Talk:JSL romanization

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Maybe JSL should be made into a disambiguation, especially considering the fact that JSL (romanization) is not a very popular romaji system anyway. —Tokek 21:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Japanese, but the statement "represent long /o/ and /u/" would be better written "represent /oː/ and /uː/". --Tydaj 02:03, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chart?

I have the textbook Beginning Japanese which explain's the author's system. I found it a big help dealing with kana, as a language learner.

It's not any good for writing out romaji for non-students, because TI + E + KO would not signify Chieko to anyone who's not interested in learning Japanese. You'd be tempted to read it as Tigh Koh (or Taeko)!!

The strength of her system is for expressing Japanese grammar or spelling rules, I guess.

One benefit of the clunkiness of a series like TA TI TU TE TO vs. Ta Chi Tsu Te To is that it motivates you to get off your butt and start memorizing the actual Hiragana and Katakana! :-)

Perhaps a chart would be good. I hope there are no copyright problems. --Uncle Ed 16:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Rules such as pronouncing "t" as "ch" or "ts" may indeed make the system look clunky or bizarre to English speakers, but are explainable through the rules of Japanese phonology (more specifically, this section). In other words, "ch" and "ts" are written as "t"s because they perceived as "t" sounds to native speakers; they sound starkly different to English speakers only because English can contrast them as separate sounds (e.g., "tease" vs. "cheese").

I think JSL is intended as a means for getting students used to the sound system of Japanese, in terms of Japanese phonemes, and not as a tool for learning kana. The JSL book series never even touches kana, and the article already lists cases where kana makes orthographic distinctions and JSL does not, and vice versa.

A chart could be nice, but if the system is so regular, do we even need one? Maybe we could just give a list of common terms and how their spellings diverge from Hepburn romanization and kana? -- Calcwatch 22:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, you're right; we don't need a chart. I was thinking of a chart for a computer program I'm writing which converts Hiragana into Romaji. That would not be relevant here.

I'm more interested in your observations about affricatives, and about the sound system as opposed to the writing system. I do very little Japanese writing: just names of new acquaintances in Hiragana. Nearly all my Japanese communication is in speech. --Uncle Ed 17:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)