Talk:Transcription into Japanese

Computer game
Though this dictionary entry has no nakaguro, it's a matter of preference. See these. and. Or is there any RS that says nakaguro is not needed with well known gairaigo? Oda Mari (talk) 10:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Phonology
Is the IPA transcription possible? I thought that combination of the semivowels and  would only result into, that is, the semivowel equivalent of , the French sound in lune and the German sound in Müller. In any way, I think that trying to pronounce either or  would make one's cheeks sore or at least numb, since "rounding-gliding-unrounding-fastly gliding-compressing" or "rounding and gliding-unrounding and compressing", both look pretty hard. Lguipontes (talk) 09:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * When the superscript j is used with velar consonants, it usually means that the constriction is fronted towards the palatal region. In regards to Japanese, the [w] and [u] share the same labialization (a form of rounding with compressed lips), despite how they might be transcribed here and elsewhere.  I have no idea if that's how the sound is actually pronounced in Japanese, though.  — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  16:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, I actually did not went to the article of to remember that it was referring specifically to  and not, and yes, they are different things. And my mind did not figured out that the Japanese  was just exactly the semivowel equivalent to their . I excuse myself because I slept just some minutes after writing it in the morning, hahaha. Thank you. Lguipontes (talk) 06:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Formatting in the Extended Katakana table has become confused
The original idea of the "Extended Katakana" table was apparently that characters in grey (that means character itself in grey, not grey background) are "obsolete and rarely used for writing Japanese itself now". This colour-coding scheme has become confused following the insertion of large numbers of standard katakana also in grey. This needs fixing or explaining. However, apropos of this, other questions arise:

1. Should we simply delete the standard katakana from this table? What are they doing there anyway?

2. The concept that grey characters are "obsolete and rarely used for writing Japanese itself now" seems muddled to me. By definition none of the characters or combinations here are "used for writing Japanese itself", or, presumably, ever have been. The whole point of the table is to list kana and kana combinations that are only used in transcriptions of foreign words. In order to more clearly explain this, we need to establish what, if anything, is special about the characters and character combinations in grey, which are as follows:

クヮ グヮ  ラ゜  リ゜  ル゜  レ゜  ロ゜  ウァ  ヷ  ヸ  ヹ  ヺ

What, if anything, do we need to say about these by way of colour-coding and/or footnotes? 81.159.111.255 (talk) 21:23, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. The table is very confusing. I think the standard katakana should be deleted. I think クヮ and グヮ are now written クワ and グア. As for ラ゜ リ゜  ル゜  レ゜  ロ゜, I learned them at here and, as far as I remember, I have never seen them used in any publications. ウァ is not used. The sound is usually described with ワ like Watt/ワット or Watts/ワッツ. As for  ヷ  ヸ  ヹ  ヺ, I've never seen them used too. See the Ref. #1. I think it's helpful. Oda Mari (talk) 08:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I deleted the standard katakana. I am still unsure what to do with the grey colour coding. I am not happy with the current explanation "obsolete and rarely used for writing Japanese itself now". This implies that these characters were previously used for writing "Japanese itself" (i.e. native Japanese words), which I don't think is true (though someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps it means that the characters were once used in transcriptions of foreign words, but not any more? From what you say, クヮ and グヮ seem to fall into that category. (However, your modern versions, クワ and グア, are different from the article, which gives クァ and グァ. Is the article wrong?) Is it possible, do you think, that the other grey characters were also once used for transcription but no longer (hence you are not familiar with them)? Or do you think they were never used (maybe proposed but never adopted)? Unfortunately I can only read baby Japanese, and Ref. #1 is too hard for me. 86.160.219.242 (talk) 21:01, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry that I took long to reply. I agree with you about "Japanese itself" part. Be bold and edit it. As for クワ and グア, it is written in the ref. #1, but it means クワ and グア are generally used or preferable. Not that "do not use クァ and グァ". Quartet could be クァルテット、クアルテット、or カルテット. I personally prefer クァルテット. You can use the one you like. This kind of transcription is not strict in Japan. See ja:グアバ. The article title is グアバ, but you can find other transcriptions in the first sentence. The writing is flexible in ja. When you write "I went to Tokyo yesterday", you can write "(私)は(昨日)、東京に行った". Some use hiragana for 私, some use hiragana for 昨日 and some use hiragana for both. Male does not always write 僕. Some prefer to write ぼく or ボク. So are these small letters too. Oda Mari (talk) 09:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Belated thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I do not feel I understand these issues clearly enough to edit the article further. For the benefit of any other editors who might be interested in doing so, I'll summarise again the problems that I see, some of which have been discussed above.
 * Table uses grey colour coding for characters that are "obsolete and rarely used for writing Japanese itself now", yet by definition none of the characters or character combinations anywhere in the table are, or ever have been, "used for writing Japanese itself". I believe the grey colour coding was originally intended to have a valid purpose, but that purpose was not properly explained, and I do not understand what it is.
 * Certain characters are put in brackets, but the meaning of this is not explained.
 * Of the series ラ゜リ゜etc. it is noted that "use in modern Japanese is non-existent due to the nature of the r sound in Japanese". However, since these characters are solely intended to distinguish between "l" and "r" in foreign words, the nature of the "r" sound in Japanese is irrelevant. You might as well say that use of any character or combination in this table is "non-existent in modern Japanese" because the sounds they represent are not present in native Japanese words. That's the whole point of inventing these new characters and combinations, to represent such sounds. 86.160.220.42 (talk) 03:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Template parameters

