Learning romaji is an additional skill, and it is not required for learning Japanese.

It's also an almost useless skill once you've finished learning the kana (2 weeks?)
I mean, there aren't books or newspaper or comics written in romaji out there...

Sure it helps with the process of learning the language but it's like practicing bubble soccer in order to be good at soccer, why don't you go with the real thing from the start?

umetani666 Wrote:i agree with Helltrixz. i guess romaji is ok for native english speakers, because i really don't see how matu=matsu.

It's native Japanese speakers who find "matu" more sensible.

Tzadeck Wrote:

Helltrixz Wrote:I never paid much attention to either, I didn't know this. Does that mean that when Japanese learn western languages they also pronounce western words in that way? For instance, the clock is chicking? Or I love eating tsuna?

Yes. Neither the sound 'ti' in 'ticking' nor 'tu' in 'tuna' are in the Japanese sound system, so naturally Japanese people have trouble pronouncing them and often do them exactly as you say.

It's not just "having trouble". Plenty of people have trouble with all kinds of sounds in foreign languages, that they don't have in their own. But they overcome that trouble.

The real trouble Japanese students seem to face, at least as far as I can tell, is that they use Kana in school to write English (at least according to some tests I've seen). And that's even worse than using Romaji to try and learn Japanese.

If you use a script that doesn't even come close to representing English sounds correctly (I realize the English alphabet doesn't really do a great job either, but it's closer than Kana), you're not even going to face the challenge of having to overcome strange sounds (at least not in school, where a teacher has to deal with 20+ students at a time, so it's unavoidable that most of their assignments will be in written form - the rare occasion a student gets to speak and is corrected by the teacher is not enough). Of course the Japanese are going to pronounce something they've only ever seen written as ツナ, as tsuna. On the other hand, if their English teachers had bothered imposing the rule that English is written with the Roman script in English class, they would at least have the opportunity to try and deal with the issue of foreign sounds from day one.

That's the same reason why it's important to at least use Kana for Japanese, if you're not going to use Kanji. For instance ローマ字 is not correctly represented when written as Romaji (or Roumaji for that matter, though that's a slightly better effort).

I used roomazi because some materials used it.
http://www13.ocn.ne.jp/~k-net/index.html

Or the first two Japanese grammars I read were transcribed in roomazi:
Romuald Huszcza, Maho Ikushima, Jan Majewski - Gramatyka japońska
and
Kaiser - Japanese - A Comprehensive Grammar.

I still use it to input Japanese.
No trouble with 'matu' - I prefer it to 'matsu' - less typing.

buonaparte Wrote:I still use it to input Japanese.
No trouble with 'matu' - I prefer it to 'matsu' - less typing.

Almost everyone does -- a few native speakers use kana input and some foreigners try to do it too, but the majority of people type in romaji (on computers, at least).

I also use "matu", "matimasu", "simasu" when I'm typing.

Like I said earlier in a post that didn't get moved, I go a step further and have a dedicated key for ん. Also, ca-cu-ce-co -> ちゃちゅちぇちょ. Could still do something with the 'q' key (ひょひゅ, maybe) but I'm already using as a shortcut in EBWin4.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

umetani666 Wrote:i agree with Helltrixz. i guess romaji is ok for native english speakers, because i really don't see how matu=matsu.

It's native Japanese speakers who find "matu" more sensible.

I'm a native English speaker and I have no trouble remembering that when reading Japanese in romaji, "matu" = matsu,
or that "mati" = machi.

I think of the kana table: ta, ti, tu, te, to.

sunehiro Wrote:Learning romaji is an additional skill, and it is not required for learning Japanese.

It's also an almost useless skill once you've finished learning the kana (2 weeks?)
I mean, there aren't books or newspaper or comics written in romaji out there...

Sure it helps with the process of learning the language but it's like practicing bubble soccer in order to be good at soccer, why don't you go with the real thing from the start?

I tried to learn Japanese with kana right from the start and I found the kana was distracting and interfering with absorbing the language structures. When I switched to a romaji textbook I found that I could relax, sit back and actually learn the language.

Now that I'm nearing the end of my romaji textbook I'm starting to practise writing in kanji and kana. So for instance after studying Dialog 5 in romaji, I re-wrote it in kanji and kana. I'm going to see if I can find a native Japanese speaker to double check my transcriptions.

