lol I'm amazed at how long you have kept that prejudice about romaji. What do you mean by "other Japanese written forms" anyway? You speak as if romaji was one of them. If you want to argue, base things on facts.

Why does this have anything to do with elitism? I'm only writing Japanese, my native language, the way it's supposed to be and the way it's written in Japan. How's that so different from you writing English the way you are?

You're so clearly (and mistakenly) 100% pro-romaji. What if YuriTokoro insists on writing English using katakana because she's more comfortable writing English with the letters she grew up using? Would you encourage her to continue doing that or would you try to disuade her from it? What would one achieve if one refused to write English using the alphabet? What confuses me is that you seem to take it for granted that I write English using the writing system that I'm supoposed to use, yet you're being unable to think thngs in relative forms when it comes to Japanese writing.

You keep using the term 'elitism', but if you really see an elitism in the things I state, you've got a serious complex problem. If I ever suggested that all posts be written in Classical Japanese, then call me anything you want. But if you keep calling me names just because I promote the real Japanese writing systems, you will only be supported by other sad anime fans.

No, if I was your teacher, I would much rather see you write completely wrong using Kana, than reverting to romaji. I think what Sashimister was pointing out was how romaji dependence can easily confuse new learners.

You are not stupid for making mistakes, everybody makes mistakes in language learning.

Educate me. Start with why romaji remains to exist in modern times, despite this universal dislike for it.

I have no problem with your writing Japanese in the way you are most comfortable. What I was taking issue with was the perception that your question to the OP seemed to be a lead-in to another voicing of this romaji dislike. This may have had little to do with how the OP was expressing himself/herself. That's all.

Lots here. I'll examine it point by point:

1) I'm not pro-anything. You're inferring a little too much.
2) Do not bring YuriTokoro into this argument. This is an issue between you and I, not you and I and her.
3) Similiarly, finding argument traction in my complete lack of knowledge of the Japanese language is not a part of this disagreement. If it makes you feel any better, however, I will admit I know very very little (practically nothing) about the Japanese language. This is not a big secret I keep hidden.

Point by point:

1) Classical Japanese - another strawman argument, which has no bearing on this discussion.
2) Labeling me as a "sad anime fan" is yet another baseless comparison. I have never expressed myself as such, nor will I ever do so. Watching anime is my current entertainment choice, simply put.

I certainly hope I have cleared up any misunderstanding surrounding my purpose for posting in this thread, and I do apologize for using such polarizing terms.

Whoa, before this turns into something more hostile...

Sashimister - I think you have to step back for a moment to see part of what Koir is talking about. And it isn`t just you, and I don`t really think it is entirely about romaji vs. kana.

I am against using romaji, but I can still see part of this and can understand some of the exasperation.

It seems that recently more and more outright hostility is directed toward romaji users... And a lot of it isn`t necessary in my eyes. Instead of informing new users that they`ll progress much better, etc, by using kana - there is an attitude of "if you use romaji you aren`t good enough to learn Japanese" projected. Mistakes are blamed on the fact that they have used romaji, and a lot of the time - even if it`s the first post - they`re treated with incredible impatience.

I think that this is the "attitude of elitism" mentioned. For a lot of learners, their first exposure is in romaji, and there are some schools that even teach without using kana for quite some time.

I will never suggest that anyone should be using romaji, but is it necessary to be so dismissive of people who use it on their first few posts?

And a voice of reason is heard....

Thanks Nyororin! :)

At the beginning what Sashimister intended to say is the usage of romaji could have probably confused people with どうも and ども. These two words have totally different meanings.

Generally, どうも should be written as doumo or dōmo; but since it's inconvenient, some people may just write domo (it may be considered wrong? however I do see some textbook omit the u or ō)

As a result, when this phrase どうも is converted from romaji to hiragana it may be incorrectly written as ども. I believe that's what Sashimister was trying to say (at the very beginning)

For begininers, romanji is surely a lot easier to use when learning Japanese. Since I am not a native speaker nor an advanved Japanese learner, I will leave Wiki to explain the history and use of romaji for me. :) Romanization of Japanese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When I tried to search the infomartion about romaji, at first I search the Japanese Wiki by the phrase ロマン字 (romanji), which I found out it was incorrect. The correct word is ローマ字. :o This is another examples of "romanji influence" that Sashimister was saying.

Koir, you have your points. However, Sashimister was pretty neutral in the first post of this thread. :)

lol Sounds as if I had said something unreasonable.

If the majority of JF members agree with you on the romaji issue, I'll be more than happy to get the heck outa here as I have much more than a single member's influence on the language section as of now. Endorsing the use of romaji, which has nothing to do with Japanese, is the last thing I want to do. I'm not a vendor of fake fur.

To me, it is always less intelligent looking if you write something simple in romaji. Also, "domo" and "arigato" are both wrongly romanized there in pretty much all the major romanization systems.

There are a number of reasons (to facilitate linguists who study Japanese grammar but don't need to actually be able to write or speak the language, to make survival Japanese possible for visitors, to make it possible to learn Japanese for the first couple weeks until kana is mastered, etc.), but "to be able to communicate in Japanese effectively" is definitely not one of them.

That may or may not be a fair criticism. Honestly, I'm too lazy to go back and look to see whether people jumped to conclusions. But can you blame us for getting frustrated with those who repeatedly try to convince us that romaji is a valid and useful way of writing Japanese?

This is a logical failing. YuriTokoro was not brought into this argument in the way "don't bring X into the argument" is used to mean. She was used as an example. There is a difference here. What you said does not a logical argument make.
If the argument is about whether the use of romaji is a remotely good idea outside of, say, the first two weeks of your endeavor to learn Japanese. You are suggesting otherwise. Therefore, your lack of Japanese ability harms your authority to make any such assertion.


It's OK. We all use polarizing terms sometimes. I often find myself editing posts (quickly) 3–4 times just to remove profanity and insults. ;)

That's a pretty interesting turn of phrase. Did you just make it up, or is it a saying in Japanese or English I'm unfamiliar with?