RandomQuotes Wrote:

James736 Wrote:You would be far better off writing the pronunciations in kana. Romaji is evil.

You'd be better off arguing this point with a brick wall.

LOL! That's true.

James736 Wrote:I would venture to say it's more common than Kunreishiki, even though Kunrei is apparently still taught in some schools.

Taught in all schools, and still the official curriculum nationwide. Also, I think it's by far the most commonly used, because almost all Japanese type in it, and people type millions of things a day. It's not the most commonly seen, perhaps, since transportation signs in Japan use Hepburn. Still though, when companies or businesses write romaji for no good reason all over the place, it's often in kunreishiki.

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.
It seems like I should put a space in between.

TBH I don't even think you would get a consistent answer from Japanese people. I know when I first starting having Japanese penpals in romaji it was common to get both 'tabemasu' and 'tabe masu'

I don't the concept of a single word is a well defined in japanese

Tzadeck Wrote:

James736 Wrote:I would venture to say it's more common than Kunreishiki, even though Kunrei is apparently still taught in some schools.

Taught in all schools, and still the official curriculum nationwide. Also, I think it's by far the most commonly used, because almost all Japanese type in it, and people type millions of things a day. It's not the most commonly seen, perhaps, since transportation signs in Japan use Hepburn. Still though, when companies or businesses write romaji for no good reason all over the place, it's often in kunreishiki.

So do they teach a specific way to transcribe names when they're learning romaji? I'm curious, because I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese name written in kunreishiki (to my uncaring eye, the names tend to look more like what I use).
Of course, I've only seen romanized Japanese names in English content, so it could just be that the writer didn't want to use kunreishiki for the same reasons I don't (unintuitive to English speakers).

@tetsueda
Assuming that you're actually from Sweden, does Swedish handle compounds like German, where you just smack words together, sans spaces or hyphens, to make a compound word?
Just curious, as it might explain your preference to shove words together...

Tzadeck Wrote:

James736 Wrote:I would venture to say it's more common than Kunreishiki, even though Kunrei is apparently still taught in some schools.

Taught in all schools, and still the official curriculum nationwide. Also, I think it's by far the most commonly used, because almost all Japanese type in it, and people type millions of things a day. It's not the most commonly seen, perhaps, since transportation signs in Japan use Hepburn. Still though, when companies or businesses write romaji for no good reason all over the place, it's often in kunreishiki.

Hepburn is also taught in schools. But actually I think what they do with romaji in Japan is irrelevant to non-native learners of Japanese for three reasons: 1) romaji is for transliterating Japanese into other languages; Japanese people have no need for it except in the context of learning English, 2) Hepburn is far more intuitive and a far closer approximation of Japanese pronunciation, at least for a native English speaker, and 3) Hepburn is far more commonly used in academia, and also in English-language translations of Japanese works generally. I know that some Japanese officials insist on Kunrei, but it's as silly as Korea's announcement a few years ago that we should all romanize their country's name with a C, which everyone proceeded to completely ignore. There's a reason why academia uses modified Hepburn: it's because it's the best available system.

As for the debates over romaji vs kana, I would have thought it was obvious that, as Heisig himself says, if you want to learn Japanese you need to learn kana and not rely on romaji, but I wasn't aware this had been a controversial thing here.

sholum Wrote:So do they teach a specific way to transcribe names when they're learning romaji? I'm curious, because I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese name written in kunreishiki (to my uncaring eye, the names tend to look more like what I use).
Of course, I've only seen romanized Japanese names in English content, so it could just be that the writer didn't want to use kunreishiki for the same reasons I don't (unintuitive to English speakers).

Well, when they first learn romaji they learn kunreishiki in 4th grade. That's all they learn officially. From junior high first grade (i.e., 7th grade) they have English class, and many teachers teach the students to use Hepburn when writing in English. However, while kunreishiki is part of the official curriculum, I don't believe Hepburn is mentioned specifically by the Ministry of Education even though they do have guidelines on English teaching (I could be wrong--does anyone know for sure?). Certainly, my students used kunreishiki all the time when using Japanese words and names in English, so Hepburn was no drilled into their heads as well as it could have been.

Because they learn it earlier, and because it maps up better with how Japanese people organize the kana in the heads, the more intuitive system for most Japanese is kunreishiki. Perhaps Japanese who are very good at English or another romance/Germanic language find Hepburn equally as intuitive; depends on the individual I suppose.

Anyway, you're not likely to find kunreishiki in English texts except very rarely. It doesn't make sense to use kunreishiki in that context.

James736 Wrote:As for the debates over romaji vs kana, I would have thought it was obvious that, as Heisig himself says, if you want to learn Japanese you need to learn kana and not rely on romaji, but I wasn't aware this had been a controversial thing here.

It's not, john555 just has a learning system far removed from the average koohii regular. Many of the textbooks he uses are old as dirt too. Apparently it's working out quite well for him, but that it does bewilders me.

