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Both types of romanization are meaningful in different contexts. For English pronouncing the words such as "Shinjuku", "Fukushima", "Chichibu" are better, and are better for writing Japanese names in English text in general. However, the other system, with "Sinzyuku", "Hukusima", etc is directly according to the kana by the grid order, so its use is if you need to directly correspond to such a thing.
When I was teaching English academic writing at a Japanese university fifteen years ago, I was struck at how inconsistently the students wrote Japanese names and terms in English. They had been exposed to multiple romanization methods, and most of them couldn’t stick to just one system. I ended up writing a set of detailed guidelines for them [1, 2].
An excellent source for even more information about the intricacies of writing Japanese in English is the Japan Style Sheet [3].
[1] https://park.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eigo/UT-Komaba-Romanization-o...
[2] https://park.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eigo/UT-Komaba-Nihongo-no-rom...
The switch to Hepburn rules is reasonable since it's the de facto style of romanization but, if they were going to go thru this sort of effort to revise their written language it seems disappointing that they wouldn't add stress marks / accent marks to their romanization. It especially makes sense in Japanese to remove ambiguity like, 港南. Konan, naively in Hepburn. But is it Kon-an or Ko-nan? Kònan removes ambiguity.
Honestly, anyone who is sufficiently capable in japanese to know that 港南 is something close to "Ko + nan" is going to know hiragana and be able deduce the onyomi readings of each (or at least, of 南, which is the most common reading of a basic kanji), and will not need romanization. The real value of the romaji is for people who know nothing of the language, and it's just weird that the common romanization leaves these important vowel details out.
(I'd personally love a unified syntax for tone that doesn't involve drawing squiggly lines over the word, or a number next to it, but that's a pretty specialized need, I think.)
The switch to Hepburn rules is reasonable since it's the de facto style of romanization but, if they were going to go thru this sort of effort to revise their written language it seems disappointing that they wouldn't add stress marks / accent marks to their romanization. It especially makes sense in Japanese to remove ambiguity like, 港南. Konan, naively in Hepburn. But is it Kon-an or Ko-nan? Kònan removes ambiguity.
Given that the "Ko" is actually pronounced "Kou" (i.e. hold the "o" sound for a beat longer), I'm not sure how the downward accent helps? The bigger thing than "kon an" vs. "ko nan", IMO, is that the romanization rules don't capture these kinds of repeated/extended vowel combinations. Honestly, anyone who is sufficiently capable in japanese to know that 港南 is something close to "Ko + nan" is going to know hiragana an…
The switch to Hepburn rules is reasonable since it's the de facto style of romanization but, if they were going to go thru this sort of effort to revise their written language it seems disappointing that they wouldn't add stress marks / accent marks to their romanization. It especially makes sense in Japanese to remove ambiguity like, 港南. Konan, naively in Hepburn. But is it Kon-an or Ko-nan? Kònan removes ambiguity.
Given that the "Ko" is actually pronounced "Kou" (i.e. hold the "o" sound for a beat longer), I'm not sure how the downward accent helps? The bigger thing than "kon an" vs. "ko nan", IMO, is that the romanization rules don't capture these kinds of repeated/extended vowel combinations. Honestly, anyone who is sufficiently capable in japanese to know that 港南 is something close to "Ko + nan" is going to know hiragana an…
The switch to Hepburn rules is reasonable since it's the de facto style of romanization but, if they were going to go thru this sort of effort to revise their written language it seems disappointing that they wouldn't add stress marks / accent marks to their romanization. It especially makes sense in Japanese to remove ambiguity like, 港南. Konan, naively in Hepburn. But is it Kon-an or Ko-nan? Kònan removes ambiguity.
きんいろ => kin'iro
きにろ => kiniroHepburn has made Japanese more accessible universally given its phonetic nature and relationship to English. There are many other transliteration systems out there that people are using with their local languages as well.
If you want to see the opposite approach, look at China and Pinyin. It’s made pronunciation of Chinese in English and elsewhere less intuitive. In order to pronounce Chinese words properly you need to learn Pinyin and its phonetic rules. As a result, many Chinese people take on Westernized names to avoid the inevitable butchering, which is a bit of a shame.
While Pinyin was probably the best choice for enhancing literacy in China, it has inadvertently created hurdles for foreigners. In contrast, Japan’s Hepburn system has avoided such challenges.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that the "Ko" is actually pronounced "Kou" (i.e. hold the "o" sound for a beat longer), I'm not sure how the downward accent helps? The bigger thing than "kon an" vs. "ko nan", IMO, is that the romanization rules don't capture these kinds of repeated/extended vowel combinations. Honestly, anyone who is sufficiently capable in japanese to know that 港南 is something close to "Ko + nan" is going to know hiragana an…
You basically still have the same problem tho. Is it Ko-un-an or Kou-nan? Without accent marks it's unclear without already knowing.
Tone aside, "kounan" is pronounced as a native English speaker would pronounce the word.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may technically be logically consistent, but nobody writes this way: “meaning, for example, the official spelling of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi will replace Aiti.” This reads that the official spelling is currently Aichi. The Shibuya sentence is very awkward as well.
“Aichi will replace Aiti” seems pretty clear to me.
"Aichi will replace Aiti" doesn't add any clarity if it's breaking that logic. There's a reason why others also find this article hard to parse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that the "Ko" is actually pronounced "Kou" (i.e. hold the "o" sound for a beat longer), I'm not sure how the downward accent helps? The bigger thing than "kon an" vs. "ko nan", IMO, is that the romanization rules don't capture these kinds of repeated/extended vowel combinations. Honestly, anyone who is sufficiently capable in japanese to know that 港南 is something close to "Ko + nan" is going to know hiragana an…
What? Isn't こう/コー supposed to be "kō" under Hepburn?