Hi David and everyone,

My original family name is Kato, and I learned to write it "Kato" in Roma-ji when I was in the 4th grade. I didn't realize that this was actually pronounced "kayto" like a Pink Panther's character until I read your comment. Then, a famous Japanese baseball player's nickname came to me. It is Dice-K. Although I'm wondering how native speakers of English would pronounce his real name "Daisuke", maybe "でいすき"? Apparently, "Dice-K" will make American people pronounce his name in a way that sounds much more like it sounds in Japanese (Sorry, I just copied your phrases).

> Should this be written "Ito," "Itou," or "Itoh"?

I guess all of the above three are pronounced like /itou,いとう/, but the name should be pronounced /ito:,いと～/ in Japanese, sorry I can't type pronunciation symbols. I'm afraid I can't think of any better writing. Personally, I prefer "Itoh."

The first letter of my name is a difficult sound "tsu" for some non-Japanese people. I heard some south Asian people pronounce "Mitsubushi" like "みちゅびし." An automobile company "Mazda" uses "z" instead of "tsu", that's a good idea, I think.

By the way, there are a lot of "ゆう"くん and "
あい"ちゃん these days. It would be confusing if they are written "I" and "You" in English sentence. Of course, when they are talken about. :)

I have a good friend named "Fukuyo" who has a lot of foreign friends. She always asks them to call her with her family name. One day, I asked her why she didn't want to be called with her first name. Having listened to her answer, I said, "I see." I think you will easily find the answer.

I will be quite busy this week. See you after Halloween, everyone.

Tsuneko

•  tsuneko
• 2011年10月25日 22:38

Hi Tsuneko,

I have a "You" kun and an "Ai" chan in one of my university classes, and they are actually next to each other on the register, so when I call out their names, it goes:
"Ai"
"Here"
"You"
"Here"

"Dice-k" is a very clever way of writing Daisuke. I have never heard of that before.

•  David
• 2011年10月25日 23:25

Hi David and everyone,

Long time never written here, since I have been very busy preparing for the Care Manager Exam. As I heard about your this week's topic from Tsuneko, I thought it quite interesting, so I felt like writing something here. However I may not be able to write a lot, because I feel a bit tired after work.

My opinion is as follows. As our life (for Japanese, I mean# became more international and global, we begin to have more opportunities to introduce our names to foreigners, and that's the reason why we become necessary to write our names in Romaji #Roman characters). We write them in Romaji, but not in English, because, it is more simple and everyone learn it in primary school. So, I think that the way Japanese people write their names is OK, and the only thing we should do is, if some foreigners pronounce someboby's name wrongly, he/she should correct them immediately without hesitation.

I sometimes watch MLB games on TV, and often hear the announcer pronounce 'Hideki Matsui' as 'High - deck -ee Ma - zwee', and I am wondering how his family feels after hearing this!

Bye for now.

Ken

•  tsuneko
• 2011年10月25日 23:33

Hi Ken,

There is a stupid commentator called Nick Harris who commentates on Moto GP bike races. He insists on calling the rider Yuki Takahashi "Yuka" Takahashi. I actually found his email address on the web and emailed him to tell him to pronounce it "You-key." He wrote back and said thank you, but then went back to calling Takahashi senshu "Yuka" again the next week. I don't think sports commentators are the brightest people on the planet!

•  David
• 2011年10月26日 00:46

Hi David and everyone,

The last entry was really interesting for me, but I didn’t have time to participate.
I had some event for my son, and funeral for my son’s great-grand-mother.
These series of events finally brought me a cold, then I haven’t been joining sthis special opportunity.

This week’s topic is another interesting one.
My real name is Noriko as well.
When I let someone know(to native speaker) my name, I sometimes write on the paper “Noliko” .
To let them know that this is the correct pronunciation in Japanese.

I was wondering why primary education taught us to write “ r” instead of “ l”.
In spite of difficult pronouciation for Japanese “r”sound is.

noriko(noliko)

•  noriko
• 2011年10月26日 14:50

Hi David and everyone,

This week's topic sounds interesting, but is difficult for me to write my thought a little bit.

I learned Romaji when I was in elementary school, but still I'm sometimes confused with how to write words in Romaji. As ken said, Romaji is not English, but spelling in Romaji is the way to romanize each word(or name).

I'm wondering if non native speakers of Japanese who start learning Japanese write words in Romaji first or use Hiragana from the beginning.
It is difficult to tell the correct pronunciation when you use Romaji, and this might make a lot of learners feel confused.
As for "やすこ", I had no idea about "Yasko", and I will write it as "Yasuko."
Concerning Romaji and Hiragana, I found an interesting site called "Let's learn Japanese together", and there was a corner called "type Romaji to see Hiragana."

I tried typing "Kato/Katoh/Katou", and the first two turned out to be "かと" as you might imagine, and the last one was "かとう."
Come to think of it, you don't need follow the Hiragana way.
* I introduce the website, but my comment was rejected, so I deleted that part.
By the way,I haven't had any problems with writing my name.

Hi tsuneko,
>I think you will easily find the answer---No, I can't! Please tell me the reason later.

Hi noriko,

Take good care of yourself!
By the way, as for your name, I guess both the pronunciation "r" and "l"in English are different from that of "r" in Japanese.

Bye for now,

Anne

•  Anne
• 2011年10月26日 21:33

Good evening, David and everyone!
It's been a long time since I visited here last time.

