I’m mostly asking because my name starts with an L and it would be nice to be able to write it like that. Though I have never seen these combinations in anime or other media, that’s also a reason
Never seen the L ones used. The other ones I sometimes see used with varying frequencies.
Example: In the anime Frieren, one of the characters is called „フェルン“.
The romanized version of the characters at the bottom are actually [r]s (at least, in standard romanization). Your name would use an ‘R’ in a normal romanized spelling.
In 500 hours of learning I have encountered rednaku’ed ヴ precisely once.
there are a lot of weird combinations, such as ト゜for ng(o) that are barely used and seldom recognised, much like rarer kanji. only a few of these are worth learning, such as ファ/ィ/ェ/ォ, the rest are just trivia
Just going by feeling, I’d rank them like this:
– Extremely common: – ウィウェウォ: For most W sounds – ヴァヴィヴヴェヴォ: For almost all new loanwords, especially foreign names, that have a V sound – ファフィフェフォ: For the vast majority of F sounds in loanwords – ティ: Part of some pretty common words like パーティー or ティッシュ – ディ: Also decently common – Common: – イェ: Ye also becomes エ a lot though, e.g. yell→エール – キェギェシェジェチェニェヒェビェピェミェリェ: Not all are equally common, but it’s a pattern you see often – ツァツィツェツォ: For syllables that start with a TS sound, e.g. マオ・ツォートン, the transcription of the Mandarin pronunciation of Mao’s name, or German words like Zeit→ツァイト – Rare: – クァクィクェクォグヮグィグェグォ: Usually you’d just write it as two moras, like quest→クエスト – Obscure: – ウァ is ワ most of the time (obviously), but iirc transcriptions of Latin “VA” often use ウァ for some reason (and I think ウゥ might be the same) – スィズィ: I think I’ve seen them before, but it’s far more common to turn both si/zi and shi/zhi into シ/ジ – Basically nonexistent: – イィ: Hard to pronounce. “Yi” usually gets turned into イー (yeast→イースト) – ウゥ: Also hard to pronounce. In practice “wu” is almost always written as ウー (woman→ウーマン). I don’t think I’ve ever seen イィ or ウゥ outside of chart like this – ヴィェ/フィェ – テゥデゥ: These should actually be トゥドゥ, in which case I’d put them as common, since there is at least one common word (タトゥー) that has トゥ – ホゥ: Mostly フ – ラ゚リ゚ル゚レ゚ロ゚: You just write ラリルレロ without the 半濁点
Again, this is just my personal feeling, I’m sure most of those are used somewhere. Feel free to reply with some examples where the combinations I put as rare/obscure/nonexistent are actually used practically
Fun fact: In the past V sound were sometimes written with ヷヸヴヹヺ instead of two characters, but that’s obsolete, if it was ever common in the first place. Also in phonetic transcriptions you sometimes use カ゚キ゚ク゚ケ゚コ゚ (with 半濁点) to distinguish the [ŋ] (ng) sound of 鼻濁音 from a normal [g], for example 上げる is transcribed as アケ゚ル instead of アゲル in the NHK dictionary
I can’t even write the L row with my Japanese phone keyboard. The others are more or less common.
For example, many words and names that were taken from other languages into Japan in the past are more conservative in their use of Katakana. For example: Vladimir Putin is ウラジーミル プーチン. These extended Katakana are more common in modern media, for example veganism is ヴィーガニズム.
So I would suggest you to look up your name in Wikipedia and switching to Japanese or looking up some famous person with your name to see what the conventional Japanese spelling is.
Lol if u’ve never seen it in anime that means it doesn’t exist lol oh god hahaa ur giving me a laughing fit. どっか行けおまえ日本語学んな、所詮アニメがきっかけでしょうが。
You may be interested in the “Kana they do not teach you at school” series from [this channel](https://youtu.be/qATwFXCvgHo)
The L ones are sometimes used by linguists to indicate that the /r/ phoneme is uttered more as a lateral (L-like) consonant rather than something more R-like (just like the K row with handakuten is used to indicate the nasal allophone of /g/).
Never saw that L before, so I guess not lol
In Japanese l and r are the same sound, so you would write your name with r, but I think you can pronounce it with l
シェゾ・ウィグィィ
Semi related – what is little あ used for (and how do you type it)?
I have seem the L ones once in a linguistic text. It is *very* niche though.
All -u sounds except ヴ in the table look falsy. ウゥ/テゥ/デゥ look out of place and fictitious both phonetic and transcription-wise. ホゥ for hu is plain wrong. ラリルレロ with tone marks are only for phoneticians and 99% people don’t recognize such combinations as valid.
BTW for the word ‘toe’ some people traditionally prefer transcription not トー or トウ butトゥ, like toe shoes (トゥシューズ) or heel and toe (ヒールアンドトゥ). Still pronounced as a diphthong and that’s one of the super confusing exceptions.
just finished watching [this youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F00NDObY9P0) where he mentions finding a hobby in your target language, and brings…
14 comments
Never seen the L ones used. The other ones I sometimes see used with varying frequencies.
