Questions tagged [rōmaji]

ローマ字. The various ways in which Japanese can be transliterated into the Latin script.

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When is ō romanised ou Vs oh?

Top of my head, I think of these 6 anime/manga: ō's that are 'oh' Tamaki Suoh (須王 環 Suō Tamaki) from OHSHC Ōtsuki (大槻) from Kaiji - ok I can't find on the fandom page, but I swear the subs say ...
BCLC's user avatar
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How to add spaces in Japanese transcriptions in romaji?

Is there any rules to add spaces when transcripting Japanese using the Latin alphabet? Per instance, Google Translate transcripts a sentence such as "空は青いと思います" into "Sorahaaoi to ...
Chatanga's user avatar
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What is the Japanese name for the genus of plants "Saxifraga"?

What is the Japanese name for Saxifraga (rockfoil) genus of plants (or any more well-known species within this genus) and how is it written in rōmaji?
Valdimar Helgeson's user avatar
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1 answer
859 views

Understanding how macrons work in romaji

I understand how it works for Ohayō the o here is omitting the u from う, so without the macron it would be "ohayou". Even Tōkyō becomes Toukyou. But what about other vowels? such as ī ē ā ū ...
aeonic's user avatar
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1 answer
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Pronunciation of long o (e.g. in Street Fighter)—"oo" or "ou"?

I have very little knowledge regarding Japanese, but I'm curious about the pronunciation of the long o. In Street Fighter, according to my basic research, the "ō" in "hadōken" is ...
Joshua Grosso's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
702 views

Romaji for long vowel: 通り vs 東リ

I was told that in romaji the long vowel of o would be ō (see this tutorial) However, I am confused by these two words. In Google Translate they both were romanized as Tōri (see here), but their 平仮名 ...
leeyuiwah's user avatar
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1 answer
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How do you type Warsaw in Romaji?

I'm learning Japanese and just beginning to type. When I type warusawa in Romaji mode, this is what I see by default: But what I want is this: Is it only possible by typing in Katakana mode? Or is ...
Andrew Cheong's user avatar
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1 answer
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How do I romanize "ように" and "二度と"?

First of all, sorry for any mistakes. English is not my native language, nor is Japanese, obviously. Just curious, but (title). I saw some people romanizing "ように" as "you ni" and ...
user40416's user avatar
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1 answer
279 views

Translation of words like マサラタウン

So I understand that translating literally is often not enough, since there has to be a "patching" between the cultures of the two languages. What I don't understand is how to handle ...
Jak's user avatar
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Doumo or dōmo / arigatou or arigatō

this may be a silly question. However, is there a difference between the following sentences (in terms of spelling): 1) Doumo arigatou gozaimashita. 2) Dōmo arigatō gozaimashita. Is one sentence ...
Trey's user avatar
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6 votes
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Is the first supposed invention of romaji in 1548 by a Japanese Catholic called Yajiro fact or fiction?

Any research I try leads back to sites I don't know if I can trust, because most of them are random fact articles. I've found an official site that has some of the history, but not this specific fact. ...
Erisabeisuu's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
244 views

How have writers in English spelled うん?

I write fanfiction, some of it based on anime. There is the Japanese word うん, used to casually indicate agreement, very familiar to anyone who pays attention to the audio in subtitled works. I am ...
Tualha's user avatar
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1 answer
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Romaji and Hiragana seem to disagree [closed]

I encountered 道路標識 (どうろひょしき) during my studies today. Google Translate shows romaji dōrohyōji. However, based on the hiragana alone, I was expecting to see dōrohyōshiki. Why is しき romanized as ji ...
Wyck's user avatar
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Romanizations of Japanese using consonant diacritics?

The Hepburn romanization, to express the different realizations of some consonants before /i/ or /u/, uses different spellings from the other syllables in their groups: /si/ > "shi" /zi/ > "ji" /ti/ >...
ヤコブ's user avatar
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Are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4....... also considered Romaji?

Are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4....... also considered Romaji? If they are not written using kanji?
Jack Bosma's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
134 views

What does one call words or phrases that cannot be or rarely refered to with kanji

I have found that many words are only used in hiragana and because of this i can't seem to find a good way to learn them as i am studying words that use kanji due to the site i am using. Like-ごめんなさい, ...
A guest's user avatar
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8 votes
3 answers
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Was 術 (as in 柔術) ever pronounced jitsu?

