Japanese Language Stack Exchange
Japanese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [rōmaji]

ローマ字. The various ways in which Japanese can be transliterated into the Latin script.

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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 they just put the English word instead - "police…
Mac
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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't to me.)
Petruza
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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 schools. For every case where there are variants…
Nicolas Raoul
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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'. Instinctively, I went with 'zed' as a pronunciation, which…
Dave
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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 input and converts the phrase, determines the…
Eliseo D'Annunzio
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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 + (M, N, V, W ...) When I use some online converter…
Pii83
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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 thought was to call it "Roman numerals", but…
silvermaple
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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?
Fabián
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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 cases I should use which. As you can see I've made…
RPAnimation
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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 think there are many advantages.
Madcowe
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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 katakana, while this Wikipedia entry on JRuby uses…
Andrew Grimm
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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 children the English name John, can they avoid using…
Maxim
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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 will profess that their way of saying / spelling it is…
Jack B Nimble
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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 a problem, but a word like 音{おん}韻{いん} would be…
Paul
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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 writes: 柔術 (hiragana じゅうじゅつ, rōmaji jūjutsu,…
mic
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