Romajization Guidlines
Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 12:35 pm
AniDB need more strict guidlines how romanization shuld take place. Now everyone do as thay think is rigth witch ends up in no consistent at all.
Here is a few thinks we need to find guidelines for:
1. Hepburn or Kunrei
Hepburn and Kunrai are different at some points.
Hepburn is more suteabel for a native English speaker whene the romaji script better follows the English pronouction rules. One problem with Hepburn is that じ and ぢ both becomes ji - the same is that both ず and づ becoumes zu.
Kunrai dosen't have any double meaning in that way but dosen't realy show how the world shuld be pronounced.
2. Capital letters
There are a few ways to use cappital letters in romanization.
a. You can use capital letter for katakana and non-capital for hiragana
b. You can use capital letters in begining of words, except particals like wa, o, e, no etc.
c. You can use capital letters in the begining of a sentence - e.g. just the first letter in a title
Again all three methodes have there advantages and disadvantages.
3. Furigana
Japanese people like to play with kanji and make them pronounce in a compleately different why to what thay usualy are. - in those cases shuld we have the natural reading, the changed reading or both in the romaji field, if we have both the pronuncations have shuld we write them.
There are two main tracks nowdays:
a. Only use the changed pronuncation
b. Use both pronuncations like: natural-pronnuncation [changed-pronuncation]
4. Adopted english words
In Japanese you time to time use adopted english words - there allready is a way to spell them in roman script. The qustion here is shuld we use the english spelling of the word or shuld we use the Japanes spelling.
Some words is hardly recognizeabel whene we use to Japanes spelling.
(ハート)haato = heart
(ラブ)rabu = love
We also have exampels where there is a shortened word or term
(パソコン)pasokon = personal computer
5. Particals
The particals are romanizated a litte bit different some times.
we need to deside if を shuld be wo or o, は shuld be ha or wa etc.
6. the n character (ん or ン)
n can do much troubell - shuld we mar it in some way lika write n' if the followed character is y or a voule - my dictionary uses ñ, shuld we adopet it
Here is a few thinks we need to find guidelines for:
1. Hepburn or Kunrei
Hepburn and Kunrai are different at some points.
Hepburn is more suteabel for a native English speaker whene the romaji script better follows the English pronouction rules. One problem with Hepburn is that じ and ぢ both becomes ji - the same is that both ず and づ becoumes zu.
Kunrai dosen't have any double meaning in that way but dosen't realy show how the world shuld be pronounced.
2. Capital letters
There are a few ways to use cappital letters in romanization.
a. You can use capital letter for katakana and non-capital for hiragana
b. You can use capital letters in begining of words, except particals like wa, o, e, no etc.
c. You can use capital letters in the begining of a sentence - e.g. just the first letter in a title
Again all three methodes have there advantages and disadvantages.
3. Furigana
Japanese people like to play with kanji and make them pronounce in a compleately different why to what thay usualy are. - in those cases shuld we have the natural reading, the changed reading or both in the romaji field, if we have both the pronuncations have shuld we write them.
There are two main tracks nowdays:
a. Only use the changed pronuncation
b. Use both pronuncations like: natural-pronnuncation [changed-pronuncation]
4. Adopted english words
In Japanese you time to time use adopted english words - there allready is a way to spell them in roman script. The qustion here is shuld we use the english spelling of the word or shuld we use the Japanes spelling.
Some words is hardly recognizeabel whene we use to Japanes spelling.
(ハート)haato = heart
(ラブ)rabu = love
We also have exampels where there is a shortened word or term
(パソコン)pasokon = personal computer
5. Particals
The particals are romanizated a litte bit different some times.
we need to deside if を shuld be wo or o, は shuld be ha or wa etc.
6. the n character (ん or ン)
n can do much troubell - shuld we mar it in some way lika write n' if the followed character is y or a voule - my dictionary uses ñ, shuld we adopet it