Romanzi Guide

One of the problems about making a web site that requires alphabetized Japanese is the method of converting the sounds of Japanese characters (Hiragana/Katakana) into something that readers of English will be able to pronounce. However, because of the individuality of the web, there's hardly any rules for it, so depending on what site you look at, you'll see different spellings for the same Japanese word. My site will be no different. However, what I will try is to explain the reason why I spell things different than what other sites might have (Sorry, I'm an academic =)).

There are current two standard ways of "romanizing" Japanese, the Hepburn system and the traditional system. The method I used while learning Japanese was the traditional system used by Eleanor Harz Jorden of "Beginning Japanese" and "Japanese: The Spoken Language" fame. While I believe the traditional system is a lot better when learning Japanese, especially in dealing with verb conjugation, there are some moras (Japanese character sounds) that aren't obvious on sight. Assuming that my web audience just wants something they can read correctly, I'll combine the two systems. There aren't that many kana (Japanese characters) different, but here they are and the way I'll do it for my site (bolded text):

For the particles "ha," "he" and "wo," I will use "wa," "e" and "o." (although I do often hear the "o" spoken as "wo" in songs).

Katakana will be written in ALL CAPS.

In addition to those, I will also use the Jorden method for extending vowels. Sometimes you might see "tabeyou" which means "let's eat." If you change it to Japanese, it is correctly spelled as TA-BE-YO-U. However, it's pronounced closer to "tabeyoo" with a longer "o" sound. So for the site, I'll use the spelling that's closer to the actual pronounciation.

There are some exceptions to the application of these rules on my pages. I will usually apply my romanization to track titles and lyrics translations. However, for titles and proper nouns, I'll keep it in it's generally accepted form, even if it doesn't conform to my style (i.e. "Jubei-chan" as opposed to "Juubei-chan" or "Keitaro" as opposed to "Keetaroo").