柔術 is often rendered in English-speaking countries (and France, Germany, and Brazil) as "jiu-jitsu" or "ju-jitsu", even though the actual Hepburn romanization is "jūjutsu". Wiktionary's page on 柔術 ...
mic's user avatar
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1 answer
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Writing conventions / pronunciations for words with っ

I'm currently trying to figure out on how to do karaoke for some songs and I got a bit confused about the following. So let's say you have the words like ずっと [zutto] のって [notte] How would you write ...
YTZ's user avatar
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What does hoi mean?

I'm a General Music teacher. One of my 1st grade books has a song called, "Naka Naka Hoi." The (what I'm learning may be the romaji) words are: Naka Naka Hoi Soto Soto Hoi Naka Soto Soto Naka Naka ...
Erin Ronne's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
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What is the correct romaji/kanji for a phrase that sounds like “fui cabaru”

A japanese Aikido master used the term that sounds like “fui cabaru” or the “up” position of the a sword. I also believe it means something like “the place your hat goes”. Can you tell me the correct ...
Micah B.'s user avatar
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On hiragana, romaji and pronunciation

I have heard a Japanese teacher explain how long vowels should be pronounced and how they should be written when using hiragana. That's what I saw on the whiteboard: がっこう - gakkoo, (not gakkou) Is ...
Enguroo's user avatar
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Kanjis to Romajis first letter [closed]

I'm fond of Unicode and what romanization attempts. My goal is to get a first latin char (for sorting purposes) of a non-latin character - so far I succeeded by transcribing Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, ...
AmigoJack's user avatar
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2 answers
409 views

How do Japanese people use 🅱️-substitution, if at all?

A common internet meme is to use 🅱️ as a replacement for B's in a word, such as "🅱️oneless" or "trou🅱️le". Sometimes it's additionally done for C's, such as "🅱️o🅱️a 🅱️ola". Is this a thing ever ...
Alex Meiburg's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
6k views

Is rōmaji actually used in Japan?

I am a Japanese beginner and I see many instruction books containing rōmaji. As I understand, rōmaji helps English speakers to pronounce the words. But is rōmaji really used in Japan or by Japanese ...
flow2k's user avatar
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1 answer
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How Dakuten works with Romaji?

I was reading different hiragana charts and saw that "ち(chi)", applying dakuten it can be read as "dzi" or "ji". Other hiragana words in dakuten also have different ways of pronunciation depending ...
Golden Rabbit's user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
5k views

Why are police boxes labeled Koban (in roman letters) in Japan?

I understand that the word for police box is Koban or 交番 in kanji, but why is the signage always in roman letters - Koban. My guess would be to make it easier for foreigners to read, but wouldn't ...
Mac's user avatar
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Correct spelling of "Gemu Otaku"

In studies on contemporary Japanese culture, they use "Gemu Otaku" in the sense of "video game nerd", "game freak". Is this an academic term only or do people actually use this term in Japanese ...
Werner Dübelnann's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
589 views

Is ii or ī more common in rōmaji?

A question about rōmaji: Is it more common to use ī or ii? For loanwords, it seems to be common to use ī, e.g. コーヒー  kōhī アンチーク antīku For other words, using ii seems more common, e.g. 涼しい ...
digory doo's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
187 views

Reversed S in Japanese transliteration

I recently found a strange spelling of a reversed S (Ƨ) on an old Japanese matchbox label (late 19th century), in the phrase "MANUFACTURED IN ƧEIRYUKWAN". At first I thought this was just a mistake in ...
user32849's user avatar
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1 answer
502 views

How to write 日付 in romaji?

Looking at the google translator I find: 日付 (Hidzuke): Date But when I try to write the same letter, it doesn't pop up kanji Which all characters are used to write it?
Prince's user avatar
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16 votes
3 answers
6k views

Standard mathematical operations, expressed in Japanese

First-time poster on this channel, so please forgive me if I screw anything up... I'm currently writing a "Japanese Calculator" program as part of a personal project I'm working on which takes rōmaji ...
Eliseo D'Annunzio's user avatar
4 votes
5 answers
3k views

Is it possible to algorithmically convert Japanese text to Romaji?

