Wow, Selenityshiroi, I'm going to give you a cookie for that little lesson. I've been wondering about "Aniki" and stuff for a while. To your knowledge, is "Aniue" a word? Or someone messing up the translation?
Yeay, cookies! *munch*
I haven't ever seen aniue used, only aniki, but a quick look at Jim Breen's online dictionary has aniue listed as an honourable version of older brother so it isn't an error.
thanks selenityshiroi for that littel japan lesson!! wouldn't onee-chan and onii-chan (since the -ii sound is the same as the -ee sound) sound the same >.< or is there some kind of special pronounication?
As Ando has already answered, the vowels are pronounced differently.
Japanese uses pure vowel sounds, very similar to the ones used in Latin. A is pronounced ah (like in Apple), i is pronounced ee (like the i in him), u is pronounced oo (like the u in tune), e is pronounced ehh (like the e in hemp) and o is pronounced oh (like the o in bottle). All of the sounds are short and crisp. When you have two vowels placed together in Japanese the sound is longer but not really different.
(Of course, I'm English, so I might pronounce these words slightly differently than any other English dialects!)
Onii-chan is pronounced oh-nee-cha-n and onee-chan is pronounced oh-nehh-cha-n.