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While I’m not a huge fan of romaji itself, I disagree with converting foreign words from their japanese spelling to their original spelling. It might be easier

While I’m not a huge fan of romaji itself, I disagree with converting foreign words from their japanese spelling to their original spelling. It might be easier for foreigner to understand the word, but at the same time no japanese will ever understand if you talk about cutlet curry instead of katsukaree. And that’s something i’d guess this would be used in; reading something out loud you don’t know how to read.

hakka-nyu-su 6y ago
I also wonder if the author had non-English origins of words in mind. Ex., to how many people is it useful to convert アルバイト from "arubaito" to "Arbeit", especially when the Japanese word has a different connotation to the German (part-time work vs occupation)
- knolax 6y ago
  Or if it's a word where the source language doesn't use the Latin Alphabet. I have low confidence in the accuracy of a Tamil ---> Katakana ---> English conversion.
- glandium 6y ago
  Another example of loan word not meaning the same thing as the original word: ズボン means trousers, comes from the French jupon, which means... underskirt.
lgessler 6y ago
I don't know Japanese, but aren't there also cases where you would want the original spelling? Glancing at a list of English loanwords in Japanese, I'm guessing that for words like batā 'butter' or chāji 'charge' you could plausibly want the original instead of the romaji. Perhaps it's hard to say much more without knowing who these transliterations are supposed to serve. If it's a general Japanese-speaking population with limited knowledge of English, I'm not sure whether they'd prefer romaji or the original spelling.
numpad0 6y ago
“Cutlet curry” is actually better, back-romanization(?) like “katsukaree” is just confusing. Real world example[0] 0: https://images.app.goo.gl/KA47TTXbdQNfoYVs5 https://images.app.goo.gl/KA47TTXbdQNfoYVs5
- ekianjo 6y ago
  It's better based on what criteria?
  - numpad0 6y ago
    There are very little real world uses for kana romanized word typed out in English alphabet. Words are either romanized into katakana, or original forms in source languages is inserted similar to how formulas appear in English text. There are plenty real world examples for “Beef curry” and “ビーフカレー” used in pairs in Japanese, katsu is usually an extra so it’s rarer though.
- glandium 6y ago
  Ironically, OP itself contains "Katsu curry" which is a half-back-romanization. I myself am not too sure what to think about カツ becoming Cutlet when カツ is a shortened version of カツレツ, which itself is the katakana version of Cutlet. Technically, カツ would be Cut, but then English doesn't have that notion of using Cut to mean Cutlet.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
A couple weeks ago I ran into some third party code with translated Japanese comments where "debadora" was left as untranslated romaji. I was puzzled and couldn't find it at first but a little search magic revealed that it is a contraction of "debaisu doraiba" which I suspected was the case. Converting this back to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable. You can't always reconstruct the original words by playing with the pronunciation.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > I ran into some third party code with translated Japanese comments where "debadora" was left as untranslated romaji. I was puzzled and couldn't find it at first but a little search magic revealed that it is a contraction of "debaisu doraiba" which I suspected was the case. Converting this back to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable. Translating debadora to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable to someone who doesn't speak Japanese. Then again, translating いとこ to "cousin" is also the only way to make that understandable to someone who doesn't speak Japanese (and does speak English), but the goal is to transliterate it as "itoko", not to translate it as "cousin". Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora".
  - aikinai 6y ago
    No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original and there are choices to be made with different answers depending on context and intent. The example above of “sale” is a good one. In a Japanese shop for Japanese and by Japanese, you will see “sale” but you will never see se-ru.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      >> Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora". > No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. False; these are one and the same claim, not two conflicting claims. > Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original Again, this is wrong. If your "transliteration" has diverged from the original, it's not a transliteration. A transliteration is a reflection of the original, just using a different orthographic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration
fenomas 6y ago
TFA says this is optional, but it's a good default. The general case for most loan words is that even native Japanese speakers will find the English spelling much more familiar than romanization. E.g. in any Japanese shop you'll see signs that say "sale" or "bargain", but you'd never see "se-ru" or "bāgen" -- writing that way looks as strange to JP speakers as to anyone else. "Cutlet" strikes me as an edge case, considering that "katsu" has more or less become a word in its own right. So, perhaps an unfortunate choice of name for this project...
aikinai 6y ago
Why would you expect this to be used for pronunciation? That’s exactly where it wouldn’t make sense. But it would be much better for semantic understanding by non-Japanese speakers, or titles and such like my example in another comment.
Zarel 6y ago
As the article points out, this is intended to be used for URLs. Converting foreign words to their original spelling is the convention in Japan when transliterating to English. https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ For instance: notice that this says "big gangan" rather than "biggu gangan" (which is how you'd transliterate ビッグガンガン). Also notice the other labels: "PRESENT", "twitter", "BIGGANGAN OKAWARI".