In other words, when talking about romaji with john555, just forget trying to switch him to kana only for transcriptions, it will keep the topic from becoming a mess.

EDIT:
@Tzadeck
I see, so it is because I'm only seeing them romanized in English texts. Thanks for the explanation.
(Speaking on names, I really need to practice reading the common ones... More and more often, the unknowns on a page are names that I can't read (at least I know enough to know that they're names).)

James736 Wrote:1) romaji is for transliterating Japanese into other languages; Japanese people have no need for it except in the context of learning English,

As many friends have found out, that is not even close to the only place Japanese people use Romaji.

All interaction with the world outside involves romanization of names, starting with the passport on out.

In the post 9/11 world, that can cause major f-ing problems, when all the documents don't match. Try and convince a bank to change the name on account to match your passport, or marriage license, or etc. It takes court orders just to force them to do these things. Hospitalization when the passport name does not match the insurance card? Sleep in the streets, broken leg dude. Clearing customs and immigration?

And the list goes on, and on.

Hepburn sucks, Kunreisiki sucks.

kapalama Wrote:

James736 Wrote:1) romaji is for transliterating Japanese into other languages; Japanese people have no need for it except in the context of learning English,

As many friends have found out, that is not even close to the only place Japanese people use Romaji.

All interaction with the world outside involves romanization of names, starting with the passport on out.

In the post 9/11 world, that can cause major f-ing problems, when all the documents don't match. Try and convince a bank to change the name on account to match your passport, or marriage license, or etc. It takes court orders just to force them to do these things. Hospitalization when the passport name does not match the insurance card? Sleep in the streets, broken leg dude. Clearing customs and immigration?

And the list goes on, and on.

Hepburn sucks, Kunreisiki sucks.

Writing a Japanese name in the Latin alphabet is transliterating... It was badly phrased but what I meant was that there's no need for Japanese to use romaji in the context of their own language, only in the context of other languages.

And speaking of names, it's been my experience that all Japanese people use a modified form of Hepburn for personal names as well as for most place names. I have never met a Zyuniti, a Zyoutarou, a Humiko, a Siniti or a Mitiko.

The thing is 99% of Japanese keyboards use romaji input so most people use it every day of their lives in Japan.

James736 Wrote:(…) it's as silly as Korea's announcement a few years ago that we should all romanize their country's name with a C, which everyone proceeded to completely ignore.

I see some bias in this statement: French, Spanish and Portuguese speakers use "C" in Corée / Corea / Coréia. Close to one billion people in total ;-)

James736 Wrote:And speaking of names, it's been my experience that all Japanese people use a modified form of Hepburn for personal names as well as for most place names. I have never met a Zyuniti, a Zyoutarou, a Humiko, a Siniti or a Mitiko.

(Here's the thing though, you have met them, and they input their names like that whenever they write them.)

There are plenty of Onoh's, Uyesugi's, Shinpei's, Kahala's, Inouye's, Lisa's, Lilly's.

Here's what is true. Some people have no problems because they have some simple alignment. That does not mean others do not have problems. It's like all problems: they are not real except to the people having them.

I am not making up the difficulties faced by people who have been in a fight to align their "names" with their names. It is incredibly frustrating to look someone from DHS in the face as they tell a Japanese person what their name is. It comes across as the sort of racist depersonalization that used to happen at Ellis Island when people had their family histories thrown out.

And in the end, non-Japanese people having opinions about Romanization sounds the same as the Ellis Island racist depersonalization project. Kunreisiki makes the most sense for Japanese people, because Japan. It just does not look/sound right to us. And then we mispronounce their names. So people who know they are going overseas might want to align their names to American's expectations.

But that's our problem.

kapalama Wrote:

James736 Wrote:And speaking of names, it's been my experience that all Japanese people use a modified form of Hepburn for personal names as well as for most place names. I have never met a Zyuniti, a Zyoutarou, a Humiko, a Siniti or a Mitiko.

(Here's the thing though, you have met them, and they input their names like that whenever they write them.)

They may input their names that way when they're typing, but they don't spell them that way when they write them in English; if it were true that Kunreishiki was most common for names, the PM would spell his name Abe Sinzou.

As you say, there are exceptions, but how much of that is actually Kureishiki and how much is down to other factors, like English words influencing romanization choices (O"no" vs Onoh); English speakers' lack of familiarity with Japanese pronunciation rules (ue = "oo"? "ooee"? "yooee"?), and English names (Lisa)?

kapalama Wrote:And in the end, non-Japanese people having opinions about Romanization sounds the same as the Ellis Island racist depersonalization project. Kunreisiki makes the most sense for Japanese people, because Japan. It just does not look/sound right to us. And then we mispronounce their names. So people who know they are going overseas might want to align their names to American's expectations.

I think this is nonsense. First of all, there's a difference between typing Japanese on keyboard and romanizing it. Second, your claim that non-Japanese people having opinions about romanization is racist is bizarre. I would also question your claim that Kunrei "makes the most sense" for Japanese people: it may be what many Japanese people are used to, but that's down to familiarity, not logic.

