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Old 2008.04.08, 07:59 PM   #39
kamikaze
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Originally Posted by Cosmo! View Post
Like if we just know that our Romaji is correct and any deviation from that is completely wrong.
Actually there are different standards of Romaji so there really isn't a "correct" form. Most people use the Hepburn system, but there are two other systems that are widely used. But quite honestly, I think all Romaji is incorrect to some degree. There are certain characters that just have different sounds and it's almost impossible to use a practical form of translation. The best way to learn the language itself is to learn the characters of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji and what sounds each characters make without using any romanization at all for reference. The only people that could possibly use Romaji and fully understand what sound is supposed to be made are fluent speakers (or people familiar with the language) because they can kind of link what characters are trying to be represented. Because mentally they are referencing back to the original language. This applies also when other countries learn English. But English is more confusing because there really isn't a proper set-up of sound. Some letters will make more than one sound, which to a Japanese person is confusing because each character in their own language makes a specific sound. And for some words in English, there really isn't a rule as to why it makes that sound, it just kind of does. I hear Japanese/Koreans mess up words all the time because they are simply following a "rule" of the English language which happens to not apply to the word they are using.

I do understand that for people new to a language, certain sounds are hard to duplicate because those sounds are simply not used in a person's native language. And I understand why Romaji is used, everyone is not going to learn Japanese. But if you really want to learn the language and learn it properly without butchering it in usage. Learning to write is pretty essential. Even if you just learned one of the three Japanese writing systems, it would help you to really understand Romaji and will greatly help speaking it too.

But to kind of get off my rant, technically there are several "correct" forms of Romaji.
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