Suggestion needed for Japanese to Romaji converter

haibuihoang · 22 Apr 2012

Hi everyone,

I am developing this tool for convert Japanese text to Romaji.
RomajiDesu - Convert Japanese text to Romaji!

The tool will look up Japanese words and short phrase to get the pronunciation and meaning if possible.

I need your comments to be able to impreove it. Is it useful for learning Japanese (for example Kanji)? There're some cases, one Kanji words may mean different meanings, what I can do with that?

Arigatou gozaimasu!

Mike Cash · 22 Apr 2012

It's interesting, but I thought there were already some browser add-ons which can do the same thing.

There are some cases where something can have two entirely different readings. I tried 大和 (Yamato or Daiwa) and 八幡 (Yahata or Hachiman) by inputting both romaji versions and converting to kanji, but only got one romaji version no matter which way I did it. I doubt there is anything that can be done about that, though, and fortunately that sort of thing isn't common.

haibuihoang · 22 Apr 2012

Thank you very much MikeCash!
Actually, I used a database more than 200.000 words and phrases but this seem not enough. For example, the first sentence of the song Yuki no Hana is (のびた人陰を舗道に並べ, 夕闇のなかをキミと歩いてる). RomajiDesu converter produces (no bita jin(tari,to,nin,hito,ri) in(kage,hoto) wo hodou ni nami be , yuuyami no nakawo kimi to kachi(fu,ho) iteru), while the correct lyrics should be (Nobita kake wo hodou ni narabe,Yuuyami no naka wo KIMI to aruiteru)
I wonder why there is no (人) in the official pronunciation, and is "並べ" (narabe) and 歩いてる(aruiteru) is some special phrase that should be in my database?

Toritoribe · 22 Apr 2012

You need to parse the sentence/phrase to get the correct pronunciation of the conjugated forms. See the examples below.

東京に行っている
作業を行っている

The first one is いっている, whereas the second one is おこなっている. You need to know the difference between the intransitive 行[い]く and the transitive 行[おこな]う to get this answer. (FYI, Google translator returned the correct readings to my examples.)

haibuihoang said:
I wonder why there is no (人) in the official pronunciation

Simply because it's not the OFFICIAL pronunciation. It's her own usage. 人陰 is NEVER read かげ.

haibuihoang said:
There're some cases, one Kanji words may mean different meanings, what I can do with that?

If you can manage it, every software maker will compete to hire you.

haibuihoang · 22 Apr 2012

Thanks

Thank you very much. Actually I am just a newbie in Japanese so that my Grammar knowledge is near zero. Would it sufficient if I took an basic Japanese course?
Oh, there's still one missing answer, is "並べ" (narabe) a special word?
About

Toritoribe said:
If you can manage it, every software maker will compete to hire you.

I think I am having a vague idea of how to do it. Maybe I will try in future when I have more spare time ^^

Toritoribe · 22 Apr 2012

haibuihoang said:
Would it sufficient if I took an basic Japanese course?

"Basic" is not enough, I believe.

haibuihoang said:
Oh, there's still one missing answer, is "並べ" (narabe) a special word?

No, that's quite common. It's because you don't know about the verb conjugations.

haibuihoang said:
I think I am having a vague idea of how to do it. Maybe I will try in future when I have more spare time ^^

Uh, I'm afraid I meant "it's impossible". No one succeeds so far, including a big software companies or famous linguists.

haibuihoang · 22 Apr 2012

Thank you very much! Indeed I need to educate myself much more

Suggestion needed for Japanese to Romaji converter

haibuihoang

A curious learner

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

haibuihoang

A curious learner

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

haibuihoang

A curious learner

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

haibuihoang

A curious learner

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