The compound is 集団心理 "mass psychology".

Should I romanise it "syuudan sinri" or "syuudansinri"? Thanks.

That's the way the Japanese speakers themselves would be likely to romanize it.

The most commonly accepted romanization (for English speakers) would look like this: Shūdan shinri.

I'd go for 'shuudan shinri' or "shuudan shin'ri" (possibly with a hyphen instead of a space).

the letter hats (forgot what they are called) are unintuitive for most English speakers and 'syu' is incredibly unintuitive. This compound is made of multiple 'words': 集団 and 心理; so it makes more sense in English to separate the two 'words' (it also makes it easier to read). It's all about making the pronunciation more intuitive to foreigners who don't know Japanese.

This is assuming this isn't for personal use; if it is, then I'd say go for the one that has the space (it's easier on the eyes)... I know that you and I will never agree when it comes to the use of romanization for (written) language study...

The standard in academic publications is to use the macrons over the vowels (with some minor exceptions like Tokyo). Which type of romanization to use depends on the field, usually, and the target audience.

As for spaces, you have to consult a style guide, like the one for Monumenta Nipponica. There's no universal standard.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

You're "write" on why they write it like that with the romanizations. And, to be honest, I'm sure that that method suits Japanese needs just fine-- they have no particular attachment to "sh," so it only makes sense that they'd imitate the Japanese "spelling" of the sounds for romanization.

That being said, in English, even though "sh" sounds nothing like [sh], it's treated tied so heavily to it's common pronunciation (in a very 当て字-esque way, come to think of it), that "sh" is pretty much the main way speakers "visualize" the phoneme (even though you have stuff like "ignition" and "censure" that also include the sound). So for an English speaking audience, using the "sh" spelling as a crutch is probably the most effective way to get the real pronunciation across.

Raulsen Wrote:And, to be honest, I'm sure that that method suits Japanese needs just fine-- they have no particular attachment to "sh," so it only makes sense that they'd imitate the Japanese "spelling" of the sounds for romanization.

If I remember correctly, the romanization system that uses 'y' as in 'syu' was made by a Japanese guy who wanted to make a system intuitive to the Japanese rather than to Romance/Germanic language speakers (this was Nihon-shiki, which was adopted into the modern Kunren-shiki) . And I think he advocated getting rid of kana and kanji in its favor.

Anyway, 'syu' is what Japanese learn when they learn romanization in 4th grade, and its use is supported by the Ministry of Education. They might learn 'shu' in English class, but it's not officially in the curriculum.

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

I agree that it probably makes more sense to the Japanese, but is your audience Japanese? I've always been taught to write for my audience, so I'm suggesting the same: if your audience isn't Japanese, I heavily recommend using a spelling more intuitive for non-Japanese.
(Even knowing what it's supposed to represent, I still can't help but read 'syu' with a 'y' sound...)

Of course, you know your audience better than I do.

RE: macrons (apparently what the hat things are called; too lazy to verify with Google)
This is one of the gripes I have with the common ways of romanizing Japanese, because you can't tell the difference between おお and おう (and I'm sure we all agree that these are two distinct constructs). So I don't use them.

sholum Wrote:I'd go for 'shuudan shinri' or "shuudan shin'ri" (possibly with a hyphen instead of a space).

Apostrophes are used to indicate the difference between sounds that would otherwise be indistinguishable in rōmaji, such as じゅにち junichi vs じゅんいち jun'ichi. Because there's no such confusion with しんり shinri, you don't need one.

James736 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:I'd go for 'shuudan shinri' or "shuudan shin'ri" (possibly with a hyphen instead of a space).

Apostrophes are used to indicate the difference between sounds that would otherwise be indistinguishable in rōmaji, such as じゅにち junichi vs じゅんいち jun'ichi. Because there's no such confusion with しんり shinri, you don't need one.

I agree, but sometimes regular representation is better than contextual representation. Depending on the context, it could be better to always indicated ん with " n' ". It's not something I do though, thus the first suggestion.

For whatever reason, I find foreign (not imported) words to be most legible in caps. I know the convention is to use italics.

As they say, "When in Sinzyuku, do as the Shinjuku people do." I don't agree with that sentiment at all, for Japanese.

For a non-Japanese audience, write it however it's needed to get them to be able to use the word, however haltingly. Break words into bite sized pieces, romanize without Macrons, or double vowels, and use English spelling conventions like Sh(sy) chi(ti) Shi(si) Ju(not jyu, not zyu).

It can go to extremes, but if communication is the goal, you have kana for J-literate audiences, and sound representational romaji for roman letters.

Chinese uses pinyin as a native romanization system, and so they have a system which can leave outsiders not knowing how to pronounce things. Nv, Qing, Xing. But that's using a system that does not have ambiguity in representation (if you include tones).

I'd write it as one word, because... well it is one word. I see no good reason to use English-style open compounds when romanizing another language.

tetsueda Wrote:I'd write it as one word, because... well it is one word. I see no good reason to use English-style open compounds when romanizing another language.

How do you know they're one word? 集団 is a word, so is 心理. It's either a two word noun string, or a one word compound. I don't know how to distinguish between the two.

