Talk:Wāpuro rōmaji

Wāpuro rōmaji

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Criticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:W%C4%81puro_r%C5%8Dmaji&action=edit&section=1 On the other hand, the kana spelling おう is pronounced in two different ways: as 'ō' in the meaning 'king' (王), and as 'ou' in the meaning 'to chase' (追う). Being based on hiragana, wāpuro style writes both these words as 'ou', ignoring the difference in pronunciation. This criticism is equally valid for many other romanization schemes.

Err, no, it's not — Hepburn and Kunrei would both spell those two cases differently. Now Hepburn and Kunrei would both render おお and おう as "ō", while wapuro wouldn't, but that's a different issue... Jpatokal 15:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

ok, wapuro represents おう as "ou". hepburn and Kunrei both represent taht same kana string as "ō". I fail to see how any of these three represent that difference in pronunciation between 王 and 追う. In all three cases, the difference in pronunciation is not represented at all, so the criticism is equally valid, no? Either that, or the paragraph needs a serious amount of rewriting for clarity. Rhialto 15:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Table time!

#	Kanji	Kana	Actual pronounciation
1	追う	おう	o-u (two vowels, like ka-u and any other -u verb)
2	王	おう	ō (one long vowel, no u sound)
3	大	おお	ō (one long vowel, no u sound)

Wapuro distinguishes between 2 and 3, but not 1 and 2. Hepburn/Kunrei distinguish between 1 and 2, but not 2 and 3. Jpatokal 01:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

ok, I see your point now. Nonetheless, the article needs a re-write. The way the paragraph is written, it includes a criticism of waapuro without noting that Hepburn/Kunrei has a weakness that involves the same specific set of romanization decisions (wp:npov). Also, I have no idea what Tokoites or Osaknas are :) Rhialto 07:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

What's this "Wapuro distinguishes between 2 and 3, but not 1 and 2. Hepburn/Kunrei distinguish between 1 and 2, but not 2 and 3." nonsense? I'll give a better table (a copy paste, but adding the Kunrei/Hepburn spellings, without which the table above is incomplete):

#	Kanji	Kana	Actual pronounciation	Kunrei	Hepburn	modified Hepburn	Waapuro
1	追う	おう	o-u (two vowels, like ka-u and any other -u verb)	ô	ō	oo	ou
2	王	おう	ō (one long vowel, no u sound)	ô	ō	oo	ou
3	大	おお	ō (one long vowel, no u sound)	ô	ō	oo	oo

So where is this supposed difference between 1 and 2, in Kunrei/Hepburn? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.113.53.13 (talk) 03:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Your table is incorrect: 追う is not a long vowel, so it's romanized "ou" in Hepburn, not "ō". Jpatokal (talk) 09:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah. It isn't a long vowel... A subtle, but significant, distinction that hadn't occurred to me. Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that it would be romanized "ou"? (Not that you haven't already convinced me. I'd just like confirmation)--213.113.53.13 (talk) 02:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

From the proverbial horse's mouth: The horizontal mark over ō and ū indicates merely that the sound of o and u is prolonged. [1] (1886) As the sound in 追う isn't prolonged, it's not correct to use ō for it. Jpatokal (talk) 09:29, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for preferring wāpuro rōmaji

Could someone explain what this sentence in the article is supposed to mean?

Some people prefer it because, as it closely reflects Japanese kana orthography, the Japanese are less likely to be confused by it than by the "oo" for long u, that they invariably pronounce as English oo.

In which romanization is "oo" used for long u (that is, ウー)? And what is English oo? In "too", "moo", "woo", etc. it's ウー, in "ooh" it's オー, and in "oops" it's ウー again. Is this perhaps intended as a practical demonstration of the kind of confusion that is supposed to result in the reader? It succeeded.

I'm a non-Japanese who uses mainly "wa-puro ro-maji" on the computer (except perhaps for "-", preferring e.g. "roomaji" instead; but I do use e.g. nn for ん, though not always), and didn't quite find myself in the article's analysis of the reasons for this choice. The part about being less familiar with the formal systems sort of fits, but not quite. I use waapuro style because I almost never use roomaji and therefore it takes more effort to recall how any of the more formal systems work, whereas waapuro style is like second nature. It is also distinctive and easy to use, reducing the probability of errors (by any human or system involved) as well as the usual ambiguity in romanized Japanese caused by lack of knowledge of the exact romanization conventions used by the writer. The fact that many Japanese use it too affects the decision in only a minor way, namely by removing any feeling that I "need" to use roomaji "properly" either.

