All Questions
99 questions
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 ...
- 1,081
23
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Why is English "ka" and "ca" sometimes rendered as キャ (kya) instead of カ (ka)?
I sometimes see that English ka and ca are rendered キャ (kya) instead of カ (ka). Why is this?
Do English ka and ca really sound more like kya than ka, at least to Japanese listeners? (I know it doesn'...
- 365
20
votes
2
answers
13k
views
How to pronounce the English alphabet? (A, B, C, ...)
I just had to tell a long booking number over the phone, and realized that some characters like V/B can be hard to convey.
So, I want to learn exactly how each letter is currently taught in Japanese ...
- 8,720
19
votes
2
answers
13k
views
What is the more common pronunciation for the rōmaji letter Z in Japanese?
I was on the phone with NTT the other day and things were going well (or as good as they could), until I had to spell some email address for the customer rep, and fell upon the letter 'Z'.
...
- 9,099
16
votes
3
answers
7k
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 ...
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 + (...
- 143
12
votes
3
answers
31k
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 ...
- 123
11
votes
8
answers
5k
views
What are the advantages/disadvantages of writing in romaji instead of in kanji and kana?
Romaji is somewhat of a conversion from kanji and kana to the Roman alphabet.
What are the disadvantages of learning only or mostly romaji aside from being unable to read/write in kanji? I don't ...
- 667
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Legal characters for first names include: hiragana, katakana, jinmeiyo and joyo kanji. What about latin letters?
Is it legal for parents to give to their child a first name with latin letters (romaji, I guess), instead of using katakana, hiragana, or kanji?
For example, if Japanese parents want to give their ...
- 123
11
votes
2
answers
589
views
Are numbers part of romaji? (i.e. 1, 2, 3 vs 一二三)
Romaji is when you use the Roman alphabet to write out Japanese. I.e. you use "abc" instead of "あいうえお". Taking that one step further, what do you call it when you use "123" instead of "一二三"? My first ...
- 7,325
11
votes
5
answers
9k
views
What is the difference between tori vs. dori?
In Aikido, different dojos seem to latch on to using either dori or tori when describing grabbing attacks. For instance one dojo might say:
Katate Dori
Another would say:
Katate Tori
Each dojo ...
- 221
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana rather than Romaji?
Are foreign personal names usually written in katakana, or is this dependent on the type or writing, and the target audience? For example, this Japanese Wikipedia entry on Steven Bradbury uses ...
- 16.3k
11
votes
1
answer
95k
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?
- 213
10
votes
2
answers
588
views
How to differentiate between んい and に in romaji?
Occasionally I want to look up a word on Jisho.org from a device where it is inconvenient to use a Japanese keyboard. The default is to interpret an input as romaji if possible, so that's usually not ...
- 391
9
votes
3
answers
1k
views
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 ...
- 233
8
votes
5
answers
14k
views
Why is the Hepburn system of romanization generally used over the Nihon-shiki system?
Generally when you see romanization of Japanese it is in the Hepburn system; however, I recently came across the Nihon-shiki system which seems to be preferable. Why is it that the Hepburn system ...
user51
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 ...
- 615
8
votes
1
answer
373
views
When did LOC adopt modified Hepburn?
If I look in Google Ngrams, I see that the transliteration "honbu", meaning HQ, basically didn't exist until 1964. But it didn't surpass "hombu" until 1976. I believe Modified Hepburn was introduced ...
- 91
7
votes
3
answers
6k
views
How does one transcribe the romaji "ō"?
I use The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary, which describes pronunciation in romaji instead of kana. I never learned romaji in a classroom, and generally only use it when reading this dictionary.
...
- 7,325
7
votes
2
answers
784
views
What romanization scheme is used by programmers?
I noticed that in this book on bioinformatics with Ruby (the programming language!) (Rubyではじめるバイオインフォマティクス―生物系のためのプログラミング入門), the authors sometimes used romanized Japanese in code examples. For ...
- 16.3k
6
votes
1
answer
540
views
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. ...
- 73
6
votes
2
answers
7k
views
When romanizing a Japanese title, which words should be capitalized?
Specifically, when you are trying to romanize Kanji titles of movies, plays, written works, etc. for formal writing targeting non-Japanese speakers, what are some good guidelines?
As seen in this ...
- 63
6
votes
2
answers
247
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 ...
- 962
6
votes
1
answer
392
views
What does it mean to write wasei-eigo and gairaigo in Romaji?
Wasei-eigo and most Gairaigo (especially in a text or sentence as opposed to being by itself) is usually written in Katakana (イメージ, ジュース, スマート,パンツ,アベック). However, there are times that have seen some ...
