I have only been practicing hiragana for a couple of days, but when trying some reading practice i came across the following word: おじいさん. According to the website, this translated as ‘ojisan’ in romaji, where I figured this as ‘ojiisan’. Can anyone explain why a double ‘i’ would be written as a single ‘i’? Not that it really matters how it is written in romaji, but I am intrigued.
Peter
I’ve seen double vowels being written as ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, but since you can’t really write them with a standard keyboard I guess most people just write the actual vowel instead.
I wouldn’t think much of it, as long as you know it’s pronounced as おじいさん, as おじさん means uncle. I think it’s mainly just style. とうきょう normally isn’t written as Toukyou after all.
There’s no single agreed upon way to romanize Japanese. This is one reason why most people recommend you learn the kana before anything else.
Thanks all, I will just ignore it and continue practice 
I need a source on this!
Cheese eye kimmono buckery
Tomago para para, pon pon night
This… no…
My eyes!!!
Just to be clear, this was a romaji question, rather than a hiragana question, right? What was the website you were referring to?
I was thinking maybe google translate or something, but it has ojīsan, rather than ojisan, in the romaji section, so maybe not.
And one more nitpicky thing, that’s not a translation, it’s just a different way to write the word.
There is a difference between Ojiisan and Ojisan. and how it’s pronounced.
Ojiisan おじいさん - grandfather
Ojisan おじさん - uncle
How it’s shown as romaji is a different story. But I’ve seen it both ways depending on if they are talking about a grandfather or uncle or older person.
It’s also the similar with Grandmother and Aunt.
Here is the link that shows the difference between the two.
https://youtu.be/0Hs-bZgRhq8
To dovetail on this. It’s called transliteration.
It’s from a 19th century textbook. The excerpt I posted is here on page 28.
Some of my favorites:
to buy = Cow
to not understand = Walk arimasen
small = Cheese eye
hot water = Oh you
It’s also about the Yokohama Pidgin which is entirely possible to not have been pronounced as standard Japanese, as it was a Pidgin.
Walk—kallimassing!
Moods cashey!
What is that, Germapanese? I’m so confused trying to understand it lol!
I can’t tell you why, but that reminds me of this video
That kind of thing makes me so glad that we have standardisation these days, even if we can’t decide whether to use Hepburn or Kunrei-shiki…
A slow servant - Bakar
Sailor - Dam your eye sto
Where are the small ones you showed my friends from England last week? - Cheese eye doko
Unfortunately they were purchased on tuesday by a party of tourists from San Francisco - Arimasen
You’re very hard on a poor merchant but it’s yours for the sake of further business - Your a shee
He’s having a lot of fun with this
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