just to make things more difficult for foreign learners, https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14732540
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Man, the kunrei is single-handedly the most abominable thing I’ve ever laid my eyes upon
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Its purpose is to be internally consistent, and since it’s not meant for English speakers, they don’t have to worry about what English speakers think about it.
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Kunrei is familiar to me, I’ve seen Japanese people on Youtube use it a lot.
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Yeah, I’d say it’s good to at least be superficially familiar with the different methods of romanisation. They’re really not that hard to follow (if you know the kana table and its pronunciations, you’ve basically got it) and you’re bound to encounter a mix of everything.
And if I’m being completely honest, in terms of “making things more difficult for foreign learners” I’d say this is just about on par with English also having the F sound being written as PH sometimes.
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As an ALT I have a rule when it comes to students writing romaji. If it’s just notes and not intended to be actually English output, I don’t care. But if they’re writing actual English sentences, I’ll mark something like “I like susi” or “He is the syogun” as wrong.
Within Japan, any standardized form of romanization is perfectly acceptable as long as it’s understood, but if the romanized word is targeted to English speakers, the romanization should follow English phonetic logic.
An English speaker with no knowledge of Japanese will have no clue that “syo” is the same as “sho” or “si” is the same as “shi”, so I can’t consider it to be acceptable English.
Again though, 90% of romaji in Japan isn’t targeted towards English speakers, so I don’t mind.
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I don’t even know where Alesia Goshogawara is.
I completely agree with the reasoning behind correcting the English output. This use of standard that you use to separate actual English writing versus the Japanese sphere is definitely necessary.
I think I just partially disagree with the phonetic reason for it though. It’s always good to attempt a phonetic representation of the native language, but it can’t be perfect. In the case of し, “si” is arguably closer to the Japanese pronunciation than English “shee.” A single syllable しょ with /sjo/ is phonetically impossible in English though, so “sho” might revert to being better in English writing.
Apologies ahead for my being pedantic! Just thought getting the perspective out there’d be cool!
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I think for ‘shogun’ and ‘sushi’ in particular, my take would be that in an English sentence they’re the loanwords into English, not the Japanese originals, so they have to be spelled in the conventional-for-English way. Similarly ‘tycoon’ can’t be written ‘taikun’ even if that is in some sense a ‘better’ romanization…
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It would be interesting if they chose a single standard for romanization, rather than having competing systems.
Either way, it bugs me when long vowels aren’t indicated when romanized.
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Hepburn is my ride-or-die, but I have to grudgingly admit that kunren is slightly quicker to type. The microseconds that I save by typing “si” and “ti” for し and ち do add up after a while.
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What makes it particularly easy to type was 2-3 alphabets for 2 kanas, like fo or qo, though it does need some memorization. I am not sure if there is a good compilation list somewhere. (Otherwise, I know of WaniKani’s case.)
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100% this. This is why I’m constantly bothered by people trying to use native pronunciation for loan words. There was a Chinese lady that did with English on some weird TV show and she got ridiculed by the internet because her English pronunciation wasn’t even good.
Dang, I never knew that term; TIL!
I feel like there are dozens more shortcuts out there that I need to learn. I guess it could be worse. In Spanish, I’ve just been trying to memorize Alt codes!
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We just need one more kana system to fix all the issues with the others…
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Introducing: Wantitled-ji
あいうえお - AAH, ee, ooh, eh, aw
かきくけこ - cah, ci, coo, ceh, coh
さしすせそ - sah, sí, sue, seh, soh
たちつてと - tah, qi, tu, teh, toe
なにぬねの - na, knee, new, ne, no
はひふへほ - hah, he, foo, he, hoh
まみむめも - ma, me, moo, meh, moe
やゆよ - yah, you, yo
らりるれろ - rla, rli, rlu, rle, rlo
わをん - wah, ヲ, n
Notes
あ series - AAH must be capitalized.
さ series - Note the accent on sí.
ら series - Since the sound can sound both like an English ‘L’ and an ‘R’, both letters are used to represent the Japanese.
わ - Due to the complex pronunciation rules of を the katakana form should be used in English text.
ばぱだが - These should be written with the correct diacritic marks modifying the respective modified kana.
は particle - This can be confusing as the kana used is pronounced differently. To avoid confusion, “WAH” in all caps should be used instead.
ー - A + sign should be used to indicate the vowel is repeated.
Examples
わたしはふらんすじんです - wahtahsí WAH foorlansuesí"n te"sue
ラーメンをたべたい - rla+mehnヲtahheh"tahee
これはぺんです - cohrle WAH heh°n teh"sue
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To be fair, it can be a hard habit to get out of; AIUI katakana loan words are often a weak spot in pronunciation for native English speakers.
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I hate you and everything you stand for.
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は particle - This can be confusing as the kana used is pronounced differently. To avoid confusion, the 
emote should be used instead.
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