3 ms·
The correct way to write Tokyo in Hepburn romaji is actually Tōkyō (to indicate the longer "o"). However it's rarely romanized this way. At some point we have
by eloisant 6y ago
The correct way to write Tokyo in Hepburn romaji is actually Tōkyō (to indicate the longer "o"). However it's rarely romanized this way.
At some point we have to admit that especially for names (of places, people) we don't need to have a "1 to 1" conversion between hiragana and romaji. People pick the name that work well in English or other alphabet-based languages rather than a direct conversion.
People who can't speak Japanese are not going to pronounce names correctly anyway.
- greggman3 6y agoThis is actually a pet peeve of mine. You can find countless examples of people in the USA going out of their way to speak an Italian, French, or Spanish word with the correct Italian, French, or Spanish pronunciation. SNL even did a skit about it. https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/enchilada/n9970 https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/enchilada/n997... I know that skit is a joke but it came about because of events related Latin America being in the news and all the newscasters going out of their way to use the correct pronunciation. It's got absolutely nothing to with saying a word how it looks in English because there are plenty of European origin words that are pronounced far different than they would following English rules. "Pizza" being a simple example. I still hear people doing in regularly in the news, bars, restaurants. But I have never in my life seen any American ever give the same effort to Asian languages. Simple easy examples, there no "ee" sound in "Tokyo" or "Kyoto".