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Need help in writing "Ah" in katakana

hiverloon

先輩
23 Aug 2015
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Can someone please help me how to write a stop consonant "h" such as in "Ah", is it アフ or アー or something else?
 
Can someone please help me how to write a stop consonant "h" such as in "Ah", is it アフ or アー or something else?

There is no such thing in normal Japanese.

Could you tell us more about what you're trying to say or do, please? We may be able to help you better.
 
There is no such thing in normal Japanese.

Could you tell us more about what you're trying to say or do, please? We may be able to help you better.
That's why I am writing it in Katakana, it's not a Japanese word. I am trying to write a stop h like in "Ah", just the way it's pronounced in English.
 
That's why I am writing it in Katakana, it's not a Japanese word. I am trying to write a stop h like in "Ah", just the way it's pronounced in English.

If that was something that was always pronounced the same in English, I wouldn't have had to ask for clarification.
 
That's why I am writing it in Katakana, it's not a Japanese word. I am trying to write a stop h like in "Ah", just the way it's pronounced in English.
That's a silly thing to try to do. Japanese phonetics don't line up precisely with English phonetics.

アッ as suggested above is similar to a very curt, brief 'ah', (like a disgruntled 'Ah, right.') Depending on the speaker. It's not just short but -cut- short with a glottal stop.

while アー is a longer, almost sighing sort of 'ahh' (like 'Ahhh, what a nice relaxing bath'.

The sort of medium 'ah' of 'Ah, yes I see' that is most common in English doesn't really exist in Japanese and there's no way to precisely represent it.

Also the sound is carried smoothly through in all the Japanese versions, while the English 'ah' (when not clipped) does an odd descent into breathiness (represented by the 'h' even though there's no real 'h' sound there). I'm sure there's an phonetics term for that but I don't know it, but anyway it doesn't exist in Japanese.

You're in luck to have 2 near-equivalents in this case, but in many cases you can't even get this close.
 
Ok if that still doesn't help, imagine a video game developer wants to name one his character "Noah", then how would he write it in Katakana?
 
Ok if that still doesn't help, imagine a video game developer wants to name one his character "Noah", then how would he write it in Katakana?
What difference can that possibly make? The 'ah' in 'Noah' isn't the same sound as the exclamation 'ah'.
It happens to be ノア, as you can easily tell by looking it up in the Names dictionary at wwwjdic, WWWJDIC: Word Search
 
This brings to mind the idea of a person trying to leash a cat.

Trying to get the Japanese language to conform to the phonetic rules of English gives me mental images of a cat either struggling out of a leash and collar or being dragged along as it refuses to cooperate with being taken for a walk.
 
Never mind, I figure it out already after playing around with google translate and check how certain combination of Katakana I have in mind is pronounced by native accent.
 
This brings to mind the idea of a person trying to leash a cat.

Trying to get the Japanese language to conform to the phonetic rules of English gives me mental images of a cat either struggling out of a leash and collar or being dragged along as it refuses to cooperate with being taken for a walk.
Hah, that's a pretty good image.

I think in practice it's more like the round-peg-square-hole situation. Only, sure, English and Japanese both have the basic round and square shapes (ie, some overlap on basic sounds), but in this case you're trying to get the rhombus-shaped peg to fit into something and you only have the square and the rectangle holes that are close.

Solution: Use a foam-rubber peg that is nice and flexible, and pick whichever hole you like better.
 
This brings to mind the idea of a person trying to leash a cat.

Trying to get the Japanese language to conform to the phonetic rules of English gives me mental images of a cat either struggling out of a leash and collar or being dragged along as it refuses to cooperate with being taken for a walk.
Not really. In fact, the word I want to translate into Katakana is not an English word to begin with. I was trying to find an English syllable whose prononciation is more or less equivalent to the original word. If I posted the original word, that will give people here less idea of how it's supposed to be spoken since most members do not come from the same country as mine.
 
Not really. In fact, the word I want to translate into Katakana is not an English word to begin with. I was trying to find an English syllable whose prononciation is more or less equivalent to the original word. If I posted the original word, that will give people here less idea of how it's supposed to be spoken since most members do not come from the same country as mine.
If it sounds similar to the Ah in the name Ahmed, You can probably use 'fu' for the h-sound considering the u is pretty much silent and the f is pronounced like a combination of h and f. So it'd become アフメッド. So アフ works in some cases, but it might sound kinda off if there's nothing after the フ. If it's a brief a-sound without an h-sound at the end, you're looking for アッ. If it's a longer a-sound without an h-sound at the end, you're looking for アー.
 
If it sounds similar to the Ah in the name Ahmed,
More or less may be yes. But I have decided to abandon the h sound because when pronounced, it imitates closer to how it's supposed to sound (I use google translate to check how it sounded).
 
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