hakka-nyu-su 6y ago

I also wonder if the author had non-English origins of words in mind. Ex., to how many people is it useful to convert アルバイト from "arubaito" to "Arbeit", especially when the Japanese word has a different connotation to the German (part-time work vs occupation)

knolax 6y ago
Or if it's a word where the source language doesn't use the Latin Alphabet. I have low confidence in the accuracy of a Tamil ---> Katakana ---> English conversion.
glandium 6y ago
Another example of loan word not meaning the same thing as the original word: ズボン means trousers, comes from the French jupon, which means... underskirt.

lgessler 6y ago

I don't know Japanese, but aren't there also cases where you would want the original spelling? Glancing at a list of English loanwords in Japanese, I'm guessing that for words like batā 'butter' or chāji 'charge' you could plausibly want the original instead of the romaji. Perhaps it's hard to say much more without knowing who these transliterations are supposed to serve. If it's a general Japanese-speaking population with limited knowledge of English, I'm not sure whether they'd prefer romaji or the original spelling.

numpad0 6y ago

“Cutlet curry” is actually better, back-romanization(?) like “katsukaree” is just confusing. Real world example[0] 0: https://images.app.goo.gl/KA47TTXbdQNfoYVs5 https://images.app.goo.gl/KA47TTXbdQNfoYVs5

ekianjo 6y ago
It's better based on what criteria?
- numpad0 6y ago
  There are very little real world uses for kana romanized word typed out in English alphabet. Words are either romanized into katakana, or original forms in source languages is inserted similar to how formulas appear in English text. There are plenty real world examples for “Beef curry” and “ビーフカレー” used in pairs in Japanese, katsu is usually an extra so it’s rarer though.
glandium 6y ago
Ironically, OP itself contains "Katsu curry" which is a half-back-romanization. I myself am not too sure what to think about カツ becoming Cutlet when カツ is a shortened version of カツレツ, which itself is the katakana version of Cutlet. Technically, カツ would be Cut, but then English doesn't have that notion of using Cut to mean Cutlet.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

A couple weeks ago I ran into some third party code with translated Japanese comments where "debadora" was left as untranslated romaji. I was puzzled and couldn't find it at first but a little search magic revealed that it is a contraction of "debaisu doraiba" which I suspected was the case. Converting this back to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable. You can't always reconstruct the original words by playing with the pronunciation.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> I ran into some third party code with translated Japanese comments where "debadora" was left as untranslated romaji. I was puzzled and couldn't find it at first but a little search magic revealed that it is a contraction of "debaisu doraiba" which I suspected was the case. Converting this back to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable. Translating debadora to "device driver" is the only way to make it understandable to someone who doesn't speak Japanese. Then again, translating いとこ to "cousin" is also the only way to make that understandable to someone who doesn't speak Japanese (and does speak English), but the goal is to transliterate it as "itoko", not to translate it as "cousin". Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora".
- aikinai 6y ago
  No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original and there are choices to be made with different answers depending on context and intent. The example above of “sale” is a good one. In a Japanese shop for Japanese and by Japanese, you will see “sale” but you will never see se-ru.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    >> Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora". > No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. False; these are one and the same claim, not two conflicting claims. > Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original Again, this is wrong. If your "transliteration" has diverged from the original, it's not a transliteration. A transliteration is a reflection of the original, just using a different orthographic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration

fenomas 6y ago

TFA says this is optional, but it's a good default. The general case for most loan words is that even native Japanese speakers will find the English spelling much more familiar than romanization. E.g. in any Japanese shop you'll see signs that say "sale" or "bargain", but you'd never see "se-ru" or "bāgen" -- writing that way looks as strange to JP speakers as to anyone else. "Cutlet" strikes me as an edge case, considering that "katsu" has more or less become a word in its own right. So, perhaps an unfortunate choice of name for this project...

aikinai 6y ago

Why would you expect this to be used for pronunciation? That’s exactly where it wouldn’t make sense. But it would be much better for semantic understanding by non-Japanese speakers, or titles and such like my example in another comment.

Zarel 6y ago

As the article points out, this is intended to be used for URLs. Converting foreign words to their original spelling is the convention in Japan when transliterating to English. https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ For instance: notice that this says "big gangan" rather than "biggu gangan" (which is how you'd transliterate ビッグガンガン). Also notice the other labels: "PRESENT", "twitter", "BIGGANGAN OKAWARI".