- 617
5
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Rosetta Stone uses は instead of わ
Just started learning Japanese again. My college offers no class on this so I am learning on my own. I have been using Rosetta Stone on and off again for a while now.
One thing I have noticed is that ...
- 451
5
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Japanese language "compression ratio"
Somewhat cryptic title, but a simple question.
I start with the (logical?) assumption that kanji makes writing Japanese shorter than using romaji. How shorter is it compared to English written in ...
- 151
5
votes
2
answers
620
views
Is there any Japanese language reason why Google Maps hyphenates some names and not others?
Looking at Google Maps I noticed when translating to Japanese some names are hyphenated and others are not. It seems to be arbitrary but maybe there's some Japanese rule I'm unaware of
The first ...
user17423
5
votes
2
answers
959
views
How is determined whether a sound should be romanized into an L versus an R?
I know there isn't a particularly distinct difference between L and R in native Japanese, but very often proper nouns and other non-translated Japanese names/words work their way into English ...
- 151
5
votes
0
answers
190
views
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 ...
- 3,422
4
votes
3
answers
12k
views
Why are し/ち transliterated as 'shi'/'chi', and not 'si'/'ti'?
In Japanese あいうえお are pronounced 'a i u e o', かきくけこ are pronounced 'ka ki ku ke ko'. The spelling is simple and natural. However, when it comes to サ行, さしすせそ, its relevant roman spelling is 'sa shi su ...
- 41
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 ...
- 143
4
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How to form the "chi" sound, and others?
I was looking at a chart of hiragana and trying to find the characters to form the name of a song Inochi no Namae. I started with i, then no, but there's no chi. I then started wondering where chu and ...
- 1,850
4
votes
2
answers
872
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 ...
- 218
4
votes
1
answer
284
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.
- 6,785
4
votes
2
answers
485
views
What are the following ALA-LC kana-to-romanization mappings used for? – キィ/ニィ/ヒィ/ミィ/リィ/ギィ/ビィ/ピィ (all: -ī) and スェ (swe)
I looked through the ALA-LC romanization of Japanese (from the list of ALA-LC Romanization Tables), and there are some kana-to-romanization mappings which I am not sure what to make of.
(To prevent ...
4
votes
2
answers
659
views
Which romanization system should I use in my word game?
I have developed a word game quite similar to Scrabble, and I am currently considering adding a Japanese word list to it.
Please note that I have no real knowledge of the language, apart from knowing ...
- 143
4
votes
1
answer
551
views
Romanization of kanji compounds: when are spaces used?
I don't know if the answer depends on the system used. Information on this is welcome too, but mainly I'm interested in the Hepburn system.
When romanizing a kanji compound, how do you decide if you ...
- 2,737
4
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What is the correct way to romanize ッジ?
According to Wikipedia, ッチ is rendered as tch, not cch (etchi not ecchi). Logically I would think that ッジ would then be dj but there's no example of it. What is the correct way? dj or jj? Is there any ...
- 1,380
4
votes
3
answers
8k
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" ...
- 105
3
votes
4
answers
5k
views
What does this person mean by "doryo" in this context?
Two Japanese-fluent characters in an English novel I'm reading are talking about a specific heart problem one character concealed from medical exams. That character is requesting the second character ...
user3083
3
votes
1
answer
493
views
What type of romanization is "Hatchōbori"?
I found somewhere on the internet that the romanization of 八丁堀{はっちょうぼり} is written as "Hatchōbori".
Given that scheme, how could you write "しゅっぱつ"?
Given that scheme, how could you write "しゅぱつ"?
...
- 2,910
3
votes
1
answer
744
views
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, ...
- 133
3
votes
2
answers
2k
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 ...
3
votes
2
answers
7k
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 ...
- 143
3
votes
1
answer
794
views
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 ...
3
votes
1
answer
333
views
Improved romanisation of Katakana
I'm in the planning stages of programming my own Katakana => Romaji converter. However, I've noticed that every other converter already out there just converts literally. I want to try and employ a ...
3
votes
1
answer
1k
views
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 ...
- 33
3
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Is the stroke order native Japanese speakers use for romaji different to those of native English speakers?
Do native speakers of Japanese write romaji the same way native speakers of English would, or do they do it differently, possibly using the rules that they'd use for writing hiragana, katakana, and ...
- 16.3k
3
votes
1
answer
364
views
What loan words have a Hepburn romanization that matches the spelling of the original language?
For example, the word サッカー is "soccer" in English, but the romanization "sakkā" bears little resemblance to the original word. Are there any loan words in Japanese that preserve the spelling of the ...
- 480
3
votes
1
answer
136
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, ...
- 153