> > I have been hearing Japanese and Japanese-sounding names mispronounced on TV a lot recently. I've heard "Naruto" pronounced "Nuh-ROO-to", "Hanako" pronounced "Hanna-ko" and "Garu" pronounced "Gare-u". Sometimes it bothers me that they do that.
>
> What's interesting to me is that once you know the basics (each consonant/vowel combo is one syllable) you can really avoid a lot of the blatant mispronounciations like that. Not like English where there are approximately twelfty billion different rules, and an exception to sixfty million of them.

There are many rules in English which is why something like the Dialectizer could not have been that easy to write (then again it is based mostly on words and word fragments rather than letters which trigger sounds)

As for the Japanese words above, not being familiar with Japanese in any way, I guess I'd mispronounce them too - here's how I'd do it:

"Naruto": Nah-roo-to
"Hanako": Hah-nah-ko
"Garu": Gah-ru

Am I incorrect?