Here's an example of some people thoughtfully discussing Japanese grammar in romaji:

http://www.science-bbs.com/115-lang-japa...5e60ab.htm

You don't see anyone hysterically insisting that the discussion be in kanji/kana.

john555 Wrote:Here's an example of some people thoughtfully discussing Japanese grammar in romaji:

http://www.science-bbs.com/115-lang-japa...5e60ab.htm

You don't see anyone hysterically insisting that the discussion be in kanji/kana.

Well, this forum is called "Reviewing the Kanji Forum", so I guess bias towards kanji / kana is inevitable.

I just don't get all the kanji inquisition. If someone makes the educated choice to use romaji for their first steps into Japanese, isn't it their *problem* ? No one will change anybody's mind here.

And on a more related note --- to answer to the topic's title, Funashi is the best thing since sliced bread. So I'll go with "curse on mankind".



Yay Funashi !

john555 Wrote:Here's an example of some people thoughtfully discussing Japanese grammar in romaji:

http://www.science-bbs.com/115-lang-japa...5e60ab.htm

You don't see anyone hysterically insisting that the discussion be in kanji/kana.

To be fair, that thread is from 1996, when Japanese characters weren't well supported on English language OSes. Even when I was posting to sci.lang.japan around 1999-2002 or so, I had no end of problems with conversion issues and display problems. Sometimes it was easier to use romaji just to avoid the headaches of having to try to enter Japanese characters.

As for why people make such a big deal about it, I think there are basically two reasons. There's a widespread belief that any romaji use is harmful to your Japanese, and should be completely avoided, so people may feel like they're being helpful. I think there's also a feeling of pride some people have that they don't use romaji, because they feel like romaji is a crutch for people who aren't capable of dealing with the Japanese writing system. In fact, if you can't read something when it's written in all kana or romaji*, that is a weakness in your Japanese, not a point of pride. Lack of familiarity with romanized Japanese may make it annoying or take some time to get used to, but it shouldn't be literally incomprehensible.

*The exception is when a piece of writing has a large number of 漢語 that are rarely used in speech so that even a native speaker would have a hard time understanding the writing when read aloud. Most writing is not like this, though, contrary to popular perception.

Linval Wrote:http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/upload...-horse.gif

No method can fit all. As long as you keep learning the language, it's fine, even if it's with a textbook that uses a flag semaphore transcription of Japanese

This is a pretty big aside (hope we don't get a separate thread on the art of logical decision making now), but depends on your definition of "fine". The way I see it, the most reasonable definition of a fine method to perform a task is: That method which, after a logical evaluation of all the facts, is the most effective way to perform it. Or, if not enough facts are available to make that determination, all those methods which cannot be shown to be less effective than other ones.

I agree that there aren't enough facts available to decide the one and only method of studying which is the most effective. So, even though in a perfect world, where we know everything there is to know on the subject, logic would require us to pick such a method, declare it the one method that is fine and declare all others "not fine", we can't do that here due to the lack of ALL facts.

But I'm confident we have enough facts to be able to determine that some methods aren't fine. Using flag semaphore transcription is one of them. Romaji is another. There are more than enough facts available to logically conclude that those methods are not as effective as some of the other ones.

What "facts" are these? (A lot of the arguments I've seen against romaji use are equally applicable to use of RTK.)

I think it has a lot to do with the way John555 presents his arguments. In one post he's all about "rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work" and in the next post, he's riding with romaji training wheels when he could be practicing his kanji/kana reading skills while at the same time, learning vocabulary and grammar. On top of that, using 65 year old textbooks is forcing him to wonder if the grammar he's learning is still valid today.

Personally I don't think there's much wrong with the concept of learning a few thousand words and some grammar in romaji. It's the fastest way to learn some japanese you can actually use. But if you've already spent the time to learn 2000 kanji, and then you start using romaji, it seems completely backwards.

Stansfield123 Wrote:This is a pretty big aside (hope we don't get a separate thread on the art of logical decision making now), but depends on your definition of "fine". The way I see it, the most reasonable definition of a fine method to perform a task is: That method which, after a logical evaluation of all the facts, is the most effective way to perform it. Or, if not enough facts are available to make that determination, all those methods which cannot be shown to be less effective than other ones.

That would be a good definition for "efficiency". My definition of "fine" in that case would have been something along the lines of "acceptable".

People ultimately make their mind based on much more complex factors than a simple examination of cold hard facts, and thank God for that. The pursuit for efficiency usually ends up being more about the method than about the subject one is trying to learn ; I've seen and heard too many people discussing methods to death instead of actually *studying*, which should ultimately remain the core focus. As long as one is learning, then it's *fine*.

