> Back to tsunami. Whenever I hear the word mispronounced by those who ought to know better it just grates badly, the mangled mispronunciation distracts my attention from what's actually being said. So often one hears TV newsreaders including those on the BBC slur the word as 'sooonami' when clearly its English spelling indicates the correct pronunciation. Tsu, つ, sounds like a hissing snake—say it to yourself. Is that not obvious?

It's because English has no (or very few - I can't think of any) words that begin with the same phoneme.

That's just what happens with loan words. Japanese loaned "Arbeit" (アルバイト) from German and they also pronounce it "wrong".