Things noticed while listening to the books.

[thom_merrilin]

I have read the series three times through, but often forget stuff, or miss it. I am currently listening to them and find the readers extremly good. it also allows me to pick up on stuff easier. In doing so. through the first six books.

I have noticed just how arrogant Nynaeve is.

She believes herself so superior to anyone, she believes only her view is right, and that any man is inferior to her, bar Lan.

Elayne is just as superior and condesending. Not listening to anyone, wanting things her way.

The worst though has to be Aes Sedai, and I mean any. They think all should deffer to them. they should only be spoken to with the honourific Aes Sedai, or Sedai. The AS treatment of Mat while going to Ebou Dar because they don't get to see the Foxhead medalion and study it. Are they really that arrogant and pompous?

The stubbornous of any of the Two Rivers men, in not wanting to kill women. If they want to fight they should be allowed. But, they feel it is a terrible thing for a woman to die.

[RandA lThor]

yeah, the readers (I'm assuming because I have not listened to the book), should do a good job in conveying the tone that the people speak in and that gives you a way better feel of the book. I personally like reading though because I can go faster and at my own pace and I can imagine things for myself. If I have an opportunity though, I'll try the listening ones.

[Conan]

I also listen tio the books. i really think it helps to understand whats going on. i have listined to all 14 avable three times and each "read through" i pick up on more and more. the readers are awsome and i think it helps that RJ wrights so well. i often hear ore read that some people think somewere around book six or so the whole story slows down and thats true however there is so much going on i dont find that it drags on like others. the auido really helps with this because i dont get boged down with looking at the pages. i agree that nynaeve and elayne are really self centered in the middle and they dont get better in my opinion and iu cant stand perrins wife i hate her. but back on topic i love the auido. i got new spring through ToM from auidable.com totle cost for all the stories was $196. i just waited till my credit came at the first of the month which is okay because they are long books so it was almost like when i finished on i got a credit for the next one. just in case anyone wanted to know.

[SharpDressedAsha'Man]

Quite fond of the audiobooks. They are very well produced and the narrators are fantastically articulate.

I just can't get over some of the proper pronounciations. It's Mazrim bloody Tame and Fail, dammit. What's with all the rampant 'e's?

[TristanWebb]

Ooo, RJ would of yelled at you if you called him Tame. He got irritated about it quite a few times.

[mj1475]

i have read the books maybe 6 or 7 times, listened to the audiobooks the first 6 maybe 5 times the last 7 most likely 3 times. I've pcked up tibits every time i do more with the audiobooks. the names kill me everytime i hear them, i would be awful as a narrator.

[fikkie77]

Ooo, RJ would of yelled at you if you called him Tame. He got irritated about it quite a few times.

Still, when I read WoT; the name sounds as Tame in my head. I know that's wrong, but somehow it seems more logical.

[Thrasymachus]

That's one thing about Jordan's writing that just annoys the hell out of me sometimes, as much as I love the work overall. The names or too often such that it's either not intuitively obvious how to pronounce them, or that the intuitive pronunciation one strikes upon is wrong. Tear is a perfect example in my mind. Now, there are two normal pronunciations for a word spelled "t e a r." Tare, which is how you pronounce "tear" when you tear a piece of paper, or teer, which is how you pronounce tear when you cry a river of them. When the books first mentioned the city of Tear, I pronounced it (in my head), as Tare, purely arbitrarily, but that was reinforced when I saw that the people of Tear were Tairens, and not Tearans. There's only one way I know of to pronounce "air," and it would be weird to have a city named "teer" and a people named "taren." But no, I was wrong, it's pronounced "Teer" and "Teeran." Weird.

 

Aes Sedai, when I first saw it, I said "Ace Sedai," nope, it's "Eyes Sedai." I never could settle on a pronunciation of nynaeve, and it took me a long time to decide whether to call Gawyn gay-win or ga-wain. I'm just waiting to find out that Mah'alleinir is really pronounced "mowling-wier" or something else crazy.

[TLHansum]

Been reading for years, still dont know how Nynaeve is supposed to be pronounced.

[Ala Rubra]

Been reading for years, still dont know how Nynaeve is supposed to be pronounced.

 

You do know that there are pronunciation guides in the Glossary of each book, right?

[fikkie77]

Been reading for years, still dont know how Nynaeve is supposed to be pronounced.

http://encyclopaedia-wot.org/sounds/nynaeve.wav

[Thrasymachus]

Does anybody really pause when they're reading and come across a difficult name to flip to the glossary and see how it's pronounced? That's why it's annoying when you have a whole bunch of names and words that are non-intuitive in their pronunciations. It breaks the flow of reading. You either have to flip to the glossary to see how to say the word in your head, or you just skip over trying to pronounce the name in your head, saying something like "N-name girl" is romping about in "T-name" realm, or something like that.