One should judge the efficiency of one's method(s) based on one's own results - and that alone. So if someone is making satisfying progresses using romaji, never mind what they *could* have accomplished with kana / kanji, because who the f*ck knows, then they have every reasons to keep at it. As long as one is satisfied with their results, then why would one want to change the method ? Language learning a very personal process, and it's all about motivation and personal preferences. Dogmas, whatever they defend, should be kept out of the loop. Even the most ludicrous method could whip out proofs of its efficiency. It's all rhetoric.

john555 Wrote:Here's an example of some people thoughtfully discussing Japanese grammar in romaji:

http://www.science-bbs.com/115-lang-japa...5e60ab.htm

You don't see anyone hysterically insisting that the discussion be in kanji/kana.

Not so fast

All the way back from 1993.

And still the debate rages on, lol

Stansfield123 Wrote:This is a pretty big aside (hope we don't get a separate thread on the art of logical decision making now), but depends on your definition of "fine". The way I see it, the most reasonable definition of a fine method to perform a task is: That method which, after a logical evaluation of all the facts, is the most effective way to perform it. Or, if not enough facts are available to make that determination, all those methods which cannot be shown to be less effective than other ones.

I agree that there aren't enough facts available to decide the one and only method of studying which is the most effective. So, even though in a perfect world, where we know everything there is to know on the subject, logic would require us to pick such a method, declare it the one method that is fine and declare all others "not fine", we can't do that here due to the lack of ALL facts.

But I'm confident we have enough facts to be able to determine that some methods aren't fine. Using flag semaphore transcription is one of them. Romaji is another. There are more than enough facts available to logically conclude that those methods are not as effective as some of the other ones.

Is there any difference between this post and 'Didn't you hear dudes, romaji sucks for learning'? You spend most of your post doing silly things like defining 'a fine method,' but in the end your argument is that romaji is bad for learners based on facts that you don't mention. It's very easy to misjudge ideas, even your own, when they are veiled in vague academic language. You don't actually say anything in this post.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

umetani666 Wrote:i agree with Helltrixz. i guess romaji is ok for native english speakers, because i really don't see how matu=matsu.

It's native Japanese speakers who find "matu" more sensible.

Well that explains their peculiar English.

Back on topic, I dislike romaji based on my long term goal, which would be native-like fluency. I've been living in a foreign country for 10 years and started learning the language 15 years before I moved here, so I've got a vague idea of what I'm aiming for. I noticed that if I skip a part of a skill set, I tend to never get truly comfortable with it later on. Be it English pronunciation, declension and conjugation in German or sight reading drum sheets. I don't want to make the same mistake in Japanese, where a certain skill lags behind others and makes me question myself every time I have to use it.

This is not to say that someone else couldn't get the same or even better short and long term results with romaji. However, I think that in general if someone is motivated enough to not be discouraged by a foreign script, kana is more beneficial to the overall progress than romaji.

yudantaiteki Wrote:It's native Japanese speakers who find "matu" more sensible.

i was intrigued by your answer and asked some native japanese friends. they all(3 of them) said 'matsu' sounded more natural.
one of them explained it like this: when she was a pre-elementary school kid, she would write it as 'matu', but in school they had to learn romaji and were taught to write it as 'matsu'.

Tzadeck Wrote:Neither the sound 'ti' in 'ticking' nor 'tu' in 'tuna' are in the Japanese sound system.

Technically they are now, in the form of ティ and トゥ in certain loanwords and foreign proper names, although the actual realization of these kana combinations varies between speakers (also, even more technically, those aren't sounds, but "morae" or "syllables"). Same goes for ファ, チェ, シェ, ヴ, etc. "Si" (as opposed to "shi") and hu (as opposed to "fu") are absent from the standard language as of now, although I've seen some attempts to approximate the former in fictional proper names, with either スィ or セィ. But yeah, in spite of the innovations most native speakers of Japanese will consider [tɕ] the most natural-sounding realization of the consonant phoneme /t/ followed by the vowel phoneme /i/; ditto for [ts] as /t/ + /u/.

Linval Wrote:That would be a good definition for "efficiency". My definition of "fine" in that case would have been something along the lines of "acceptable".

People ultimately make their mind based on much more complex factors than a simple examination of cold hard facts, and thank God for that.

Yes, that's mostly thanks to "God" (or at least the people claiming to be speaking in his name). But it's not a good thing.

