鯨座　－　くじらざ　－　constellation of Cetus.

3 Constellations are out: Constellation of Hydra 海蛇座, constellation of Leo 獅子座, and now Constellation of Cetus 鯨座。

座席　（ざせき）　seat

き...

ah... why so many ki words...

強風　－　きょうふう, kyoufuu　－　strong wind

u...

魚座　－　うおざ　－　Constellation of Pisces

雑誌　（ざっし）　zasshi - magazine

I'm all for teaching Japanese in Hiragana rather than romaji, but for purposes of people who do not speak the language, romanization IS necessary, and in an attempt at at least making their pronunciation a little better, I believe in phonetic transcriptions. Obviously someone without knowledge of Japanese phonotactics (or w/e language) is going to get Nagoya wrong, but at least they won't screw up tatsu--which they would if you transcribed it as tatu.

姿勢 - しせい - shisei - Posture, stance, position

first of all this thread is for Japanese learners who should have knowledge of Japanese phono-tactics. people "without knowledge of Japanese phonotactics (sic)" are probably going to read it as 'tat su' and even then it will be accented to their own languages way to pronounce ta and su sounds. sigh..

here is an example how romaji is ridiculous for learners of Japanese to rely on for pronunciation. MMM who is great at Japanese explained for his American accent etc how to pronounce 可愛い and how it conflicts with an Australian accent. he said か sounds like the first syllable in cotton, but for Australians the first syllable of cotton sounds like こ in Japanese. he explained わ is like Washington but in Aust. we say Washington as a 'wo' sound, not at all like わ in Japanese. I do agree however with his explanation for 'いい' in my accent's pronunciation of English. hopefully this makes the faults of relying on romaji for pronunciation clear. in fact in this case if MMM or someone else with that American accent, was to publish a book based on how to pronounce the Japanese sounds and it was brought to Australia (like many text books are) Australians would be pronouncing Japanese quite wrong just from these couple of examples.

I see the only purpose for knowing romaji is as a way of inputting Japanese into a computer and that is the only reason i learnt romaji. I learnt it after i had already learnt to pronounce and write 平仮名、片仮名 and had started learning 漢字. it is NOT necessary for someone to learn romaji to pronounce Japanese. It IS necessary for them to have a native or equal speaker to show them the pronunciation.



lets continue, a nice easy word you should all know:
生花　ー　いけばな　ー　flower arrangement.

Ditto whatever Anrakushi said :)
Also, I think it's interesting to note that the only people who use romaji are Americans, possibly Englishmen, and possibly Australians. In most other countries, romaji is never taught except when learning how to type.

波　－　なみ, nami　－　wave

mi...

minna - everyone. I don't my Hiragana resources, so I can't type them at the moment. Make no mistake, I can read them just fine, just not type them.