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The Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pronunciation debate is over

While Reddit abounded with discussion of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s pronunciation, official word from Nintendo confirms the right way to do it 

A screenshot from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom shows Link riding on the back of a large mechanical bird over the land of Hyrule

Turns out you can pronounce the word ‘tears’ in two different ways – either as a synonym for rip or the word for the stuff that comes out of my eyes whenever I watch Wall-E – and the internet couldn’t decide how to do it for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But there’s a definitive answer on how to pronounce Breath of the Wild’s sequel, thanks to Nintendo chiming in.

As confirmed by Eurogamer, it’s ‘tears’ as in water from your eyes, not something that’s been torn. I mean, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s pronunciation wouldn’t have been such a mystery in the first place if we just looked over to its developer’s home for its native name, where the word ‘tiāzu’ is the first of its subtitle. And that’s all about crying, so…

Still, I guess it’s nice to have it confirmed. Either way, there are still definitely rips made in the platforms in the sky, where Link slithers through a strange magical puddle, so who knows whether there are more secrets to uncover. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I probably sound a bit wacky, so check out the trailer below to see what I mean. You can also check out our Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom review to get the full deep dive.

How do you pronounce The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is pronounced ‘tear’ as in ‘fear’, not ‘tear’ as in ‘pair’. For any of you who know your phonetic alphabet, it’s something like this: tɪəz. If you don’t know it, go learn it! It’s kinda useless, but still pretty cool.

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Uhh, anyway. What this means for the game is pretty unobvious. I have no idea why this kingdom is crying – but at least we know it’s not so likely that we’ll be dealing with portals and other worlds when The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom release date rolls around.

Anyway, now that we’ve confirmed The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s pronunciation, why not grab a little The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom pre-order? That sure isn’t a pain to write out in full twice in one sentence, that’s for sure.