After training for some time, you may feel more confident in speaking the commands of whatever style you train. However, as someone who is fluent in Japanese, reciting commands does not necessarily mean being coherent in everyday speech. I have heard and been to dojos where, while the commands were technically correct, the pronunciation was way off. And for many students and instructors, this may be just fine. It would be unreasonable for me to expect Americans to suddenly speak Japanese (or any other Asian language) with perfect intonation and inflection, even for black belts. But there is a line when the pronunciation is “close” vs. when the pronunciation is so off base that the very meaning is changed.
As an example: the term “uke” is used broadly in martial arts as someone who stands in to be used as an example to explain a technique or set of moves. Many Americans tend to pronounce this as “oo-Kee”, and most martial artists would generally understand what that means. For someone who speaks Japanese (and uke being a Japanese term), it took me a bit to understand what others meant when they said “oo-Kee”. Once I understood what they were saying, occasionally I would correct others to say “U-ke̞” instead. Was this always successful? Not all the time, but I hope I was able to raise a bit more awareness.
Another example: in Korean, the words for the numbers three and four are “Sam” and “Sah” (no, we’re not talking about “set” or “net” today, sorry). More often than not, I’ve had students and even black belts ask me to repeat when I ask for Pyung Ahn Sah Dan to make sure I didn’t say “Sam” vs, “Sah’. Pyung Ahn Sam Dan is very different from Sah Dan! Part of this is that our ears are not trained to distinguish between the two unless it’s very explicit, and the other part is that we tend to pronounce them similarly. We need to be more cognizant when we encounter this and similar situations so there is no mistaking our intentions.
Does correcting the pronunciation effectively change the meaning? Not necessarily, at least on this side of the Pacific. But I believe that if we are to pay homage to our lineage and our traditions, then we should also honor the language that we appropriate from another country. Having a healthy respect for the Asian languages and putting some effort into saying them properly and correctly will also give us a better appreciation for those who left their home to spread their art to the wider world.
