29
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Standard mathematical operations, expressed in Japanese
First of all, let me assume:
You're only interested in the simple four operations (+, -, *, /) and brackets ( )
Multiplication and division have higher priority, e.g., 1 + 2 * 3 is 7, not 9
Of course ...
- 292k
28
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Why are police boxes labeled Koban (in roman letters) in Japan?
The answer is right on the 警視庁 (metropolitan police department)'s website.
Basically it says that it is common to use foreign words as-is if there is no similar cultural counterpart, using sumo and ...
- 2,693
24
votes
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How to pronounce the English alphabet? (A, B, C, ...)
I share your experience. Sticking straight to the katakana pronunciation below, I have never had the problem of someone not understanding me any more. I believe this is the pronunciation currently ...
- 47.8k
14
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Is it possible to algorithmically convert Japanese text to Romaji?
Basically this is very difficult.
Real Japanese sentences on the net are mixture of kanji, hiragana, katakana and English alphabet. See Japanese writing system on Wikipedia.
Among these, hiragana ...
- 292k
13
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How to differentiate between んい and に in romaji?
It is not easy to input the right romaji to find a Japanese word especially when 'ん' is in the middle.
In the case of 'onin', you should place an apostrophe after the first 'n' to separate 'on' and '...
- 2,078
13
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Difference between yamero and yamete
Of the two やめろ (yamero) is the bossier one. やめて (yamete) comes across a bit softer; it's basically やめてください (yamete kudasai) minus the ください (kudasai). やめろ (yamero) is actually the imperative form of ...
- 7,879
12
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Does a small tsu double all consonants?
A small tsu (sokuon) geminates (doubles) the following consonant. In native vocabulary, only unvoiced consonants can be geminated. This includes the さ, た, か, and ぱ rows. A double n as in おんな is not ...
- 236
12
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Long O — when is it OU and when OO?
Really, all I can say is 'it depends on the word'. Generally on'yomi (Chinese-derived) readings use おう, while kun'yomi (native Japanese) readings use おお, but there may be exceptions. A note: if う is a ...
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11
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Is rōmaji actually used in Japan?
Yes, rōmaji is used by Japanese people, but mainly as design elements. Elementary school children learn to read and write rōmaji in the 3rd grade, and virtually all adults can understand Japanese ...
- 292k
10
votes
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Why is D written as Đ in Japanese handwriting?
You're probably working as programmer or accountant, or you won't actually see many people in Japan write in this style, because those slashes are added to reduce misreading possibility in quick ...
- 49.9k
10
votes
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Kanjis to Romajis first letter
EDIT: It turned out that OP did not know most kanji have multiple readings in Japanese. He is actually trying to get the reading of words (e.g., 生地 → K, 生卵 → N, 生命 → S, 生霊 → I). For this purpose, a ...
- 292k
10
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Is the first supposed invention of romaji in 1548 by a Japanese Catholic called Yajiro fact or fiction?
Well, as a hint, historically, the first people who'd have any interest in, or practical need for, writing down Japanese in the Latin alphabet weren't Japanese people. See the Nanban trade article in ...
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9
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Why is a foreign person's middle initial written in romaji instead of katakana?
Simply, using Latin alphabet can clearly tell us it's the initial. Also it's shorter.
マイケル・ジェイ・フォックス → Is this ジェイ something like "Jay"?
マイケル・J・フォックス → It's meant to be the initial!
Everyone knows ...
- 292k
9
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How do Japanese people use 🅱️-substitution, if at all?
Is this a thing ever done in Japanese text
If you specifically mean "replacing B/C (and only B and C) with the red/squared emoji 🅱️", then, no, that has never been a thing in Japan. I did not know ...
- 292k
8
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Is there any Japanese language reason why Google Maps hyphenates some names and not others?
Seeing Ikeno-Ue I'll venture a guess and say that there is no reason why Google Maps hyphenates some place names and not others.
Here ノ is the particle の and I would say that hyphenation of 池ノ上 ike ...
- 47.8k
8
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Long O — when is it OU and when OO?
As @Nothing at all notes, this depends on the word.
On'yomi always use -OU for long O sound and kun'yomi almost always -OO.1
However, the real problem here is that you are being asked to reconstruct ...
- 47.8k
8
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How Dakuten works with Romaji?
This is not a problem of dakuten in general, but is a problem specific to じ, ぢ, ず and づ. There is a bit complicated history regarding the pronunciations of these four characters, and they even have a ...
- 292k
8
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Was 術 (as in 柔術) ever pronounced jitsu?
I'm not very familiar with the diffusion process of jujitsu, but the practice to read 術 somewhat like じつ exists(ed) in the traditional Tokyo dialect.
Japanese WP says:
「じゅ」が「じ」、「しゅ」が「し」に転訛する。（例）...
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8
votes
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Romaji for long vowel: 通り vs 東リ
Responding to the extended discussion in the comments --
Terminology
The second vowel is //o// in both 通【とお】り and 東【とう】. (東【とう】り is not a word, so I won't repeat that here.) When you're talking ...
- 35.8k
7
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Why is D written as Đ in Japanese handwriting?
Not sure if that's the explanation but I found this page which seems to suggest adding various strokes to letters to ensure they're not confused for other similar-looking (especially to the Japanese ...
- 6,553
6
votes
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Mixture of romaji and hiragana in NHK "Meet and Speak"
Your alternate hunch is correct I expect, as I've seen it elsewhere (referred to as 'progressive', there, but I'm not sure if that's a universal term).
- 295
6
votes
Does a small tsu double all consonants?
Tom Kelly's response is downvoted, but is actually more correct than any other phonologically speaking, but still not the entire story so I'll elaborate on it and will show an audio analysis comparing ...
- 472
6
votes
The use of ô versus ō in rōmaji
As @naruto notes, the difference between Tôhoku and Tōhoku is only a difference of romanization systems. (Both are correct transliterations of 東北 in their respective systems.) A number of romanization ...
- 47.8k
6
votes
Standard mathematical operations, expressed in Japanese
Japan uses 「足す」(tasu:plus)「引く」(hiku:minus)「掛ける」(kakeru:multiplied by)「割る」(waru:divided by).
For example, 2+2 in words is "ni tasu ni", 2-2 is "ni hiku ni", 2x2 is "ni kakeru ni", 2/2 is "ni waru ni".
...
- 1,295
6
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Doumo or dōmo / arigatou or arigatō
You are seeing two different methods of romanization. 1) is in so-called wāpuro rōmaji, and 2) is in the (modified) Hepburn system. Neither is more correct than the other; they are exactly the same if ...
- 292k
5
votes
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How is Y森飯ルド romanized?
First, ignore whatever Google says about words it doesn't recognize. Each kanji can have lots of readings, and Google is very bad at giving a reasonable guess about uncommon proper nouns.
Second, ...
- 292k
5
votes
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In romaji is it okosan or oko-san?
I don't think there is a "right way". There are many ways to use romaji and each with their own rules. In general, names like Takeda-san, Takahashi-san tend to use the hyphen while words like okasan, ...
- 5,641
5
votes
How to differentiate between んい and に in romaji?
If we go by what Japanese people use in practice, the standard way when typing into an IME is in fact exactly what you said. Double the "n" and type "onninn".
Linguists will probably frown at it, but ...
- 3,326
5
votes
How to pronounce the English alphabet? (A, B, C, ...)
I agree with Earthliŋ for the most part. Though I have never heard of Japanese students being taught and official "Katakana-ized" version of the English alphabet. Generally they seem to be taught to ...
- 7,341
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