Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-29389884-20160815013355/@comment-29389884-20160917232029

CursedMyth wrote: Not sure how you pronounce or distinguish "Mai" and "May" - here's a tip for you though.

Unlike in English, Japanese vowel sounds are always pronounced the same way, unless it's ei (えい) or ou (おう) in the same word, which I'll explain as I go, as well as most consonants ( With the exception of the character は in some cases, and を which is "wo" in romaji, but is pronounced like お ) a(あ) is always pronounced "ah" like in "heart", i(い) is pronounced like "ee" as in "beat", u(う) is pronounced "oo" as in food, e(え) is pronounce "eh" as in bread, and o(お) is pronounced "oh" as in coal ( It's actually different from the English "oh", but "oh" is the closest equivlent in the English language )

In the case of  ei (えい) or ou (おう) in the same word, you usually just say the first vowel sound, except you say it for a slightly longer interval than you would if it were just on character, so  ei (えい) should actually just be a longer e (え) and ou  (おう) is just a longer o (お). Now I believe some dialects might pronounce them like they're written, but generally, this is the more standard way. This isn't really relevant to MEIKO's name however, just a reference if you run into trouble with future Japanese words, as I believe most speakers do pronounce the "i"(い) in MEIKO, but I could be wrong about that.

So with that in mind, you would pronounce MEIKO according to the examples I give above, so it's like meh-ee-koh. This also works for other names for Japanese VOCALOIDs that new fans and users might have a hard time figuring out the pronunciation, like KAITO being pronounced "kah-ee-toh" instead of the English pronunciation, or IA being pronounced "ee-ah".

Hope this helped By "Mai" I mean Mai as in "AI"(love in Japanese)