Arigatou? Arigatoo?

[Dan B]

From my very recent study of Hiragana, I've been wondering if some Romaji translations of Japanese are wrong.

(Please don't hesitate to correct me if, in fact, I am wrong.)

While the Hiragana for "Thank you" (or, perhaps more accurately, the more informal "Thanks") would correlate to the characters

ありがとう

it would seem that the pronunciaton of this word is

a ri ga to o

Though the last syllable uses the Hiragana for "u," I'm given to understand that this merely means that we are to extend the ending vowel-sound of the character "to," resulting in a longer "o" sound.

Yet people seem to write this in Romaji in both ways. "Arigatou" is thus taken to be the same as "Arigatoo"...and we are presumably expected to simply hope that the reader knows what's actually happening with regards to the pronunciation of the Hiragana. But how many beginning learners--for whom we might presume Romaji is really intended--are aware of this subtlety? And how and when are they to learn this subtlety of pronunciation without learning the Hiragana-based rationalization for this seeming inconsistency?

Given that Romaji is ostensibly intended to serve as a means to help non-Japanese people pronounce Japanese words, is it really appropriate to write "Arigatou?" I'm not only asking about this word, of course, since many others follow the same pattern. ("Doomo" versus "doumo," for another simple and related example.)

Which Romaji is actually correct? Or, far more importantly, which pronunciation of Japanese is actually correct?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[m477]

Both/neither. There are several different systems of romanization, none is universally accepted. Do a search for kunrei, Hepburn, hyoujun.

Personally, I prefer "arigatou". Always romanizing like "arigatoo" is ambiguous, since "oo" could represent either 窶堋ｨ窶堋ｨ or 窶堋ｨ窶堋､.

 

[Glenn]

I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons. I think that you may be interested in this message about different ways to romanize the elongated "o" sound.

 

[PaulTB]

I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons.

Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map.

 

[Glenn]

Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map.

True, but I meant when they can be used. I still prefer them when I can't use them, though, I just don't use them.

 

[Dan B]

Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses.

It's a shame that no single standard has emerged, but none of them are really that radically different, I suppose. I should think that a careful student (as I aspire to be) would usually be able to discern the appropriate meaning or pronunciation. Then again, I may well end up in "A Gaijin's Tale" kind of situation where I misinterpret something and end up with my foot in my mouth--or, worse yet, someone else's foot in my mouth!

Interestingly enough, the same topic (methods of writing in Romaji) came up with my father this afternoon. In the late 1970s, he served at the American Embassy in Tokyo and, before he and our family moved to Japan, my dad spent about 6 or 7 months in intensive, full-time study of Japanese. He became quite fluent in that short time, but then he's always been a bit of a linguist, having studied at least 3 different languages in high school. Alas, I don't seem to have inherited his knack for languages.

In any case, he met with me for lunch today to give me an opportunity to practice my very limited Japanese, answer any questions I'd come up with so far, and share some of his notes from when he was studying Japanese.

As I read the Romaji he had used for certain things, it quickly became obvious that he had learned a different Romaji standard than I've picked up from my teacher and texts (for ち he wrote "ti," while I use "chi," for example). He said that was the standard used in Jordan's text on Japanese language at the time.

But it really wasn't difficult to quickly make the transition and read everything that he was writing in Romaji.

So, perhaps I've made much ado about nothing!

Dan

 

[PaulTB]

Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses.

It's a shame that no single standard has emerged

Some people are working on it ;-)

http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/index.html

 

[Kenkaku musei]

Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu.

i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also.


note to readers: did i say that correctly?

 

[PaulTB]

Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu.

i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also.


note to readers: did i say that correctly?

Er, no. I think that was back to front. I'd guess ...

Watashi mo arigatoo yori arigatou no hou ga suki desu.

/me waits to be corrected.

 

[Kenkaku musei]

hai doumo arigatou onegaishimasu

 

[jonny-mt]

Paul's got it right. 'ijou' (以上) is a word meaning 'over' or 'more than' as in quantity...not quality. Still a nice try, though

As for the whole Romaji thing, I've always believed that anyone who really wants to study Japanese needs to learn the phonetic alphabets as quickly as possible. Romaji to me has always been for those who have little to no idea about Japanese, and so the English pronunciation seems to be more important than the accurate spelling.

 

[Kenkaku musei]

ah. i unsderstand thanks

 

[Golgo_13]

I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic.

Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty.

Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you).

 

[PaulTB]

I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic.

Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty.

Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you).

And I've mentioned this before but will again. That theory is a load of crock.

LINGUIST List 12.1906: "Arigato" and "Tempura"

 

[Golgo_13]

Mister Paul Tee Bee,

What's your background in Japanese language studies, would you care to share it with us?

How many years have you studied it, where and how many years have you lived in Japan, etc.

 

[mdchachi]

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory.

 

[PaulTB]

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias.

 

[Golgo_13]

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory.

I wasn't asking you.

You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background.

Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion.

He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority

When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias

Since you won't answer, I'll assume YOU ARE Bart Mathias.

 

[Wakaranai]

Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou

 

[mdchachi]

> I wasn't asking you.

Doesn't matter, this is a public conversation. If you wanted it to be a private question, you'd have sent a PM.

> You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background.

Yes, that's true.

> Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion.

Yes, that's also true. So why ask for somebody's background when they're posting somebody else's opinion?

> He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority

That's your opinion. My opinion is that he said "load of crock" as if he believed his sources to be authoritative. Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner and that's really the only reason why I stuck my nose in.

 

[PaulTB]

It isn't as if this hasn't come up before ...

Non-American-English Foreign Words used in Japan | Japan Forum

 

[Golgo_13]

Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou

Thank you very much

Thank you

Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner

That's the same response I have to you, except I didn't stick my nose in your business.