I noticed on Duolingo that です gets pronounced as "des". And when I was in Japan, I noticed natives using the ます form of verbs, and pronouncing that "mas".
Similar in anime; Naruto's さすけ gets pronounced "Saske" but transliterated as "Sasuke". Likewise for Evangelion's おすか.
And I've noticed to a lesser extent つ, as in あかつき ("akatsuki" vs "akatski")
So my question is, why transliterate with a "u" when it's not actually how the language is spoken?
by Syresiv