Tzadeck Wrote:Is there any difference between this post and 'Didn't you hear dudes, romaji sucks for learning'? You spend most of your post doing silly things like defining 'a fine method,' but in the end your argument is that romaji is bad for learners based on facts that you don't mention. It's very easy to misjudge ideas, even your own, when they are veiled in vague academic language. You don't actually say anything in this post.

I said quite a lot in it. Just not about romaji. But that much you could've guessed from the first 6 words of the post. They went like this: This is a pretty big aside.

I couldn't have been any clearer that the post was not gonna be about Romaji.

Romaji, I addressed in my previous post. The one in reply to you, which you apparently didn't bother reading. Why is that? If you're looking for romaji talk, what made the post starting with "this is a pretty big aside" more appealing than the previous, on topic post I made?

Could it be that what you're really looking for is not romaji talk, but an opportunity to be a tool?

Stansfield123 Wrote:Romaji, I addressed in my previous post. The one in reply to you, which you apparently didn't bother reading. Why is that?

That post was off topic too. Isn't this thread about the use of romaji by Japanese learners? That post was about the use of katakana by English learners. Not that I mind things being off topic, mind you. I didn't respond because I didn't really agree with it (though it's a fair enough point--some teachers do indeed do things that way), but I didn't want to waste time arguing about that topic. I have a lot of experience teaching English in Japan and I think it's a complicated problem.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Could it be that what you're really looking for is not romaji talk, but an opportunity to be a tool?

Sorry, I don't know what to say. I was a philosophy major, so I'm used to seeing people write like you did in that post. But, frankly, I think what you said was almost meaningless. There's no reason to delineate at length what everyone understands naturally.
"If there's a best way to learn Japanese, then we should learn Japanese that way"
"Umm, okay dude."

ya honestly, I have seen some acerbic posts in retaliation, and acerbic posts trying to be humorous... but i've never seen people get nasty with each other in defense of romaji. this is a first to me... yudan vempele and tzadeck. you guys are being mean in replying to good-faith, constructively critical posts, in order to big up romaji. i don't know if it's more lame or shameful... hmm, more lame, or more shameful... have to think about it.

I'm going to ignore all the arguments and say my opinion on topic, because I really don't care.
Note that pretty much all of my evidence will be anecdotal, since I don't think there's ever been a real study on this topic.

Romaji is a crutch and frankly, it's ugly to look at. To me, the kana, despite being adaptions themselves, work better with the language since they have consistent pronunciation and fit with the lack of standalone consonants.
Romaji is also difficult to read, due to the numerous associations the brain already has with them; personally, I find it difficult to use Japanese pronunciation with romaji, especially when the word in question is one that has been adopted by English speakers or one I have acquired through my great experience in reading manga scanlations.
My point being, it's easier to just learn kana and associate Japanese with them; same with kanji.
My use of romaji in my studies ended as soon as I learned the kana, which was one of the first things I did (I didn't have fancy reviewing methods at the time, so I used romaji as a reminder of the pronunciation I learned; no, I don't know the IPA).

Of course, that's not to say that it's not useful (I almost always use it when talking about Japanese in English, unless it's important to do otherwise), but it's not really useful, in the long run, for Japanese itself. But, this being the case, I think that it's more important for the transcription to match the pronunciation as best as is possible, which is why I dislike most versions of romaji; most of them fail to either represent the language, be consistent representing sounds (like those that use ō to represent both おお and おう, which aren't the same; I prefer oo and ou, since both 'o' and 'u' are already used).
If you're typing in English (or whatever Greek/Latin-derived alphabet using language), then representation of foreign words should take advantage of the sounds available ('ti' would logically be pronounced as such, but it's used to represent ち, which is best represented by 'chi'). This applies to all languages, not just Japanese: use the native script (if it exists) in the language, but if you need to describe it in your native language, use the appropriate transcription (of course, as I said above, some audiences and situations call for the native script).

As for using it to learn... I didn't. I don't recommend it. If it works and you don't care about literacy, then go for it. If you're complaining about not being able to understand or retain words in kana/kanji, then you haven't used them enough and need the practice; how do you practice? By using kana and kanji instead of romaji. Those of you that claim romaji is easier can only say that because that's what you're used to; if you hadn't done all that studying in romaji, you'd find it just as awkward as you find kana.

TL;DR
Romaji sucks if you're aiming for literacy, but is useful for the very beginning of your journey and when using Japanese words in an English passage. Use it for what it's good for and for nothing else.