Spelling in Hiragana/Katatana

I have no other source of information about the Japanese language, so I thought I'd ask this here. I think I have a clear idea about what the small letters/dashes in Hiragana mean, but I'd like to make sure. Here is what I think simply by observing how they seem to be used: in a word, either a dash or a repetition of the vowel from the last character is included wherever the emphasis is. It also seems like this is included wherever there's a compound sound like "ryu" or "sho," but I'm not sure about that part. So, for example, if you want spell "monkey" in katatana, you do it as follows: since the emphasis in the word monkey is on "mo," as in "MO-n-key," you would spell it "MA-a-N-KI" or マァンキ or alternatively マーンキ. Do I understand all of this correctly?

 

Nope. On the surface, Japanese is extremely flat. Nuances in intonation won't be picked up until very high levels (if ever). In this case, the first vowel sound is not elongated at all. モンキー is how you would romanize it. Quite often a becomes the オ sound in japanase. My name becomes "pole" for all intents and purposes.

 

I see. So whenever there is an elongated vowel, you add the vowel or a dash, right? I guess I don't understand what makes a vowel elongated then. Could you explain? Also, what's the difference between using a dash and a small character?

Also, in regard to what you were saying about translating vowels; isn't the opposite sometimes true? That is, doesn't an "o" sometimes become the ”ア" sound? Like the "o" in "wrong." That would be ラング, ignoring the elongation thing for a moment, right? Or would it be ロング?

 

(Took some time to write this so I'm referring to your first post.)

What you are talking about goes only for Katakana and a few things have to be set straight:

The dash is used to indicate a long vowel, so monkey would be transcribed as モンキー ("monkee"). There is no way to indicate emphasis in Japanese even though some sort of "natural" emphasis is gained through long vowels or consonants (see: カット, cut, pronounced "cutto" were the tone will raise before or at the double consonant).

リュ (ryu) or ショ (sho) are just parts of the Katakana (hiragana) alphabet. There is no special meaning of the small characters here although you could read about the history of Japanese phonetics to find out why they are written like this today.

Small characters are also used especially in Katakana to represent sounds that are not common in the Japanese language, e.g. ファ (fa) or フェ (fe).

As a basic rule: Katakana is used as a phonetic transcription. So you can take any word and write it as you pronounce it (adapted to the limits of the Katakana alphabet). "Wrong" would be "ロング" (rongu) but if you insist can be also "ラング" (rangu). For a lot of English words there is already an established transcription you'd want to stick to if your text should be recognizable by a large number of readers.

 

In katakana, yes, you use the dash. In hiragana, you often use another character. It's kind of weird. らーめん is how they write Ramne, but sometimes when writing a katakana word in hiragana, the would replace the dash with "あ" or whatever sound corresponded to the first character.

The rule is generally the Japanese sound closest to the pronunciation. For a long time, you're going to miss a lot of them. For example, the "ca" sound in English is almost never kanified with カ. It is キャ. Cat = キャット. Casper = キャスパー. Wrong would never, ever be ラング. You are guaranteed an extremely blank look if you say it. How are you suposed to know all this? A lot of it is memorization, but it will eventually click.

 

Katakana and the whole way they come up with the spelling is just bizarre beyond belief. Even when they have the sound in katakana they'll still spell it or say it in some odd way at times.

For example the word General. OK, the Japanese have a GE (JE) sound which is ジェ in Katakana but they say General like Zenaru. Why use Ze over Je?

Another very and I mean VERY odd thing about Japanese is the fact that they can't get their heads around sounds. The simplest way to describe this is the sound す　(SU). Now only homosexual or extremely lady like women pronounce the "U" in the word DESU. Most people just say DES. However if you ask them to say an English word that ends in an "S" they'll find it almost impossible to pronounce a single "S" without adding the "U". Mad !

For the English speaker I'd say the most difficult sound in Japanese is つ　(TSU) as in the video rental store Tsutaya or the old McDonalds’ burger Tatsuta. To pronounce TSU think of saying soup but starting with a "T" before the "S".

Yakumo

 

The problem I have is when I go into McDonald's and ask for something that's not a dog food derivative. They just stare at me.

 

"Ze over Je?"

Perhaps they're making the sound of a foreign derivitive of the word?

 

A good example of this is ファンタシースター VS ファイナルファンタジー

 

You'll have that problem in America too, my friend. ;-)

 

I eat Mc every Saturday ! Japanese Mc is good! or at least better than the shite I remember in the UK. I must point out that GiajinPunch is a Vegetarian so everything Mc would be dog food to him

Yakumo

 

Well the man is right.

Although veggie going to McD is a bit like going into the Sony Store and asking if they have something compatable with the Nintendo Wii.

Also I hate Katakana as sometimes you will get a word and say it in as many Japanese accents as possible and it still won't be correct....

 

I eat fish though... the Mc Fish whatever is pretty horrible though. If there's any other fast food chain around you, it's almost guaranteed to be better. And Yakumo: Mac use the same products world wide. The only differences are subtle. In Thailand, they cook the fries in animal fat, not vegetable fat. And, of course the girls that work the register all have dicks.

 

Well, Japan has the McTeriyaki which makes the whole "or shall we go to MOS Burger" issue a lot more complicated :thumbsup:

 

There was a special on TV the other day where this Japanese talent went to Mac in Egypt. They had the... fuck, I can't remember the name. MacArabia I think. They interviewed some people eating there. They said they could only afford to eat at Mac about twice a year. While it was only 800 yen a person, it worked out to about 6000 each in terms of economic value. They showed what you could get at a mom & pop sandwhich shop around the corner. It was like... 23 massive portions. And of course, the food looked way better.

 

You're right there. The Mc Fish is fucking bad. So are the Mc Shrip burgers, YUCK !

Yakumo

 

McPork seems to be the real thing. The McRib was what I liked the most back in my carnivorous days. The only burgers I really miss though are the ones my dad used to make (and hasn't for probably 20 years).

 

ahhhh Teriyaki Mcburgers, I could go for one of those right now! xD
When u go to MOS dont forget to try a Grape Juice Squash, best drink evarrr!

there's nothing like spending a day shopping at akiba then finish the day at MOS burger, eating a spicy MOS and drinking a grape juice while looking down on the main akiba street, then I would turn on my laptop and log onto MSN and tell everyone "guess where im at loosers xD"

those were the days :crying:

 

Your sig is definitely in the top 10 most annoying.

 

Hey, don't say anything against jpn McDonalds
I went there pretty often when I was in Japan and I would always prefer it to german McD. What we got here tastes just like in Japan, but the thing is they have McTeriyaku, McPork and the double Cheeseburger which we don't, I just couldn't get enough of them. >_<