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I've found that any resource relying on any romaji after the first chapter or two is often a complete waste of time. It slows down beginners needing to make th

I've found that any resource relying on any romaji after the first chapter or two is often a complete waste of time. It slows down beginners needing to make the hard jump, since romaji is never used except for signs in real life, and it just becomes a distraction to the material for anyone who is not a complete beginner. Furigana is helpful to the intermediate learner, romaji just becomes harder to read at that point.

qingcharles 4mo ago
Agree. Especially how easy it is honestly to learn hiragana. You can practically learn it in a day and keep a table next to you to look up every time you forget one. If you're at the point you're learning verbs you'd be mad not to know how to read some kana.
- danabramov 4mo ago
  I explicitly address my reason for choosing it over kana in the article. If you disagree, please engage with the argument that’s already there.
  - eloisant 4mo ago
    The benefit you give (be able to "cut" a kana in the middle) is really weak, I've never seen anyone being confused by that when learning in kana. This is completely nullified by all the drawbacks of using romaji while learning and they're well known already. The only reason to use romaji for Japanese grammar is to explain the concepts to someone who has no interest in learning the language, just for their general knowledge.
    - danabramov 4mo ago
      Part of conceit of my article is that I wanted a person with zero knowledge of Japanese to walk away with ability to conjugate almost any verb to almost any suffix in a single evening. I also wanted the visual notation to work and I don’t consider that motivation weak. Maybe this helps frame it.
danabramov 4mo ago
I’ve explicitly addressed this in the article. Cmd+F for a section called “why romaji is actually good” and then “why romaji is actually bad”. You may disagree with the approach, but I outlined my reasons for choosing it (as well as its downsides).
- Larrikin 4mo ago
  I'm saying I disagree. It is always a crutch for the first year student or the barely passed second year student that never helps with real Japanese. Writing out romaji in Japan is likely to confuse more than help someone else understand.
  - danabramov 4mo ago
    You glossed over my point. I’m not using it as a “crutch” for reading. I’m using it to have notation for the stem — the thing before -u. I could choose alternative notation with kana (e.g. just always using the -u ending, or the idea of variable stems like i-stem and a-stem) but then the visual “gluing” wouldn’t work. Which is the whole point of mental model I’m communicating. It’s fine if you don’t find this mental model helpful but it’s the point of the article. I’ll be honest that I also wanted (as a challenge) to write this article so that a person with zero Japanese knowledge would be able to correctly conjugate almost every word to every ending. This is more of a teaching drill for myself though but it’s another reason for the romaji choice.
    - musicale 4mo ago
      The explanation made sense to me: romaji works well for vowel shifts (as the vowels aren't glued to consonants) while kana works well for consonant shifts (because the vowels are glued to consonants). Latin text's smaller tokens/phonemes have advantages and disadvantages, but they are a convenient notation for getting the author's point across. The difference in phonemes reminds me of how game designer Naramura came up with the (Spanish-sounding) name "La Mulana" for his game by spelling his name backwards in kana. In romaji it would have been "Arumaran" which is completely different (while in kanji it would have been "Muranara".)
imtringued 4mo ago
This is true, the only practical place where romaji might be used daily is for IME input. This is why I think all the commenters obsessing over romaji just add fuel to the fire by being elitist over something that should only matter to an absolute beginner. It's especially vain if the primary reason to choose one romanization strategy over another is to save keystrokes on a keyboard.

qingcharles 4mo ago

Agree. Especially how easy it is honestly to learn hiragana. You can practically learn it in a day and keep a table next to you to look up every time you forget one. If you're at the point you're learning verbs you'd be mad not to know how to read some kana.

danabramov 4mo ago
I explicitly address my reason for choosing it over kana in the article. If you disagree, please engage with the argument that’s already there.
- eloisant 4mo ago
  The benefit you give (be able to "cut" a kana in the middle) is really weak, I've never seen anyone being confused by that when learning in kana. This is completely nullified by all the drawbacks of using romaji while learning and they're well known already. The only reason to use romaji for Japanese grammar is to explain the concepts to someone who has no interest in learning the language, just for their general knowledge.
  - danabramov 4mo ago
    Part of conceit of my article is that I wanted a person with zero knowledge of Japanese to walk away with ability to conjugate almost any verb to almost any suffix in a single evening. I also wanted the visual notation to work and I don’t consider that motivation weak. Maybe this helps frame it.

danabramov 4mo ago

I’ve explicitly addressed this in the article. Cmd+F for a section called “why romaji is actually good” and then “why romaji is actually bad”. You may disagree with the approach, but I outlined my reasons for choosing it (as well as its downsides).

Larrikin 4mo ago
I'm saying I disagree. It is always a crutch for the first year student or the barely passed second year student that never helps with real Japanese. Writing out romaji in Japan is likely to confuse more than help someone else understand.
- danabramov 4mo ago
  You glossed over my point. I’m not using it as a “crutch” for reading. I’m using it to have notation for the stem — the thing before -u. I could choose alternative notation with kana (e.g. just always using the -u ending, or the idea of variable stems like i-stem and a-stem) but then the visual “gluing” wouldn’t work. Which is the whole point of mental model I’m communicating. It’s fine if you don’t find this mental model helpful but it’s the point of the article. I’ll be honest that I also wanted (as a challenge) to write this article so that a person with zero Japanese knowledge would be able to correctly conjugate almost every word to every ending. This is more of a teaching drill for myself though but it’s another reason for the romaji choice.
  - musicale 4mo ago
    The explanation made sense to me: romaji works well for vowel shifts (as the vowels aren't glued to consonants) while kana works well for consonant shifts (because the vowels are glued to consonants). Latin text's smaller tokens/phonemes have advantages and disadvantages, but they are a convenient notation for getting the author's point across. The difference in phonemes reminds me of how game designer Naramura came up with the (Spanish-sounding) name "La Mulana" for his game by spelling his name backwards in kana. In romaji it would have been "Arumaran" which is completely different (while in kanji it would have been "Muranara".)

imtringued 4mo ago

This is true, the only practical place where romaji might be used daily is for IME input. This is why I think all the commenters obsessing over romaji just add fuel to the fire by being elitist over something that should only matter to an absolute beginner. It's especially vain if the primary reason to choose one romanization strategy over another is to save keystrokes on a keyboard.