by Arline Lyons | Jul 22, 2015 | Basic Information
Don’t be alarmed if a translator working from Japanese to English asks you how to pronounce (or read) a personal or place name. This isn’t a sign that they lack basic knowledge of the language, but rather a comment on how complex Japanese names can be. The...
by Arline Lyons | Jul 22, 2015 | Basic Information
Japanese uses three alphabets: kanji, derived from Chinese pictograms, and hiragana and katakana (collectively referred to as kana) two phonetic alphabets made up of simpler glyphs. 薔薇 (kanji) バラ (katakana) ばら (hiragana) rose Katakana is most often used for foreign...
by Arline Lyons | Jul 22, 2015 | Common problems
Japanese sounds do not map perfectly onto English ones, which is no real surprise with two such different languages. This can lead to problems when Japanese words are rendered in English – especially personal and place names. 松本 Matsumoto Matumoto (pronounced...
by Arline Lyons | Jul 15, 2015 | Basic Information
Japanese can be written in English letters using a system called romanisation, which maps Japanese sounds onto the Latin alphabet. There are several varieties of romanisation which produce slightly different versions of the same Japanese word due to differences in how...
by Arline Lyons | Jul 15, 2015 | Basic Information
Japanese uses single vowels, consonant + vowel sounds with modified versions, and one lone consonant. The main set of sounds can be represented on a five by ten grid, often called the 五十音 (gojūon) – literally, “fifty sounds”, along with modified...
