Where did this odd katakana romanization method come from?

When I watch fansubbed anime or browse the Net for anime lyrics, I'll invariably come across stuff like this, and I must admit it's slightly bothering me.

"la la la la la la la, anata no atama ni, suteki na melody wo kikeru wa!"

"yurushite, yurushite, kimochi koto paradise, sexy sexy!".

However, say we have a song with a line like this:

"あなたの素敵なパンがとても大好きよ！",

I highly doubt someone would even think of romanizing this poetic masterpiece as

"anata no suteki na bread ga totemo daisuki yo!".


In short, who started this "when we romanize Japanese, let's translate loan words that are derived from English rather than romanizing them" business?

It may be just me, but I've always thought it reads pretty goofy and it's confusing for beginner Japanese learners -- well, at least I found it confusing back then.

Does anyone happen to know who started this? Was/is there an academic bighead who proclaimed this to be the best way of romanizing loan words?

Further, am I the only one who thinks dealing with katakana like this isn't the best idea? Anyone? Bueller? If not, I guess I'm just weird.

John Lemon said:

When I watch fansubbed anime or browse the Net for anime lyrics, I'll invariably come across stuff like this, and I must admit it's slightly bothering me.

"la la la la la la la, anata no atama ni, suteki na melody wo kikeru wa!"

"yurushite, yurushite, kimochi koto paradise, sexy sexy!".

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Er, if you don't give the original we aren't going to know what you're getting at.

However, say we have a song with a line like this:

John Lemon said:

"あなたの素敵なパンがとても大好きよ！",

I highly doubt someone would even think of romanizing this poetic masterpiece as

"anata no suteki na bread ga totemo daisuki yo!".

In short, who started this "when we romanize Japanese, let's translate loan words that are derived from English rather than romanizing them" business?

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Presuming you're referring to 'melody' 'paradise' and 'sexy' then there are a number of points to be addressed.

1. Was the original really メロディ パラダイス and セクシー ?
Lots and lots of Japanese lyrics include odd words in English.

2. Are they 'loan words' or are they 'katakana-ized foreign words' ?
There is a small but significant difference.

3. The reason nobody would have the karaoke romaji for 'パン' as 'bread' is that パン is _not_ a loan word from the English word 'bread'. There's a big difference between translating a word from (Japanese) French to English and transcribing a (Japanese) English word as the original English.

In practise I don't see anything wrong with it provided that the word is recognisable. For example with 'メル友' it would be stupid to romanise it as 'mail tomo' because a) It's lost the ー changing the way it sounds and b) it means email not mail in modern Japanese.

John Lemon said:

and it's confusing for beginner Japanese learners -- well, at least I found it confusing back then.

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Any Japanese learner trying to learn from (or even follow) lyrics is just asking to be confused.

Hmmm. Looks like I've been a bit unclear about what I was getting at.

Have a look at the screenshot I linked below. Notice how whoever added the romaji subtitles knew the word was キス but still romanized it as "Kiss", not "kisu"? I see this done in fansubs pretty much all the time, and I was wondering why. キス is a pretty well-know loan word in Japanese, isn't it?



I was talking about this sorta thing, not a specific example. And, yes, I know パン isn't a loan word from English. That's why I was talking about English loan words being translated rather than romanized.

PaulTB said:

Any Japanese learner trying to learn from (or even follow) lyrics is just asking to be confused.

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So why confuse them even more, then?

John Lemon said:

Have a look at the screenshot I linked below. Notice how whoever added the romaji subtitles knew the word was キス but still romanized it as "Kiss", not "kisu"? I see this done in fansubs pretty much all the time, and I was wondering why. キス is a pretty well-know loan word in Japanese, isn't it?

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Yes, but romaji subtitles aren't done for the minority of Japanese learners - they're done for those who might want to 'sing along' (that's one of the reasons why, for instance, づ and ぢ tend to be romanized as zu and ji instead of du and di). The 'sing along crowd' are less likely to mispronounce 'kiss' than 'kisu' and are probably quite grateful for a word they can recognize.

And, yes, I know パン isn't a loan word from English. That's why I was talking about English loan words being translated rather than romanized.

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That's what's technically known as a lousy analogy.

John Lemon said:

So why confuse them even more, then?

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Because that's what they're asking for.

Besides which - the first thing they should do is put some tape over the screen to hide the romaji and (look at / listen to) the Japanese version only.

PaulTB said:

Besides which - the first thing they should do is put some tape over the screen to hide the romaji and (look at / listen to) the Japanese version only.

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Hmmm, probably. There's still a bunch of fansubbers who "don't do it", though.



Horaaaaa, lunch no bench no uueee de, yuuumeee ga haaaanasaaakuu.... :sing:

John Lemon said:

Hmmm, probably. There's still a bunch of fansubbers who "don't do it", though.



Horaaaaa, lunch no bench no uueee de, yuuumeee ga haaaanasaaakuu.... :sing:

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Oh well I'm out of the fansub scene now anyway. I've gone over to the 'dark side' and all my anime is unsubbed Japanese.