Example: In the anime Frieren, one of the characters is called „フェルン“.
The romanized version of the characters at the bottom are actually [r]s (at least, in standard romanization). Your name would use an ‘R’ in a normal romanized spelling.
In 500 hours of learning I have encountered rednaku’ed ヴ precisely once.
there are a lot of weird combinations, such as ト゜for ng(o) that are barely used and seldom recognised, much like rarer kanji. only a few of these are worth learning, such as ファ/ィ/ェ/ォ, the rest are just trivia
Just going by feeling, I’d rank them like this:
– Extremely common:
– ウィウェウォ: For most W sounds
– ヴァヴィヴヴェヴォ: For almost all new loanwords, especially foreign names, that have a V sound
– ファフィフェフォ: For the vast majority of F sounds in loanwords
– ティ: Part of some pretty common words like パーティー or ティッシュ
– ディ: Also decently common
– Common:
– イェ: Ye also becomes エ a lot though, e.g. yell→エール
– キェギェシェジェチェニェヒェビェピェミェリェ: Not all are equally common, but it’s a pattern you see often
– ツァツィツェツォ: For syllables that start with a TS sound, e.g. マオ・ツォートン, the transcription of the Mandarin pronunciation of Mao’s name, or German words like Zeit→ツァイト
– Rare:
– クァクィクェクォグヮグィグェグォ: Usually you’d just write it as two moras, like quest→クエスト
– Obscure:
– ウァ is ワ most of the time (obviously), but iirc transcriptions of Latin “VA” often use ウァ for some reason (and I think ウゥ might be the same)
– スィズィ: I think I’ve seen them before, but it’s far more common to turn both si/zi and shi/zhi into シ/ジ
– Basically nonexistent:
– イィ: Hard to pronounce. “Yi” usually gets turned into イー (yeast→イースト)
– ウゥ: Also hard to pronounce. In practice “wu” is almost always written as ウー (woman→ウーマン). I don’t think I’ve ever seen イィ or ウゥ outside of chart like this
– ヴィェ/フィェ
– テゥデゥ: These should actually be トゥドゥ, in which case I’d put them as common, since there is at least one common word (タトゥー) that has トゥ
– ホゥ: Mostly フ
– ラ゚リ゚ル゚レ゚ロ゚: You just write ラリルレロ without the 半濁点
Again, this is just my personal feeling, I’m sure most of those are used somewhere. Feel free to reply with some examples where the combinations I put as rare/obscure/nonexistent are actually used practically
Fun fact: In the past V sound were sometimes written with ヷヸヴヹヺ instead of two characters, but that’s obsolete, if it was ever common in the first place. Also in phonetic transcriptions you sometimes use カ゚キ゚ク゚ケ゚コ゚ (with 半濁点) to distinguish the [ŋ] (ng) sound of 鼻濁音 from a normal [g], for example 上げる is transcribed as アケ゚ル instead of アゲル in the NHK dictionary
I can’t even write the L row with my Japanese phone keyboard. The others are more or less common.
For example, many words and names that were taken from other languages into Japan in the past are more conservative in their use of Katakana. For example: Vladimir Putin is ウラジーミル プーチン. These extended Katakana are more common in modern media, for example veganism is ヴィーガニズム.
So I would suggest you to look up your name in Wikipedia and switching to Japanese or looking up some famous person with your name to see what the conventional Japanese spelling is.
Lol if u’ve never seen it in anime that means it doesn’t exist lol oh god hahaa ur giving me a laughing fit.
どっか行けおまえ日本語学んな、所詮アニメがきっかけでしょうが。
You may be interested in the “Kana they do not teach you at school” series from [this channel](https://youtu.be/qATwFXCvgHo)
The L ones are sometimes used by linguists to indicate that the /r/ phoneme is uttered more as a lateral (L-like) consonant rather than something more R-like (just like the K row with handakuten is used to indicate the nasal allophone of /g/).
Never saw that L before, so I guess not lol
In Japanese l and r are the same sound, so you would write your name with r, but I think you can pronounce it with l
シェゾ・ウィグィィ
Semi related – what is little あ used for (and how do you type it)?
I have seem the L ones once in a linguistic text. It is *very* niche though.
All -u sounds except ヴ in the table look falsy. ウゥ/テゥ/デゥ look out of place and fictitious both phonetic and transcription-wise. ホゥ for hu is plain wrong. ラリルレロ with tone marks are only for phoneticians and 99% people don’t recognize such combinations as valid.
BTW for the word ‘toe’ some people traditionally prefer transcription not トー or トウ butトゥ, like toe shoes (トゥシューズ) or heel and toe (ヒールアンドトゥ). Still pronounced as a diphthong and that’s one of the super confusing exceptions.