Romanization of Japanese

[ViciousKatanaGuy]

What romanization style of Japanese do you like to "use"?

With character names, I use what is used in the English-language adaptations (E.G. Katsuya Jonouchi, Shin'ichi Kudo - which is the name Viz wanted to use in Case Closed: Detective Conan)

But with other things, when I can, I use modified Hepburn. (With the macrons and all)

If macrons cannot be displayed in a chat medium, like UTF-8, I go for circumflexes.

And if circumflexes don't work, like on this board, I either ignore the long vowel (Shonen) or I use passport Hepburn (Shohnen). ("Passport Hepburn" is named such as the Japanese government allows its usage in passports, while it is not required: www.seikatubunka.metro.tokyo.jp/hebon/ )

[Oversoul]

Well...I'm not quite sur what you're talknig about, but:

"ou"s stay as "ou"s (I loathe it when people make them "oh"s since the ONLY consenent that can be immediately followed with another consenent in Japanese is "n", various "consenent+y"-s, double conesenents caused by the "tsu" character, and "ts"-s)

No apostrophies used(ex. I type Junichi, not Jun'ichi; Shinchi, not Shin'chi, etc.)

If romanizing spoken words, "r"s pronouced more like "r"s become "r"s, and "r"s pronouced more like "l"s become "l"s. Written words always have "r"s become "r"s.

I do NOT put "y"s in front of standalone "e"s(ex. "Edo" stays that way, and doesn't become "Yedo") - "ye"s ARE pronouced differently from "e"s, after all



Blargh, since I haven't the faintest CLUE what the names for romanization systems are, and since I probably mix more than one, it's hard to explain everything :/ I just listed the ones I see differing most often.

[Matamune]

Urm, I'm not really into the art of romanizing Japanese words (I'm better at it in Korean) but I write them as how they sound. I really do abhor it when people pronounce things wrong.

Such as is 'e'.

In Asia, (at least in the language I know from friends,) 'e' is always pronounced like the 'e' in 'e'cho, not like the 'e' in 'e'ar. I just write them as how I hear them. xD I'm so simple minded...

[ViciousKatanaGuy]

The one most commonly used in English is Hepburn

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn

Anime fans also like using a nonstandard method called "Wapuro"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapuro

Oversoul said:

Well...I'm not quite sur what you're talknig about, but:

"ou"s stay as "ou"s (I loathe it when people make them "oh"s since the ONLY consenent that can be immediately followed with another consenent in Japanese is "n", various "consenent+y"-s, double conesenents caused by the "tsu" character, and "ts"-s)

No apostrophies used(ex. I type Junichi, not Jun'ichi; Shinchi, not Shin'chi, etc.)

If romanizing spoken words, "r"s pronouced more like "r"s become "r"s, and "r"s pronouced more like "l"s become "l"s. Written words always have "r"s become "r"s.

I do NOT put "y"s in front of standalone "e"s(ex. "Edo" stays that way, and doesn't become "Yedo") - "ye"s ARE pronouced differently from "e"s, after all



Blargh, since I haven't the faintest CLUE what the names for romanization systems are, and since I probably mix more than one, it's hard to explain everything :/ I just listed the ones I see differing most often.

[Lord Cyber]

Hmm...interesting...I knew there were different versions out there but I didn't know what they were called.

I use JSL (based off of the Shin kunrei shiki system) because that's what they taught at SUNY Oswego. I understand it's more common with Japanese speakers learning English than with English speakers learning Japanese...it's a more, erm, grammatical correct system then a "sounds like" system.

I dug this up while searching just now
The Hepburn system would probably be the closest thing to English syllables, while the other systems, including the JSL system and Standard system, are based more on the structure of the Japanese alphabet. An oft-cited example is the "ta chi tsu te to / ta ti tu te to" set. With Hepburn it is spelt the first way, "ta chi tsu te to," because the spelling helps the English reader to pronounce it more like the original sound. However, with the JSL system it is spelt "ta ti tu te to" because they are a set of "t" consonants. The reason why they do this is because of Japanese grammar; conjugations and such cause syllables to change their associated vowel but not the consonant, and changing the consonants to fit pronunciation causes the grammatical structure to be less obvious. For example, one form of "to wait" is "matsu" (Hepburn) or "matu" (JSL) and another form is "machimasu" (Hepburn) or "matimasu" (JSL); the relationship between these two forms are more apparent with the JSL method.

For example I'd use konitiwa instead of konichiwa, but I'll slip in 'S's like tsugi instead of tugi if I don't think my reader will understand me...

On a side note, this board does pick up and display IME Japanese if you have the fonts and your browser setup for it...
LC

[ViciousKatanaGuy]

JSL is based off of Nippon-shiki, which follows Japanese syllabary.

Kunrei-shiki is also based off of Nippon-shiki.

