News Official romanisation rules to be revised for first time in 70 years

[nice gaijin]

That's been my opinion, too, but a lot of the people I've spoken to don't think they need it. And to be completely honest they don't because once the initial infatuation has died down, most of them don't take it much further. It is sigh-inducing, however, to hear an entire community insisting that I am wrong simply because their peers say so - their peers who, incidentally, have never studied Japanese either. Watching anime for 5 years does help some things but it does not make you immune to mistakes. Ah, well..

ah, yeeeeah clearly they know best, since they rely on their waifus to proofread for them

When I come across a self-proclaimed expert, I remind myself that mountaineering is a solitary sport and our only chance of survival is to leave them on the summit of "mount stupid" and start the treacherous descent.

 

[Buntaro]

I know a Japanese-American lady in Hawaii, her last name is Honma, and she really pronounces it Honma!

 

[Ukigumo]

I can't count how many times I've had arguments online with young people in particular who would consistently say 'sanpo' or similar for words they hadn't heard many times. I tried explaining the rules but "It doesn't say 'm' so why should I pronounce it that way?" Consistency is key, and I really think the 'm' helped me a lot when I was studying Japanese.

When I hear Japanese people using the honorific suffix, 'san' it sounds a bit like 'sang'.

 

[nice gaijin]

When I hear Japanese people using the honorific suffix, 'san' it sounds a bit like 'sang'.

The pronunciation of the moraic nasal ん is determined by its context: it adopts the place of articulation of the following sound, but it is always a nasalized sound. There are like 6-7 different expressions of this single mora, which is one of the reasons romanization for phonetic accuracy is so challenging.

/ng/, or [ŋ] in IPA, is one of the many ways the ん character is expressed, when the following sound is velar (occurs in the soft palate), like in sangaku and sanka.

When the ん appears in a word or sentence-final position, with no following sound that modifies it, it's usually expressed as a uvular nasal [ɴ], which indeed sounds very much like [ŋ] (the location is just slightly further back).

There are others of course, which you could find in this wiki article: Japanese phonology - Moraic Nasal - Wikipedia

 

[mdchachi]

I know a Japanese-American lady in Hawaii, her last name is Honma, and she really pronounces it Honma!

That's the correct pronunciation, and spelling for ほんま. I used to work with a Honma-san too.

 

[Ukigumo]

That's the correct pronunciation, and spelling for ほんま. I used to work with a Honma-san too.

You mean Honma sang Or do you?

 

[Lothor]

When I hear Japanese people using the honorific suffix, 'san' it sounds a bit like 'sang'.

I have a Japanese-English translator friend who is at the top of the profession, and she always calls me Jack-sang in her messages.

 

[Ukigumo]

I have a Japanese-English translator friend who is at the top of the profession, and she always calls me Jack-sang in her messages.

Do you have a reasonable singing voice? I'm imagining you first album of rat pack jazz/swing classics being called, 'Jack Sang'!

 

[Lothor]

Do you have a reasonable singing voice? I'm imagining you first album of rat pack jazz/swing classics being called, 'Jack Sang'!

No, my singing is bloody awful!

 

[Ukigumo]

No, my singing is bloody awful!

That doesn't stop anyone, these days...