q Romanization
q The Particle E
q The Particle SHI
q -ku naru (to become something)
q Example Sentences
q Useful Words
Romanization
Romanization is turning Japanese characters into our alphabet, so an average
American can read them. Our alphabet is called the Roman alphabet. In Japan,
they call our alphabet Roumaji.
Without romanization, you'd have to use the Japanese alphabet(s) to write
everything in Japanese.
For various reasons, there are at least 2 styles of Romanizing Japanese.
Here are some examples of how the same couple of letters could be written in
several different ways:
ji = zi
e = he
o = wo
shi = si
ou = oo
ou = ô (o with a line over it)
So Jishin (self confidence) could technically be written:
zisin
Personally, I don't like that romanization, because it doesn't look like it sounds.
However, some books use that romanization exclusively. I find it rather
annoying.
Often times, a line will be drawn over a vowel to show that there are actually 2
of that vowel. I perfer to actually write 2 of the vowel. My reasoning is as
follows: If you're romanizing something, it should look pretty normal to an
average reader. Notice that we don't use the "bar over a letter" symbol at all in
English! I think a romanization should be pretty easy to read.
yasashî