 * This page reuses the table from the katakana article via the template.

I have just added parameters to that template so the pages could transclude it with different results, see the documentation there. — Christoph Päper 16:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Currently I do not understand these parameters or the motivation for adding them. Discussion at template talk page Template talk:Katakana table. 86.179.112.252 (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Grey characters in extended table
The note explaining the grey colour coding in the extended table as meaning "obsolete and rarely used for writing Japanese itself now", which I queried above, and which was tagged as "clarification needed", has been deleted. However, the colour coding itself has not been removed. I question whether this is a net improvement. I do not propose to edit this aspect of the article myself since, as I mentioned above, I do not understand the original intention of the colour coding. 86.160.217.172 (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Chinese /d/ is similar to Japanese or English /t/
This is misleading. English T is aspirated in most positions (especiall in British English), while Chinese pinyin D is an unaspirated T at most like in the English word "still" or any other words beginning with "st". It doesn't correspond to unaspirated consonants in Romance languages either, which are often aspirated a little bit more than Chinese unaspirated consonants, making the Chinese counterparts even look voiced. --2.245.238.101 (talk) 21:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Color Change
I think we should change the background colors of the Extended Katakana table. For people who are either partially or completely color-blind, like me, it is difficult to distinguish between the red and beige, as well as between the blue and purple. 24.110.88.110 (talk) 18:23, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Let’s not reinvent the wheel here. Is there a WP-wide recommendation on (cell) background colors used for semantic distinction?
 * Also, please note that you can experiment on a sandbox page with parameters to a template call like  — Christoph Päper 19:14, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Extended katakana table colour explanations
According to the colour-coding of the extended katakana table, these are the explanations for "orange" and "blue":

[Orange]: General kana combinations used for loanwords or foreign place names or personal names, set forth by the Japanese government's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT, Monbushō).

[Blue]: Combinations used for more accurate transliteration of foreign sounds, again set forth by MEXT.

Apparently, the explanation for "blue" needs a clarification. According to the source text (which took some time to translate), the "orange" kana ("kana in table 1") should be used for general transcription of foreign words/place names/personal names, while "blue" kana ("kana in table 2") should be used when transcribing the place name/personal name needs to be as close as possible to the original pronunciation and spelling. How can the explanation be clarified? AstroVulpes (talk) 12:01, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

What about common enough non-standard Kana representations?
The seven non-standard but common enough Kana that I've come across over the years, and any others that may be out there, having its section in this article may be helpful. The seven I'm aware of are ア゛gha う゜n' ラ゜la リ゜li ル゜lu レ゜le ロ゜lo CJLippert (talk) 22:18, 7 August 2021 (UTC)