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Japanese: Transliteration Question | ||
Tags: Transliteration | Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| kidshomestunner Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6200 days ago 239 posts - 285 votes  Speaks: Japanese | Message 1 of 10 13 July 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Say I am translating a book. Say this book has a bibliography and one of the titles is スミスへの 鰐. I would translate this as "the Alligator for Mr Smith" depending on the content of the book. But how should I transliterate への heno or eno?
The other kana I am questioning is を Is this wo or o? I always go with wo... Obviously I will go and ask my client but I just wanted to know if anyone has any rules which they stick to. Thanks!! Edited by Fasulye on 13 July 2010 at 7:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5578 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 2 of 10 13 July 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think it depends on your audience. On language learning sites, if I have to romanize
something は is 'ha', を is 'wo', and へ is 'he'. When dealing with a broader audience, I think I would do them phonetically (wa, o, e) based on the fact that a few commonly recognized words, like 'konnichiwa', have set precedence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kidshomestunner Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6200 days ago 239 posts - 285 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 3 of 10 13 July 2010 at 11:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's awesome thanks a lot. Yeah, konnichiWA is a great argument, I still haven't heard back from the client but it will be interesting... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5176 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 4 of 10 14 July 2010 at 9:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think the norm is to use he, ha, wo, etc. The only time I'd deviate from that is if the pronunciation was crucial for the reader. And I'd say "he no" with a space.
I should mention that whenever I've needed to use romaji with native speakers (blame computers), I was always very surprised by how they split words. I'm not sure if it's because they think of words differently than I do or it's because they've never put much thought into where to split words since they don't, expect for where to insert commas, which is usually because there was a pause anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kidshomestunner Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6200 days ago 239 posts - 285 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 5 of 10 15 July 2010 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah I've thought much the same myself, I just put a space after what could possibly count as a word though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5578 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 6 of 10 15 July 2010 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As many children's books use spaces, I would assume they get a basic idea from there as well as the timing of spoken language. Both Japanese and Korean consider particles as part of the preceding word. When compared to languages with cases (Russian, Latin, etc.) this makes sense. What does occasionally surprise me in Japanese, however, is when multiple words are combined. A sample from a children's kotowaza book:
いわれています doesn't surprise me but つけるといいと does. Who knows, eh? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kidshomestunner Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6200 days ago 239 posts - 285 votes Speaks: Japanese | Message 7 of 10 16 July 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The boss! He gives me the job, he is always right. Seriously though, thanks for the input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6267 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 8 of 10 17 July 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I hate transliterating は as "ha" and へ as "he", whether on language learning sites or not. That's because when I read romaji, I always pronounce "ha" in my head as "ha". (I don't do this with text written in kana, of course). を as "wo" doesn't bother me so much because "wo" isn't a Japanese sound anyway (well, not counting ウォ, but that's rare).
My vote for への is "e no". Edited by furrykef on 17 July 2010 at 9:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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