Prince Raoden?

[Nathan R]

So I picked up Elantris last week and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. My question is, how do you pronounce "Raoden?" I've said it with a silent O and a silent A and was just wondering what the proper enunciation was.

Thanks!

[Peter Ahlstrom]

The first two vowels are pronounced like the names of the letters.

r-A-O-den

Brandon has a (spoiler-free) pronunciation guide up on his website. Stay away from most of the other sections of the website until you finish the book, though.

[EUOL]

I've always kind of believed that readers should be encouraged to pronounce names however they feel like doing it.  The truth is, none of us are from Arelon, and so we likely can't pronounce the names right anyway.  (Just like it's hard for me to get a Korean person's name just right, even though I've studied the language for years.) 

However, Elantris has some pretty funky names, so I decided to go ahead with the pronunciation guide anyway.  Also, check out the annotations.  They're nifty. 

[candylion]

Yay for Korean Pronunciation!!

-grins stupid-like-

[Nathan R]

Thanks for the responses. Wow, especially hearing from the author himself. I usually catch on to new writers when they're books are well established and they're too busy being famous or working on the next book to interact with fans on this level. Thanks a lot, Mr. Sanderson.

I apologize for the lateness but over the last week I was getting rid my old hand-me-down laptop from my older brother and getting my new one.