4.1. Romanization
There is more than one way to Romanize Japanese. I used Hepburn Romanization in my site because it is the most common way. Kunrei Romanization, which is very similar to phonemes I use here, is also commonly used.
The words at the beginning of sentences, as well as proper nouns, are written with a capital letter in Romanized Japanese exactly like in English.
As I have explained, succesive vowels are written with an alphabet with a circumflex ("^") or a macron ("¯") instead of the two same vowel alphabets. Circumflexes are often omitted in English even though that makes confusion. Please remember that in colloquial Japanese, the phoneme /o u/ is pronounced as "oo", and the phoneme /e i/ is often pronounced as "ee" if quickly spoken.
Phoneme | Pronunciation | Romanization | Romanization w/o circumflex
|
---|
/a a/ | "aa" | â | a
|
/i i/ | "ii" | î | ii
|
/u u/ | "uu" | û | u
|
/e e/ | "ee" | ê | e
|
/o o/ | "oo" | ô | o
|
/e i/ | "ei" or "ee" | ei | ei
|
/o u/ | "oo" | ô | o
|
Here is an example:
Hiragana: |  |  |  |  |
|
Phonemes: | to | u | kyo | u
|
Romanization: | Tô | kyô
|
Meaning: | Tôkyô (noun)
|
The phonemes of this word are /to u kyo u/. Since /o u/ is pronounced as "oo" in colloquial Japanese, its pronunciation is "tookyoo". Using circumflexes for the succesive vowels produces Tôkyô, which becomes Tokyo if the circumflexes are omitted. In fact, the circumflexes are almost always omitted in English. Tôkyô has been capital of Japan since 1603, and it was called 
/e do/ "Edo" before 1868.
Even though the word 



/to u kyo u/ "Tôkyô" has four syllables, its English notation Tokyo looks as if it had only two syllables. So use circumflexes whenever possible. If you can't, write phonemes such as "ou" for "ô", instead of just removing circumflexes.
The time length necessary to pronounce 



/to u kyo u/ "Tôkyô" is the same as my hometown 


/yo ko ha ma/ "Yokohama" because both have four syllables. Many English speakers pronounce Yokohama much longer than a native Japanese speaker would do.
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