Katakana Spelling

When learning English in Japan, a common tool that is used (in and out of classrooms) is Katakana. Katakana is a representation of all the syllables that a person uses in their intended use of Japanese. If we did it this way in English, we would have over 148,000 symbols to remember. Nuh-uh. No good. In Japanese, this comes out to a rough 148, of which native (non-borrowed) words use less than a hundred. When words are borrowed from other languages (like English, with 1000's of words borrowed) they are translated into Katakana. That means that of all the possible sound combinations in English that could make up a word, Katakana reduces the number of syllables that could be accurately represented to less than 1/1000 of the native English. Did I mention that many people learn to produce English pronunciation using Katakana? Well, who could blame anyone with "less-than perfect" pronunciation when they only have 1/1000 of the syllables they need in order to have full control of the sounds? (note: it could be made easier if people were taught how to make our syllables not by syllables but instead as sounds, and this would reduce the ratio to something like 1/3 of all sounds being automatically known. However, Japanese is a language where syllable=sound, so that is not a native way of thinking for a Japanese langauge learner.)

The Japanese have a daunting task whenever they try to interpret English spellings into sound they can work out from the spelling. If they know how the word "MacDonald's" sounds in English, but they don't know the spelling, they might totally miss the fact that a label says "MacDonald's." Or the reverse: they have seen an English word many times, even tried to pronounce it with Katakana syllables, but when they hear the actual syllables (scoring perhaps one correctly syllable in the whole word right if they're lucky), they might not have any idea what was just said, no matter how clearly spoken or standardized the English used. When new words are coined, or worse: the latest fad (mixing french words with random accent marks, English-borrowed word segments, and slamming them together on a very fancy shirt). I see shirts everywhere now that say things like "Comme Ca Ism." Meaning...as far as I can tell, nothing. Theoretically, if we consult French and English, we get something like (half of the French equivalent of "so-so" or "ho-hum") and "an instance of." So Basically the shirt reads: "an instance of feeling so-so." I would not even hazard a guess to how a person might pronounce this, especially with those nasty capitals hanging on every word.

Here is something for a little fun for you, a bit of a game I learned in Japanese class: I've type-out the almost-exact sounds of Katakana into romanji which is an intimidating way of saying "English Type" for alot of people. These are all considered to be acceptable, standard pronuciations. Try to guess what each one means in English (where the words themselves come from.) If any reader that finds the time would like to give it a shot and post their guesses, I can confirm or deny those guesses and add them next to the ones on the list. Any of you of any level of Japanese, including zero, are free to try. Some of them aren't really so bad at all! I hope you like this little "game." I'll give 1pt of "honour" to each correct guess, and declare the winner once all have been filled in. Some of them I might have to fill in even for you long-time studies of Japanese (for you guys--you know who you are-- please don't jump in and fill in all the easy one's first, there are no "honour" points in an easy task!) Don't worry though--they start out pretty easy. Incorrect answers result in no loss of honour points. Have fun! Oh, and I can't post "honour" points for those who don't put their name on their answers, somewhere. They are all nouns, further narrowing your efforts.

The only thing that might throw you off a bit is that h and f is instead one sound between them, unless it is the h in the sh sound. a always sounds like ah, e like the e in eight, i like in the e in be, o like the o in open, and u like the ew in new.
Shikago
Huranku
Guliinu-san
Serusu (5 honour points for this one!)
kahein
Shiateru (not a bad word!)
misshon
suupaaman
jiiniasu (a riddle to help you: if you figure this one out, you might be one)
open caa
Ronguman
sakka boru
lemon
Lusaa
Ereveetaa

After this, if you would like to experiment with your knowledge of Japanese sounds, see if we Americans are pronouncing the names of Japanese products correctly, and if we are not, how we should be saying them. You might be surprised! Subaru, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Hitachi, Honda are a few to start you off if you cannot think of any right away on your own. Chances are, we all own some Japanese product that we are not pronouncing correctly.