With Anglophones, the romanization system that is most easily understood is Hepburn, which is why that system is used so much.

As for JSL itself, very few people today use it. It is only seen in academic settings.

Lord said:

Hmm...interesting...I knew there were different versions out there but I didn't know what they were called.

I use JSL (based off of the Shin kunrei shiki system) because that's what they taught at SUNY Oswego. I understand it's more common with Japanese speakers learning English than with English speakers learning Japanese...it's a more, erm, grammatical correct system then a "sounds like" system.

I dug this up while searching just now
The Hepburn system would probably be the closest thing to English syllables, while the other systems, including the JSL system and Standard system, are based more on the structure of the Japanese alphabet. An oft-cited example is the "ta chi tsu te to / ta ti tu te to" set. With Hepburn it is spelt the first way, "ta chi tsu te to," because the spelling helps the English reader to pronounce it more like the original sound. However, with the JSL system it is spelt "ta ti tu te to" because they are a set of "t" consonants. The reason why they do this is because of Japanese grammar; conjugations and such cause syllables to change their associated vowel but not the consonant, and changing the consonants to fit pronunciation causes the grammatical structure to be less obvious. For example, one form of "to wait" is "matsu" (Hepburn) or "matu" (JSL) and another form is "machimasu" (Hepburn) or "matimasu" (JSL); the relationship between these two forms are more apparent with the JSL method.

For example I'd use konitiwa instead of konichiwa, but I'll slip in 'S's like tsugi instead of tugi if I don't think my reader will understand me...

On a side note, this board does pick up and display IME Japanese if you have the fonts and your browser setup for it...
LC

[Lord Cyber]

ViciousKatanaGuy said:

JSL is based off of Nippon-shiki, which follows Japanese syllabary.

Kunrei-shiki is also based off of Nippon-shiki.

Erm, think about what you just said and the answer should really go: JSL is based off of Shin Kunrei Shiki which itself is based off of Nippon Shiki...

ViciousKatanaGuy said:

With Anglophones, the romanization system that is most easily understood is Hepburn, which is why that system is used so much.

As for JSL itself, very few people today use it. It is only seen in academic settings.

Yup, agreed. Like I said, the only reason I use JSL is because that's what I was taught with. SUNY Oswego has a really good 2 year program that leads into a third year taken at Tsukuba University or a JET program.

www.oswego.edu

[Lovely]

Well, this thread made me curious, so I dragged out my old Japanese textbook to see what style I was taught in.
Apparently, it was a combination of the Hepburn system and the Government Oridinance system.


Now, I think I use sort of modified Hepburn system. Seeing as how I like to write "ou" instead of "oo" as I was taught (which could be a bit misleading anyway, IMO.)

I prefer the "as it sounds" system personally. It's just easier and makes more sense in my mind. Of course to be fair, back in my learning days my grammar DID suck *laughs*. Of course, that could aply to my English too ^_~ .

(For those wondering... I've forgotten pretty much everything I learned in Japanese class ^^;;;;....)

[Saturn]

What is the Government Ordinance System??

[Lovely]

Heh, I'm not sure exactly, I'm just quoting my textbook ^^; *laughs* .

[ViciousKatanaGuy]

Lovely said:

Well, this thread made me curious, so I dragged out my old Japanese textbook to see what style I was taught in.
Apparently, it was a combination of the Hepburn system and the Government Oridinance system.


Now, I think I use sort of modified Hepburn system. Seeing as how I like to write "ou" instead of "oo" as I was taught (which could be a bit misleading anyway, IMO.)

I prefer the "as it sounds" system personally. It's just easier and makes more sense in my mind. Of course to be fair, back in my learning days my grammar DID suck *laughs*. Of course, that could aply to my English too ^_~ .

(For those wondering... I've forgotten pretty much everything I learned in Japanese class ^^;;;;....)

The government ordinance I think is Kunrei-shiki.

But Lovely, you and a lot of other anime fans use wapuro romaji (e.g. kana spelling) - In my opinion, wapuro is irrelevant in an English context.

[Lovely]

I'm... not sure what you mean.

However, I've never done these two things...

# Small kana can be entered by prefacing them with an x, e.g. xa for ぁ or xtu for っ. This is commonly employed for modern katakana combinations like ティ, which would be entered texi.
# Syllabic n, ん, is often entered as nn, although the standard n' is usually also accepted.

...hence the reason I didn't think I use wapuro.

[ViciousKatanaGuy]

Lovely said:

I'm... not sure what you mean.

However, I've never done these two things...


...hence the reason I didn't think I use wapuro.

The first thing refers to how the text is ENTERED into the computer to show a small a or whatever. But yes, the 2nd is seen in romanizations simply using wapuro.

As for wapuro being irrelevant in an English context, wapuro shows how it is spelled in kana, but it isn't really representative of how it is pronounced.