[jtower82]

I love the audiobooks, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading do an excellent job in portraying all of the characters in the series. And I noticed a lot of the things you mentioned. Funny thing for me was that I knew Verin was a dark friend ever since I listened to the 2nd book. She caught up with Mat and Perrin while they were on the hunt for the horn and the dagger, one of them asked her what she was doing there and she stated Moraine sent me. I asked about this and people told me I was looking too much into it, but I knew deep down that she was black, although I had no idea that she was really just a double agent, so to speak. Nyneave is one of my least favorite characters through most of the books, at least until she breaks her block. I have to say though, the white cloaks frustrated me more than any other group of people, even the Aes Sedai. Their ignorance knew no bounds and it was that ignorance that had nearly broken them. I am glad to see Galad leading them because he is a little less ignorant and he knows that on a whole people aren't really dark friends just because they don't agree with the white cloaks.

[Naresh]

Of the three times I read books 1-11, I never once bothered with the pronunciation guides. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to think in RJ's weird sense. Saidin and Saidar just made sense to read as Sye-din and Sye-dar... not Sa-ee-deen and Sa-ee-dar... Never had a problem with Nynaeve or Tear as Teer, though I always read Tairen as Tare-en. Taim will always be Tame to me. Suane, however, I never read as Swan but rather Sue-anne.

 

When it came down to hitting Sanderson's material, I made the switch to audiobook just because my physical backlog of books was already dominated by a few massive Stephen King novels and twenty-some-odd crime novels. It took probably the first half of Gathering Storm to get used to the RJ-approved pronunciation, and even then I still cringe when I hear certain terms. I get the feeling RJ decided on the ee pronunciation of i just to play a joke on the readers.

[TootThatHorn]

Of the three times I read books 1-11, I never once bothered with the pronunciation guides. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to think in RJ's weird sense. Saidin and Saidar just made sense to read as Sye-din and Sye-dar... not Sa-ee-deen and Sa-ee-dar... Never had a problem with Nynaeve or Tear as Teer, though I always read Tairen as Tare-en. Taim will always be Tame to me. Suane, however, I never read as Swan but rather Sue-anne.

 

When it came down to hitting Sanderson's material, I made the switch to audiobook just because my physical backlog of books was already dominated by a few massive Stephen King novels and twenty-some-odd crime novels. It took probably the first half of Gathering Storm to get used to the RJ-approved pronunciation, and even then I still cringe when I hear certain terms. I get the feeling RJ decided on the ee pronunciation of i just to play a joke on the readers.

ive always been say-darr, say-din...Siuan=Swan...me and my buddy dispute Aiel, i say Eye-eel, he says Ale, then i get thirsty...

 

Its kinda how i always thought of naming a kid Steven but pronouncing it Jason just cause you can lol

[LeeM.Erickson]

The audio books aren't without errors in pronounciation. The one that comes to mind immediately is Tar Vuh-lon vs Tar Vallin. I, too, wish there was some sort of standard besides the glossaries, which also contradict each other sometimes (I believe, could be wrong on that?).

 

What's funny, for the person who mentioned Tear/Tairen, I always said Tear as Teer, and Tairen as Ty-ren. Another one I'm not sure about is Cairhienin. I know Cairhien is Ky-ree-en, but I always pronounce Cairhienin as ky-REE-ennin, because that's how the accent seems most natural to me when I read it. But it's probably ky-ree-EN-nin. It took me a while to adjust to Fa-eel and Ty-eem as well. One year I made it my New Year's resolution to pronounce everything in WoT as accurately as possible. Bir-geet-eh still gets me, though, I often pronounced it Bir-jeet. Nynaeve is Ny-neev, just like the wav file said it. That one never gave me trouble.

 

I've heard some really...creative versions of pronounciation though. I know one guy who butchered some of the names hardcore. He called Aviendha "Uh-vind-deh-huh" and Egwene "Edge-win" and once I mentioned Mat's full name and he said "What? Oh, you mean Mat Coo-thon" I've also heard a few people call Cairhien "Care-hine"

 

The people on the Fourth Age podcast say Lan as "Lon", even though I'm pretty sure it's Lan like pan (that's how Sanderson read it, anyway).

[xandervanhousen]

This thread is hurting my brain. It's causing me to reexamine how I subconsciously skipped over every name I couldn't immediately pronounce. Which is quite a few. I talked to someone very closely related to WOT on the phone once and when asked what my favorite character was (it being thanksgiving aka drunk) I realized I wasn't really sure how to pronounce any of them.

 

I just mumbled Mat and quickly changed the subject. Very embarrassing.

[thom_merrilin]

one thing that really bugs me are some of the normal every day pronuncations (I'm from England, so Americans may say them differently to me) - like Herbs, the readers say it Erbs with no H. I say Herbs with the H sounded. or Shone as the the light shone, I say Shon with a silent e. They say shown. There are a few others I can't rember but those two irriate me, especially the Herbs one.

[kght22]

one thing that really bugs me are some of the normal every day pronuncations (I'm from England, so Americans may say them differently to me) - like Herbs, the readers say it Erbs with no H. I say Herbs with the H sounded. or Shone as the the light shone, I say Shon with a silent e. They say shown. There are a few others I can't rember but those two irriate me, especially the Herbs one.

please watch this:

[media=]

[/media]

and they are brits, so maybe you will listen.

