Kanji vs Romaji

[bobby12 0]

I saw a program the other day about how the US gov wanted Japan to drop kanji and move to romaji after WW2.

 

Imagine if that had happened? Japan would be like a giant Singapore, economically I think we (Japan) would be in a much better situation today.

[RobBright 35]

How would Japan be better off financially? Would you have said the same thing in the late 80s?

How would romaji help deal with China or South Korea?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

I know I'd be in a better damn position.....I could read all the bloody signs!!

 

[HelperElfMissy 42]

Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver

I know I'd be in a better damn position.....I could read all the bloody signs!!

TRUE.

[NoFakie 45]

I find romaji and kana-only Japanese (e.g., childrens' books) very difficult to read. I think you'd have to introduce spaces too.

 

As for the "situation", what Japan needs is more young people. It looks like the population as a whole has peaked and started to decline, but the number of younger people has been falling off a cliff for donkeys. For twenty-year-olds, its down by half from peak. Businesses can't survive without customers.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Originally Posted By: Mr Wiggles

I find romaji and kana-only Japanese (e.g., childrens' books) very difficult to read. I think you'd have to introduce spaces too.

for sure!! I agree, I can read the kana well enough (in that I can read all hiragana and katakana characters) but I find it difficult to separate the individual words as there are no spaces in the long lines and although a few people have tried to explain it to me, the punctuation is non-existent for me. I don7t know where one word starts and another ends!!

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

Romaji-only Japanese would be very hard to read, like the kana-only kids' books that Mr. Wiggles mentioned. Perhaps it would be ok for native speakers, who already have a large vocabulary before they start to read, but for non-natives kanji are helpful not only for indicating where words begin and end, but also for giving a clue to meaning when encountering new words.

 

[Tubby Beaver 209]

but people can learn non-kanji languages by only using roman letters.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

Sure, one could learn Japanese using only romaji, if one were sufficiently determined. But that would ultimately be doing things the hard way, it seems, even if easier initially. Going to romaji is an information-destroying transformation; it would be like going to a purely phonetic spelling for English (which has certainly been proposed, or at least parodied, in the past), which would destroy a lot of information about common etymological roots and differences between different words -- information that is very helpful to have once past the "This is a pen" level of learning English.

 

 

[Slippery Jim 65]

ghoti?

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

No thanks, just ate.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Japanese use roughly 2500+ Kanji while Chinese use 10,000 - why dont Chinese quit as well then? It seems like people want to change languages for their convenience.

 

Mr. Wiggs and Metabo are spot on.

[Jynxx 4]

+1 to metabo

Languages are easier to start off when you know basic words, sound and rhyme.

As for the spacing, look at German. They are the masters of stringing words together to create a new word. If you know the words already, you can see the ingenuity of it. I don't have the feel for German (I know that) but finally, I can see the words stuck together now. It's good that I don't have to learn an extraword for it, but it's a hassle to read a long word because my eyes are not trained to see that.

 

Romaji will be a big nightmare in pronunciation. Why? It's not Romaji - it should be lohmaji. No R sound in japanese. note the "h" I use.

Example: "Ito" is cotton thread in japanese, but "Itoh" a persons family name or place name, often incorrectly spelled "Ito" They are pronounced differently.

sa shi su se so - that's acceptable

ta chi tsu te toh - I bet that will raise some eyebrows

How are we to resolve the spelling and pronunciation problems with English? It has the most inconsistent sound depending where you come from. Hence, using Lohmaji will not produce consistent sounds.

I like German spelling because there is a rule to how it is pronounced, but the umlats are a problem. I can't hear them well enough, especially when spoken fast and swallowed.

Example:

EI= AI IE=II A=A not AI,EI and the five vowels are the same as Japanese. They have a lot of sounds not found in English. AU, EU, OE, UE and no TH (silent h)

 

 

 

[HelperElfMissy 42]

I wish I had studied Japanese at school instead of Italian!

Spending the day searching translations has seriously done my head in!

[RobBright 35]

See I hate itoh - would much prefer itou, or itoo.

[Jynxx 4]

itoo would be it-oo or i-too

itou would be it-owe or i-tow

no good.

 

[Jynxx 4]

Mamabear, I like romance language. Sounds so good.

I don't like the sound of German.

When it comes to Japanese, I'd much prefer Kyoto or Hyogo dialect

[RobBright 35]

Depends.

 

If the book gives an example of the pronunciation, it wouldn't necessary be i-too or it-oo.

[RobBright 35]

Originally Posted By: Jynxx

itoo would be it-oo or i-too
itou would be it-owe or i-tow
no good.

itoo

as -> i-tow

/ɪtəʊ/

itoh
/ɪtəʊ/

same pronunciation.

[Jynxx 4]

Depend on what ?

And which book are you talking about?

like I said, you might be from England, Australia, Newzealand, USA, plus regional sound difference. Of course it depends, that's the whole point. That's why it's not good enough.

[RobBright 35]

That's why you would then use the IPA. A standard list of pronunciation.

 

Which book? Any language book.

[Jynxx 4]

The problem is defining the sound. fa-ne-tics spelled with a p

Shall we use the way (how it sounds) the dictionary does in the brackets?

[RobBright 35]

See above.

[Jynxx 4]

Well, at least we are agreeing about that.

Then that's not lomaji then.

[Jynxx 4]

Hey, Rob, do you know why it's called Romaji?

It's not really Roman, is it?