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Old May 7, 2013, 11:30 PM
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CHz CHz is offline
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Depending on the word, ou (おう) can be the long vowel ō, which is one long sound and can be also be written oh/oo/o/etc., or the two vowels o - u, which are pronounced separately and normally only written ou.

Both ou's in souzou are long (sōzō), and so it's pronounced as you said.

The ou in Takenouchi is not a long vowel, but rather two separate sounds, and so it should properly be pronounced separately as o - u. However, some speakers may blend the sounds together so it sounds more like ō, depending on how fast they're talking and so on. I wasn't trying to suggest you can pick whichever one you want, so sorry if that part of my post confused you.
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