Rol Virata wrote:

On Sun, 28 Jul 1996, Harold C.Hayes wrote:

The Tyrant Pax wrote:

At 21:04 27/07/96 -0700, you wrote:

Alone the kanji is pronounced "BA" (kanji often vary in pronunciations
when combined).  It means horse.  Ranma's name in Kanji, altogether,
means "wild horse".

Don't forget it's pronouced Lanma...

But it's the ma that means horse, becasue Genma means Dark horse....
I'm not sure this is correct.  In fact, I think its wrong.

You are right about the "ma" part.  I accidently read the name backwords
while playing the RPG on import.  I forgot that an alternate
pronunciation of that kanji is "UMA".  The "U" must have been dropped for
euphony.

However, I do know that it is NOT pronounced "Lanma".  There are NO L's
in Japanese!  When Japanese folk try to pronounce foriegn word with Ls in
them, they replace the L's with R's.  This includes English, Chinese and
other languages ( in contrast, there are a lot of L's in Chinese).  The
singer of the theme song were trying to sound Chinese for some reason, so
they pronounced the R's like L's.

Actually according to my sensei(teacher)  the r and the L are
interchangeable and both sound the about the same.  Anyone who takes
Japanese classes for the first time has a real headache when this comes
up.  The R and L are kinda combined.  Think of it this way.  Pronounce
Ruu. Now take out the two uu's.  Trust me, you have to hear it to learn
it.  Oh by the way, I know alost of people say you do pronounce the "r"
when it comes before "y", and while that may be true, it is lowered so
much that just leaving it out is easier.  Listen to the the way the
JAPANESE actors prononce Ryoga.  It is not Ree-yo-ga. It sound more like
yoga with a miniscule r before it that is so soft, not pronoucing it will
work.

                                        RolAha! This proves my theory!  Thanks man! Domo arigato!