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

I agree that it probably makes more sense to the Japanese, but is your audience Japanese? I've always been taught to write for my audience, so I'm suggesting the same: if your audience isn't Japanese, I heavily recommend using a spelling more intuitive for non-Japanese.
(Even knowing what it's supposed to represent, I still can't help but read 'syu' with a 'y' sound...)

Of course, you know your audience better than I do.

Actually, I myself am my audience! . As I review the kanji compounds, I write the pronunciations in romaji. This is just my own personal preference, for my own private notes. Although when I practice reading, of course the material is all kanji and kana.

I got into the habit of kunrei-siki because that's what my first Japanese textbook used.

john555 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

I agree that it probably makes more sense to the Japanese, but is your audience Japanese? I've always been taught to write for my audience, so I'm suggesting the same: if your audience isn't Japanese, I heavily recommend using a spelling more intuitive for non-Japanese.
(Even knowing what it's supposed to represent, I still can't help but read 'syu' with a 'y' sound...)

Of course, you know your audience better than I do.

Actually, I myself am my audience! . As I review the kanji compounds, I write the pronunciations in romaji. This is just my own personal preference, for my own private notes. Although when I practice reading, of course the material is all kanji and kana.

I got into the habit of kunrei-siki because that's what my first Japanese textbook used.

If it's for your own notes, romanize it however the hell you want. No one else is going to see it, it doesn't matter.

sholum Wrote:RE: macrons (apparently what the hat things are called; too lazy to verify with Google)
This is one of the gripes I have with the common ways of romanizing Japanese, because you can't tell the difference between おお and おう (and I'm sure we all agree that these are two distinct constructs). So I don't use them.

The おう spelling reminds me of another question. Am I correct assuming that, e.g., せおう（背負う）and のもう（飲もう）are pronounced differently?
For my own use, I usually transliterate as seou / nomō. And, for the few cases spelt as おお in hiragana, such as おおきい（大きい), I just keep the two "o"s : ookii.

Does this make sense to anybody?

Edit: typos corrected

jmignot Wrote:The おう spelling reminds me of another question. Am I correct assuming that, e.g., せおう（背負う）and のもう（飲もう）are pronounced differently?

That's right--in 背負う you actually pronounce a う sound, but in 飲もう you just lengthen the お sound. (A lot of J-E dictionaries distinguish between these explicitly)

RandomQuotes Wrote:If it's for your own notes, romanize it however the hell you want. No one else is going to see it, it doesn't matter.

Well, God will see it! (LOL). Seriously, even if it's just for my own use, I want to be in the habit of doing it correctly.

Tzadeck Wrote:

tetsueda Wrote:I'd write it as one word, because... well it is one word. I see no good reason to use English-style open compounds when romanizing another language.

How do you know they're one word? 集団 is a word, so is 心理. It's either a two word noun string, or a one word compound. I don't know how to distinguish between the two.

I confess that I've never heard of noun strings before, and after looking it up it seems to be a subset open compounds. The idea of looking at nouns as modifiers seems grammatically suspect to me. I mean, if you would take a "noun string", translate it word-by-word (or morpheme-by-morpheme) to another Germanic language, would it then, (assuming that the corresponding word existed in the other language) magically turn into a compound word, rather than a noun string just because of the peculiarities of English orthography?

Japanese see these as two words themselves. (I just asked a couple.)

And the only reason they do not separate them when written in kana/kanji is because they do separate anything when they write natively.

When they write Romaji (as they all used to have to before non-Japanese OSes could not render Japanese) in say e-mails, they would separate words into meaningful chunks.

集団 is atomic, as it 心理. You can divide them but you lose meaning. But 集団心理 is not.

Here is what I found on the denshi jisho:


集団心理 shuudanshinri mass psychology


http://classic.jisho.org/words?jap=%E9%9...&romaji=on

john555 Wrote:

sholum Wrote:

john555 Wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses.

It seems like I should put a space in between. Re: syu for shu: I think the idea behind "syu" is to show (syow? lol) that syu is made up of し + ゆ (si + yu) and I think they write "si" instead of "shi" because "si" looks better in the sequence: sa si su se so.

I agree that it probably makes more sense to the Japanese, but is your audience Japanese? I've always been taught to write for my audience, so I'm suggesting the same: if your audience isn't Japanese, I heavily recommend using a spelling more intuitive for non-Japanese.
(Even knowing what it's supposed to represent, I still can't help but read 'syu' with a 'y' sound...)

Of course, you know your audience better than I do.

Actually, I myself am my audience! . As I review the kanji compounds, I write the pronunciations in romaji. This is just my own personal preference, for my own private notes. Although when I practice reading, of course the material is all kanji and kana.

I got into the habit of kunrei-siki because that's what my first Japanese textbook used.

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

But if you do use romaji, you'd be better off getting used to Modified Hepburn, which is the most commonly used in academic writing in English. Even in Japan Hepburn is very commonly learned in schools and very commonly used on street signs. I would venture to say it's more common than Kunreishiki, even though Kunrei is apparently still taught in some schools.

I also used kunreishiki, albeit a slightly modified version, when I was starting out. It will make absolutely no difference in the long run; though, my professors in university were adamant about using kunreishiki rather than Hepburn.

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

Let's not have this debate yet again, though. There was a time when every single thread john555 posted in devolved into romaji vs. kana and it was the most pointless thing ever.

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.