Aside from typing, Japanese people use romaji almost exclusively when they need to represent Japanese words for the benefit of non-Japanese-speaking people. As I said before, how people romanize Japanese in Japan is irrelevant to how we romanize it outside Japan. There's a reason why Kunreishiki doesn't look right: it's because for native English speakers Hepburn most closely approximates the pronunciation of Japanese in the Latin alphabet. On the other hand, how someone wants to spell their name is their affair. If you're うえすぎ　りさ　and you prefer the spelling Uyesugi Lisa, fill your boots.

kapalama Wrote:And in the end, non-Japanese people having opinions about Romanization sounds the same as the Ellis Island racist depersonalization project. Kunreisiki makes the most sense for Japanese people, because Japan. It just does not look/sound right to us. And then we mispronounce their names. So people who know they are going overseas might want to align their names to American's expectations.

That SJW way of seeing everyone who's not a white (male, straight, fit, mentally 'normal') American as a victim is disgusting and far more racist than deciding how to best represent the sounds of Japanese in written English. As I said in my reply to the original topic, your audience is most important when deciding how to represent anything.

And what about the people with difficult to pronounce English names going to Japan? Do you think I shouldn't be courteous to the people who have to talk to me by insisting I be called by my full name? It's only common sense to set up all your legal documents with the same name (I don't know how people have to deal with this as immigrants or tourists, but there is no legally binding document that you can't review before its submitted), but that doesn't mean you can't be referred to with an alias/pseudonym/nickname. Anyone that goes to a foreign country should bend to their standards in order to maintain a smooth relationship. It's highly unlikely that most are important enough to warrant people kissing ass and begging on their hands and knees for forgiveness when they screw up a name.
(In other words, it's the individual's responsibility to ensure they spell their name the same way on all legal documents.)

"Racist depersonalization" my ass! If there are problems with government employees (or any employees) then they need to be addressed, but there is no systemic racism in the US, Canada, or the UK. As for the 'depersonalization' part of that, of course you're depersonalized! Government offices or any other system that handles people constantly, unless otherwise required for the proper execution of their duties, don't care about anyone that goes in there. You ever been to the DMV? Jury duty? Court? You are an object in the system, a number, nothing more, and that goes for everyone, citizen or not.

As for spelling, people screw up one of my names all the time, and it's a simple name! I mean, how hard is Sean, really? Do my fee-fees get hurt when they mess it up? No, because that's not a common spelling where I'm from. When you're dealing with people with names from all sorts of languages, you can't expect everyone to know them all! That's why, if you have a choice (as when romanizing a name), you make it easier for the people you expect to see it.
And come on, if you're dealing with people regularly, you can just tell them how to pronounce your name and then laugh to yourself when they can't get it exactly right. A Japanese person I was talking to was joking with me about how Americans can't understand the sound りょ and think it sounds like ぎょ, for a relevant example of a proper response.

sholum Wrote:Assuming that you're actually from Sweden, does Swedish handle compounds like German, where you just smack words together, sans spaces or hyphens, to make a compound word?
Just curious, as it might explain your preference to shove words together...

We do, but I wouldn't call it "shove words together", but rather "keeping words together". That's why I proposed to translate something from English to any other Germanic language, i.e. one with basically the same grammar and so fourth, but with a consistent orthography when it comes to writing compounds. Just because you can separate 集団心理 into 集団 and 心理 does not make it two words. A Chinese person might regard it as four words, but that doesn't mean that it makes linguistic sense to do so.

James736 Wrote:As I said before, how people romanize Japanese in Japan is irrelevant to how we romanize it outside Japan. There's a reason why Kunreishiki doesn't look right: . On the other hand, how someone wants to spell their name is their affair.

Every sentence there is 100% wrong for exactly the reasons I gave.

Oops. Accidentally fail to remove a correct statement.

kapalama Wrote:

James736 Wrote:As I said before, how people romanize Japanese in Japan is irrelevant to how we romanize it outside Japan. There's a reason why Kunreishiki doesn't look right: . On the other hand, how someone wants to spell their name is their affair.

Every sentence there is 100% wrong for exactly the reasons I gave.

Oops. Accidentally fail to remove a correct statement.

Your last post was confusingly written, but now I actually have no idea what you're trying to say. As for "reasons," you wrote some nonsense in your last post about DHS (whatever that is), and Ellis Island (?!), and non-Japanese people being racist if they have an opinion about romanization (!!!), so I think it's fairly safe to say you have no idea what you're talking about.

James736 Wrote:DHS (whatever that is)

Department of Homeland Security (probably).

James736 Wrote:Ellis Island (?!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Detention and deportation station

Vempele Wrote:

James736 Wrote:Ellis Island (?!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island#Detention and deportation station

I know about Ellis Island. I don't know why it's being brought up in a discussion of romanization, except that, I guess, some new arrivals might have been assigned English or Anglicised names when they arrived there. What that has to do with the matter at hand is anyone's guess.