[kght22]

one thing that really bugs me are some of the normal every day pronuncations (I'm from England, so Americans may say them differently to me) - like Herbs, the readers say it Erbs with no H. I say Herbs with the H sounded. or Shone as the the light shone, I say Shon with a silent e. They say shown. There are a few others I can't rember but those two irriate me, especially the Herbs one.

oh, and also, it is different FROM you. aka different from me. it could be said any number of ways, but differently to me is NEVER correct. even differently from me is a mess, but it makes a hell of allot more sense than differently to me. (oh and if the h was actually silent i would have use "an hell of" i didn't so obviously it isn't. the h does have it's place, as does the huff sound that it CAN produce, but in most cases it does not produce that huff sound, although it would be nice if you brits used that huff sound when you said hello, but that is a purely american argument, even though i would like to smack the next britt i meet face to face who says "ello")

[kght22]

[Removed]

[UncleButcher1980]

oh, and also, it is different FROM you. aka different from me. it could be said any number of ways, but differently to me is NEVER correct. even differently from me is a mess, but it makes a hell of allot more sense than differently to me. (oh and if the h was actually silent i would have use "an hell of" i didn't so obviously it isn't. the h does have it's place, as does the huff sound that it CAN produce, but in most cases it does not produce that huff sound, although it would be nice if you brits used that huff sound when you said hello, but that is a purely american argument, even though i would like to smack the next britt i meet face to face who says "ello")

 

I know most Americans think all British people walk around with bowler hats, drinking tea and saying 'ello guv'nor', but it's not true I'm afraid. And 'different to' is just as correct as 'different from'.

[kght22]

oh, and also, it is different FROM you. aka different from me. it could be said any number of ways, but differently to me is NEVER correct. even differently from me is a mess, but it makes a hell of allot more sense than differently to me. (oh and if the h was actually silent i would have use "an hell of" i didn't so obviously it isn't. the h does have it's place, as does the huff sound that it CAN produce, but in most cases it does not produce that huff sound, although it would be nice if you brits used that huff sound when you said hello, but that is a purely american argument, even though i would like to smack the next britt i meet face to face who says "ello")

 

I know most Americans think all British people walk around with bowler hats, drinking tea and saying 'ello guv'nor', but it's not true I'm afraid. And 'different to' is just as correct as 'different from'.

it is not. different to is meaningless, different from has clear meaning, both stated by themselves with no further context. [Removed]

[UncleButcher1980]

oh, and also, it is different FROM you. aka different from me. it could be said any number of ways, but differently to me is NEVER correct. even differently from me is a mess, but it makes a hell of allot more sense than differently to me. (oh and if the h was actually silent i would have use "an hell of" i didn't so obviously it isn't. the h does have it's place, as does the huff sound that it CAN produce, but in most cases it does not produce that huff sound, although it would be nice if you brits used that huff sound when you said hello, but that is a purely american argument, even though i would like to smack the next britt i meet face to face who says "ello")

 

I know most Americans think all British people walk around with bowler hats, drinking tea and saying 'ello guv'nor', but it's not true I'm afraid. And 'different to' is just as correct as 'different from'.

it is not. different to is meaningless, different from has clear meaning, both stated by themselves with no further context. [Removed]

 

It is. Both are equally grammatically correct, with clear meaning. And he is entitled to state his opinion without any unwarranted puerile abuse from you.

[kght22]

oh, and also, it is different FROM you. aka different from me. it could be said any number of ways, but differently to me is NEVER correct. even differently from me is a mess, but it makes a hell of allot more sense than differently to me. (oh and if the h was actually silent i would have use "an hell of" i didn't so obviously it isn't. the h does have it's place, as does the huff sound that it CAN produce, but in most cases it does not produce that huff sound, although it would be nice if you brits used that huff sound when you said hello, but that is a purely american argument, even though i would like to smack the next britt i meet face to face who says "ello")

 

I know most Americans think all British people walk around with bowler hats, drinking tea and saying 'ello guv'nor', but it's not true I'm afraid. And 'different to' is just as correct as 'different from'.

you [Removed] brits should keep in mind that in less than 300 square miles you have more than 30 distinct english dialects, the continental united states, an area of land more than 100 times the size of england, and with an english speaking population larger than 100 times the number of people who live in england, only has about the same number of distinct dialects. only one person on earth speaks perfect english, and ever her nation fails, and badly. the royal family is easy for an american to understand, a guy from downtown london takes some concentration.

 

(EDIT: when i say 300 square miles i am talking about from the southern tip at the english channel up to hadrian's wall, england itself including wales, but not scottland, and don't get my face wrong, i am descended from brits my self, and scotts and irish, my other half is from the slave coast in africa, but i am just as proud of being from the british isles as i am to be from slave stock, it just means to me that i look and try to understand)