From: alumni106@camins.camosun.bc.ca (Max Sterling)
Subject: Re: Hepburn & kunrei romanization
Organization: Camosun College
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 08:41:37 GMT

In article <jwb.719020442@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au>, jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen) writes:

> Rafael Santos asked for some information about the types of 
> romanization. I am posting an article by James Unger which he
> posted about two years ago on this group. Without agreeing
> with all the points James make (I rarely do), I think his
> article is a good summary of the histories and differences
> of the systems.
> 
> ====================================================================
> 
> The following is an article I published in the Japan Association of
> Translators Bulletin 11 (February 1986).  I hope it helps clarify the
> status of kunrei-siki roomazi.
> 
>                           SOME NOTES ON ROOMAZI
> 
> JTB, into following suit.  Nonetheless, the only officially sanctioned 
> romanization is the Kunrei system.  Even translators who wish to stick with 
> Hepburn should therefore be familiar with its use and rationale.  

[blah, blah, blah, lots of stuff about MacArthur and confusing 
terminology cut for the sake of sanity]

OK, stupid question time here. If you're translating something into 
Romaji so that speakers of English can understand it, (eg. books on 
learning japanese, japanese verbs, learning kanji, perhaps subtitled 
videos, etc), wouldn't it make more sense to use phonetics that English 
speakers are already familiar with? Being a devoted follower of the 
Hepburn system, I find the Kunrei far too distracting to be of any use 
to me. Eg. if I see something spelled in the Kunrei system as "ti" 
(which the Hepburn system has as well) I'd pronounce as "tea" instead of 
"chi". "tu" would be "too" instead of "tsu". "di" and "zi" would be 
"dee" and "zee" instead of "ji". It took me about 2+ weeks to figure out 
that "syo" (eg. ikimaSYOo) was really "sho". Instead of forcing the 
beginner to learn about 20-30 conversions to pronounce the consonants 
correctly (eg. za is pronounced as is, but zi is pronounced as ji, etc), 
why not just use the Hepburn system in English books so it would be 
easier for the English speaking people (who the English speaking books 
are written for) could learn the spoken language easier? I kind of 
figured that that was the whole point of the romanization in the first 
place. If the point isn't to make it easier to understand, you might as 
well just immerse them in kanji from the beginning. Mata ne.

                                            -=]> Max <[=-

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Kup- "This reminds me of the time when my   +-> Kup- "You ever SEEN a Regulan|
|      my platoon was stranded on Regulan IV;|         Metal Monger, lad?"    |
|      there we were, only SEVEN HUNDRED of  |   Hot Rod- "Uh, no,..."        |
|      US, against THREE WHOLE REGULAN METAL |   Kup- "TRUST me! We were      |
|      Mongers!"                             |         outnumbered!           |
|Hot Rod- "Seven HUNDRED of YOU? Against     +--------------------------------+
|          THREE of THEM? Aw, come on, Kup!"-+ alumni106@camins.camosun.bc.ca |
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