>>27855090>Cont...This makes a lot of sense for Japanese people. It cuts two whole syllables off the words to bring it down to 3 from 5. It's also just a cute nickname for something they use every day that's easy to say. But this where things get lost in translation:
It basically makes no sense to English speakers whatsoever. "Sumafo" translates to "Smar Pho", which not only sounds nothing like the two original words, it doesn't even shave off any syllables. It's still two syllables, and it just sounds ugly with proper English pronunciation.
This same problem lies at the heart of the word "Pokémon". It's a portmanteau of "Po-Ke-To Mo-no-su-ta" (Pocket Monster). It cuts off an impressive 3 syllables, technically 4 when you consider that modern Japanese has evolved similar to English and other languages, in that pronunciation has become much more casual. Usually word-final vowels are silent in everyday Japanese now. "De-Su" is pronounced "Des-" etc.
Now in English, "Pocket Monster" is 4 syllables, and "Pokémon" is 3 syllables, so the portmanteau makes sense in terms of shortening. The problem with pronunciation though, is the same as the "Smar Pho". Eliminating a word-final consonant isn't something we do in English, because we have no problem pronouncing consonants on their own. Hell, we even mash up to three consonants together and have no problem with that. "Strength" not only has three consonants at the beginning, but it ends with two other strange consonant phonemes mashed together as well ("th" and "ng" are also sounds that many non-English speakers aren't familiar with. "Strength" is a very tricky for non-Anglos).
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