It is very interesting topic. I am working with Singaporean colleagues and they always have difficulties in pronouncing Japanese names. If there is any better way to write Japanese names in romaji for them to understand, I would love to know!

I have a friend whose name is Ryosuke. But nobody could pronounce his name perfectly. They pronounced it as Ryosuki or Rio- suki. So he ended up changing his name to Rio!

But today, I've learnt something new from Tsuneko's comment!
It is more understandable for them if we write his name as Ryosu-K.
I will let him know later!

Thank you.
Good night, everyone^^

Tomoyo

•  Tomoyo
• 2011年10月26日 23:52

Hi David,

It's an interesting topic and I see what your point. You know, I work for a foreign bank. When we have a Japanese customer, we have to ask the customer to how to spell his/her name in romaji. I am surprised that some people don't know how to spell their names in romaji. I beleive that you learn romaji in elementry school. The other day, I had a Japanese customer, and he wrote his name 'UMA' in an application form. His name was 'ゆうま' so I thought he made a mistake and I confirmed him about his name. Then he said "that is how I spelled my name." I was a bit surprised because I remembered that when you apply to have a passport you have to follow ヘボン式ローマ字綴り. So his name should be 'YUMA' not 'UMA.' Anyway, I don't expect foreigners to pronunce my name properly at the first place. It's understanble because I am always having trouble pronuncing foreigner's names. I am not sure that I pronuce your name properly at all:(

Oh, it's already midnight, and I should be in bed.
Got to go now,

bye for now
amo

•  amo
• 2011年10月27日 00:40

Hi David and everyone,

I have not think much about how foreigners pronounce Japanese names. I thought it can not be helped that they pronounce our names wrongly because English and Japanese are totally different. But as some members said, there are some ways to tell them similar sounds by spelling such as Dice-K, You-key. All Japanese names do not work in this way though. One thing I noticed when foreigners pronounce our names is that they always put a stress on some part of our names. Japanese are monotone, so we don't put stress on any words?? Am I right? I do not know much about Japanese grammar, much less English grammar.
Anyway this topic is a food for thought.

Hi Tsuneko,

I see why your friend, Fukuyo want to be called by her family name. LOL
Her name could be pronounced as a 4 letter word starting with f---, right?

Hi noriko,

I agree with you. Japanese ら行’s sound is more similar when we write them in “l” than “r”.
You caught a cold. Please take care of yourself.

Fumie

•  Fumie
• 2011年10月27日 05:16

Hi David and everyone.

It`s been a long time since I wrote my comment here last time.

It has been really freezing since yesterday. It`s time to get out winter coats for the oncoming of winter.

Japanese names in Romaji and native speakers of english can pronounce them in an unexpected way, it`s a really interesting topic for me. Actually I have thought about it before too, so I `m glad we have a chance to discuss about it.

There is something I`d like to add. Recently some kind of girls` names have been fashiable like ゆうな or ゆな. But these two names are written exactly same in Romaji "Yuna". I kind of wonder why is not the longer one written "Yuuna"?

There is another question about it but I couldn`t bring back to my memory, I think I should stop here.

Thank you.

•  匿名
• 2011年10月27日 16:59

Sorry I didn`t post my name.
My name is Murun. And I just have posted my comment above.
I commented about the name Yuuna.

•  Murun
• 2011年10月27日 17:02

Hi, all

It's an interesting topic.
I hate the way we write 'r' instead of 'l' in Romaji.
It makes the sound different.

I have a friend named りえ, and she is lucky we write her name Rie instead of Lie.

I know the girl named えみり in Japanese, but in Romaji, she can't write her name Emily but Emiri. It lookes foolish, because her parents apparently named her daughter えみり from English name.

By the way, I think English names are sometimes very difficult to pronounce, too.
Before I watched the Harry Potter movie, I had thought Hermione would be pronounced ''her-me-one'' instead of ''her-my-ou-nee''.

•  panda
• 2011年10月27日 21:59

Hi Fumie,

Now I got it! Thanks!

•  Anne
• 2011年10月27日 22:15

To David
I know a Japanese guy whose name is Yuuki but he spells his name as Yuke,so native English speakers can pronaunce his name propery.

To Tsuneko
At first,I was wondering why your friend whose name is Fukuyo doesn't want to be called by her first name.Thinking about it for a second,I realized why.

I had my hair cut done today so I am feeling good now.I cannot wait to go out tomorrow.

Cherry

•  cherry
• 2011年10月27日 23:42

Hi Cherry,

If your friend writes his name like that, some people might pronounce it "yook." For that name, I would recommend "You-key."

•  David
• 2011年10月28日 00:34

Hi Anne, Fumie,

Thank you for your messages!
I got better now ^^
Although I've gotten another trouble(ぎっくり腰）since this morning ;d

Anne,my explanation about my name(spelling) may have been lack of detail, Fumie's comment to me was what I wanted to say ^^

Hi panda,

Coincidently, your point was similar to me :).

This will be another busy weekend for me.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!

noriko(I'm keeping writing this way although I feel a bit strange to use " ri ")

•  noriko
• 2011年10月28日 15:23

What a fun pattern! It’s great to hear from you and see what you’ve sent up to. All of the projects look great! You make it so simple to this. Thanks

•  abercrombie fitch
• 2011年11月16日 12:21