I am a programmer and I recently wrote two browser extensions, one will translate English text to "pronunciation" replacing all words founf on a web page, and another will replace all Chinese ...
exebook's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
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Why do people romanize 新聞 as "Shimbun"? [duplicate]

Is there a reason why [新聞]{しんぶん} is often romanized as "Shimbun" instead of the "Shinbun" its supposed to be? I ask as I've found that even brands like 毎日新聞 do this; romanizing their name as "Mainichi ...
Tirous's user avatar
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1 vote
3 answers
5k views

Hiragana - Long vowel e (ei or ee)

I am wondering about the long vowel e, and whether it is -ee or -ei. Let's use hē as an example, is hē written as へい or へえ?
Person's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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In romaji, is りょう spelled 'ryou' or 'ryoo'?

This has been bothering me because I am writing a Memrise course and have been implementing the romaji by hand for cases like these (since the Memrise platform interprets りょう as 'riyou'). Intuitively, ...
Sydney Maples's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
92k views

Difference between yamero and yamete

I often hear this from animations and read it among users when making jokes on the internet, but I wonder exactly: what's the difference between yamero and yamete?
Fabián's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
604 views

Why is じどうしゃ (jidoushiya), jidōsha instead?

From what I understand, the hiragana characters above should make the word jidoushiya, but for some reason it is actually jidōsha. Why did the word change this way even though the characters are: ...
A guest's user avatar
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4 votes
3 answers
7k views

Romanization of じ and ジ with ji and zi

From some basic research I've found that when romanizing じ and ジ we can use "ji" or "zi." Apparently "ji" is used by Hepburn romanization which is the most popular for non-Japanese speakers but "zi" ...
Kairei's user avatar
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8 votes
3 answers
3k views

Why is D written as Đ in Japanese handwriting?

I've seen Japanese people write many letters/numbers "strangely". The most common one is D which is written with a stroke like this Đ Why is that? Are there any other letters that are ...
phuclv 劉永福's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

Converting を from Hiragana to Romaji

I realize that it's usually better to just learn / use hiragana but I have been asked to look into coding up a solution to convert from Hiragana/Katakana to the modified Hepburn Romaji. One point I ...
UCCcoffeeLover's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

The use of ô versus ō in rōmaji

Perhaps this question is completely unimportant, but I do not know if it is. There is a very influential mathematical paper by Alexander Grothendieck often called his Tôhoku paper, because of the ...
Colin Mclarty's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
28k views

Long O — when is it OU and when OO?

I am learning hiragana and I've encountered a minor problem. The thing is that my book did mention how to deal with a long "O": just by adding another "O" or "U". However it doesn't explain in which ...
RPAnimation's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
265 views

Why is a foreign person's middle initial written in romaji instead of katakana?

Foreigner's names are written in katakana, but I noticed that the middle initial is always written in romaji. I see this on business cards and in newspaper articles, when a middle initial is used.
Jack Bosma's user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
12k views

Does a small tsu double all consonants?

In several sources it's mentioned that a SMALL TSU doubles consonants. My problem is, some websites give almost identical examples with: っ/ッ + (S, T, C, K, G, B, P) But what about the others?: っ/ッ + (...
Pii83's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
663 views

How can I write "tchi"

As in title, how can I write "tchi" in katakana as in the word "hotchikisu" (paper fastener)?
Manren's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
231 views

How would one go about romanizing Aynu Itak?

I've been casually studying Itak on and off in between my usual schoolwork and obvious Japanese studies. However, I've been more and more bothered by a particular issue as I've gone on: how does one ...
Pleiades's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
141 views

How is Y森飯ルド romanized?

A little context: This is the name of a rather obscure Japanese band. The lead singer goes by the name of Yasue Dangerous Ojisan (ヤスエでんじゃらすおじさん) and this is his blog. Record label and retailer Tower ...
haidahaida's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

In romaji is it okosan or oko-san?

I am reading the Japanese for Busy People book and I notice in the dictionary in the back some of the words ending in san use a hyphen: okyaku-san and some don't okosan Sometimes they use a ...
Alan's user avatar
  • 720
1 vote
1 answer
336 views

Kohsuke or Kosuke?

I saw a person write his name in Romaji as Kohsuke. I am a beginner Japanese student and it struck me as odd to see that "h" in there. I would have thought his name to be written as Kosuke if it were ...
ThaDon's user avatar
  • 115
2 votes
1 answer
652 views

Jumbichū or Junbichū for じゅんびちゅう, Konban wa or Komban wa for こんばんは?

Can someone give me some advice. In some text books I see N used and in some I see M used for ん and in a dictionary I see them using n with a line above it. I assume this is because of the way the ...
Alan's user avatar
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