachtreich one or something
Now we need German speaker to pronounce Mondstadt name.
Sooooo true... the English voice actors are trying but.. could be sooooo much better lol
I can speak German but... no channel lol
@Tour Guide from the Underworld I mean the whole Mondstadt including the characters especially Fischl
@Tour Guide from the Underworld LMFIAHAHA YES
I’m learning German and every time fischl speaks it hurts
for “Mondstadt” the “mond” is pretty straightforward, it’s pronounced like Mona with a soft d at the end, but the “stadt” is trickier. The beginning “st” is pronounced with a “shh” sound with a t at the end, it’s not a sound english uses. The a is an “ah” sound like the “a” in “awesome.” The dt is another sound that’s not in English, it’s just like a soft d and t sound put together.
I love chinese, it sounds so beautiful but it's SO hard to pronounce. I'm learning japanese as a hobby and I never have trouble there but chinese is really hard for me D: this was so informative!Really happy to know how to pronounce all my fav boys names now!
@@单向度人 楼主说的不是发音难嘛
Came here just to say ... I thought Japanese pronunciation was easy exactly up until I learned about pitch accent. Now I realize: Japanese is tonal, too. 😭 i.e. 父 vs 乳, both pronounced ちち but with ... very different meanings based on pitch accent. anyway RIP to our japanese study efforts (jk, gl to you! がんばれ!)
I'm suddenly grateful my parents made me take Chinese lessons ever since I was born :)
I feel you! I always get kanji reading mixed with pinyin because I learn both chinese and japanese. I got so confused with character names since the va's read the kanji pronunciation, but it's still chinese pinyin. (help me)
@@haluchin8 Also rain and candy, both of them are 'ame', but 飴 is a low-high pitch pattern and 雨 is a high-low pitch pattern. じゃ、がんばつてね~！
oh this was super helpful, thank you so much. the voice in my head kept stumbling over the character's and location's names whenever i read dialogue in the game so i googled the pronunciation and this immediately came up!! thank you, gonna keep saying these out loud till they stick
Everyone's saying people say Zhong li as "John Lee"...?
Did no one else pronunce it as "Zong Lee" like I did?
I always problunced it correctly, idk how ppl mess up these names theyre so east
The sound is kind of like “sh” but you have to have to put on a little of a z in there, like shz and after you perfect that you’ll have to try and connect them, make them into one, or something
I was so confused when my sister pronounces it John Lee, I was like "who???" Until she shows me a pic of him and I was disappointed in her.
I've been doing it as Shong/Shung Lee personally. Keeps the Z in there.
No, I did too
Gonna throw in a bit of German:
Mondstadt -> Mond Stadt -> Moon Town
"MonDStatt"
It's a "long" O and the D isn't that eaten up, lol. Dunno if it makes sense how I've written it out, though.
to add to it: The "S" in Stadt is pronounced as "Sh". So think of it as Mo~ndShtatt
They always only say Mondo anyway - aber egal 🌚
Ooo good idea! It's always funny to hear the English pronunciation cuz it sounds kinda pretty tbh and then there's the proper German pronunciation that sounds like you hit someone with a rock or smth cuz it's so straightforward XDD
I'm german but I keep saying it like in English cuz I'm used to it lol
@@notfounderrornotfound I'm German but I like the English pronounciation more lol
When she looks at the camera like that, it's like she's personally speaking and teaching to me. I think I'm in love with those dimples.
Yeah my heart kinda raced for a sec, ngl
Wow quarantine has me lonely
Really appreciate creators who decide to use names that are from the reference country. Give the game more gimmick and memorable. Also great video! I am from Thailand and I am happy to learn I pronounce most of the names right. In Thailand we have a lot of exposure to vary culture including Chinese. One of the most intriguing I must say.
Okay but like to be fair the English voice actors were told to pronounce things the way mihoyo thought Americans would pronounce them off of first glance, and even then some of them still said them correctly.
Where did you get the info, that English pronounciation is what Mihoyo thought Americans would pronounce? Do you remember? I would like to look into it some more.
YES GRIFFIN BURNS DID A GREAT JOB
Keqing, Xingqiu, and Zhongli's VAs actually did a really good job pronouncing their names
The dislikes are obviously the people who still cany pronounce the names
can't* xD
*cany*
The reason why people thinking its a weird pronunciation is that they forget that its from chinese culture,thus making them assuming that its english pronunciation instead of chinese.
nope, its just that im to lazy to care about pronunciation and just say the word how is written
@@juego_juegosoff5948 Sure thing, if I said your name with my pronunciation, you would be triggered xD
@@iskaly7089 i doubt he would give a fuck but aight go off
its because english is inherently different from chinese
the words in chinese requires the intonation to make sense.
@@owo4470 Oh, no, my Chinese bois whom I played Genshin with just read everything with a flat tone. Just like how she said Xiao's tone. At least I say Pay-dow.
Thanks for the lesson, it's very interesting. Pīnyīn is quite difficult to read for beginners so you're helping me not disrecpect those characters any longer.
I’m fascinated with the inflections and tonal differences! Of course it’s difficult to learn another language, but thank you so so much for helping us learn about their correct pronunciations. Even pronouncing the names several times after the explanation is super difficult, but at least we have a wonderful teacher! Thank you!!
; v; Sweet comments like yours are what keep me going! And thank you so much for putting in the effort to learn the pronunciations
"Ningguang first N may be a little harder..."
Ah, una Ñ, al fin me sirve el español.
😂 concuerdo
Jajajajaja pensé lo mismo
No
@@bovvsette7996 ño
Yo pensando que las ñ no servian en otros idiomas XD
they're names are so satisfying to pronounce, especially ning guang
I know this is totally unrelated but, I just wanted to thank you for making that English cover of Seasonal Feathers with Ham. Still one of my favorite songs of all time, all genres, makes me wanna cry.
For Genshin Impact, thank you! I'm really good with learning phonetics and picking up foreign accents and stuff, but for some reason the name "Xingqiu" makes my brain clog up and I struggle so much with it. Your explanation is great though! Thank you!