Tomagado wrote:
Bow-kay for me :/
I believe this is correct. I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I don't think the second syllable would be pronounced short like eh, but rather long like ay.
Also, a rather subtle point but the accent would sound more like boke-ay.
Wikipedia has all the answers:
"Mike Johnston, former editor of Photo Techniques magazine, claims to have coined the bokeh spelling to suggest the correct pronunciation to English speakers,[2] replacing the previous spelling boke that derived directly from the Japanese word for "fuzzy" and had been in use at least since 1996. Pronounced (Boke-aay)
The term bokeh has appeared in photography books at least since 2000"
One summer I was in Missisagua Ontario, and the advertising banner on the restaurant was advertising "Sunday Buff-eh?" (pretty funny, eh?)
So with apologies to our Canadian friends, (and to some extent, our friends in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota) wouldn't the northern pronunciation be "Bok-eh?"
Well, "buffet" is a word (in that context) with what looks like French origin, hence the prounciation of it as "buff-eh", though it's pretty funny that a restaurant advertised it like that.
Bokeh is probably a transliterated Japanese word... So different rules apply
Comes from Japanese, boke. H was added because alot of people don't know the Japanese syllabary and how to pronounce it so they added the h to give it the kay sound. Otherwise, would be pronounce somthing like toke with a b most likely lol. Bo ke is how it would break down, Japanese is huct on foniks for the most part...
So ways wiki as mentioned above and the semi-educated opinion of an American living abroad in Japan for 10 years anyway.
Boh-keh ("eh" as in cafe'), as it's pronounced in Japanese of course. "Bow-kay" doesn't do it for me.
"Bow" sounds so English, not the same as "boh". In Japanese an "o" is an "o" (pronouced more like "or"), not meant to be "ow" (as in boat, row, coat, slow etc.).
that's how i solve it. otherwise, if pressed, i will pronounce it boké (bok-eh).