Japanese are often dissed about the way that they butcher foreign words. “Garaigo” is a term for foreign words “re-written” in the japanese phonetic system (which is simple, with 5 vowels and few consonantal sounds).

However, people from other places are often guilty of the very same crime – using foreign words without regards for their actual reading.

Case in point, I’m playing D&D with my thurdays role-playing group. I was first playing with a dwarvish berserker who charged his way to his own death. Then I started a young, brash fighter type. The name of the dwarf was “Banta” – which is pronounced more or less as バンタ, but none of the other players (most of them native english speakers), could get the name right. I heard bunta, bento, beitar, lots of variations – and things just got worse after I wrote the name down.

I named my next character “Chatorix” (from Chatotorix, the Brazilian translation name of Assurancetourix, the bard from Asterix comics). And he’s already been called “Chatrix” and “Chatris”

I certainly won’t let english speakers bash japanese’s accent unpunished next time ;-)