There are also too many romanization systems, many of which have only slight differences, and if you try to use any system consistently, you get on the black list of The United Whiners of the World, who only agree to disagree. Besides, who cares most of the time what roomaji looks like as long as the message gets across? Roomaji in the real world is such a tangled mess anyway, and nobody writes works of art in it, so why even try for aesthetics? Waapuro roomaji is the only one necessary for Japanese input, so you get it for free. (Sure, you can use kana input, but you need double amount of work to be able to write fast with both that and qwerty.) In the end, waapuro style is the pragmatic choice of the lazy and those who prefer to wait and see if one single widespread and standard system will ever emerge, content even if one never does.

Of course, were I to use roomaji in a work of more permanent nature than simple personal communication, I'd have to first find out which system and variant is expected. Such is the case with e.g. editing English Wikipedia, which uses the English Wikipedia variant of the Revised Hepburn system. The English Wikipedia variant has all kinds of exceptions so I mostly go with Revised Hepburn and the style already present in any article I edit, and let others fix any mistakes instead of trying to fathom the mish-mash of rules in the Manual of Style for Japan-related articles (except incrementally). It's not all about roomaji either — you are even expected to use the singular form as plural for words when there's a significant group of English speakers who are familiar with the word, which is rather bizarre and arbitrary to say the least (and difficult to determine, too). I know I'm not the only one who likes to keep Japanese Japanese and English English and much rather translates than transliterates because of the mess, but I've no idea how common a reason this is, so I left the article alone for now. -- 82.103.215.236 02:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not just you, the original author was obviously also confused: he was talking about the fact that おお and おう can both be read /oː/, which is perfectly true, but irrelevant here. The actual problem is that おう can be /oː/ as in 王 or /oɯ/ (that's "ou" if you're not into IPA) as in 追う, and wapuro can't distinguish the two.

Anyway, I've cut out the unsources speculation and attempted to whip the last p into shape. ANy better now? Jpatokal 05:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, what is in the article makes sense now. However, it could be misleading that the article says "Wāpuro rōmaji is now frequently employed in general-purpose computer input as well as word processing" and "The wāpuro-style representation of long vowels, with "Toukyou" for "Tokyo", is popular with many fans of anime and other aspects of Japanese culture", which might lead the uninformed reader to think that these are the only major uses of it.

Use in computer input (where it is immediately converted to kana and then to normal text) is certainly the most ubiquitous use, but waapuro roomaji is also used in communication between (semi-)fluent Japanese speakers who for some reason have to romanize (usually because of technical problems). In these cases the problem mentioned in the last paragraph is not a problem, so perhaps the statement should be qualified.

I assume that the problem meant is that compared to other romanizations, readers unfamiliar with kana usage will pronounce unfamiliar words less correctly. Does this cause mispronunciation among fans of anime and other aspects of Japanese culture? Or is the problem mentioned as an explanation of why the usage of waapuro roomaji among non-speakers of Japanese has not spread beyond those circles? I'm asking because I assumed (wrongly?) that those using such romanization would be familiar with kana usage, as otherwise it seems a rather peculiar way to romanize. Also in the case of anime you hear the proper pronunciation for any catchy words many times over. -- 82.103.215.236 20:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it, many anime fans prefer to leave parts of Japanese intact in otherwise English text or speech. One example would be the san, kun, chan, sama, dono, etc. suffixes. Perhaps to them using waapuro roomaji is a way of preserving kana usage in a similar fashion? In that case it would be an active choice made of preference, and unilaterally calling it a problem would be biased. You could call using some Japanese words not generally used in English a problem in the same way, and many would disagree with that (I think it's some kind of elitist thing, and happens with French and Latin too). Also, as some anime fans seem to be on a crusade (or so I feel at times) to teach parts of Japanese to the ignorant masses (sic), from their POV force-feeding kana usage would be a good thing. This is just speculation based on some personal observations though. -- 82.103.215.236 20:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

おう-as-ō vs おう-as-ou

Re: the distinction in spelling between おう-as-ō and おう-as-ou, User:Shii makes the claim that in wāpuro style, a separator mark such as o'u is necessary for the latter. Yes, that's a solution in theory, but it's not done in practice (because in kana the two are the same) and you'll need to show me a source if you claim otherwise. And it certainly doesn't work for inputting Japanese: Vista's IME, for one, gives me "お’う". Jpatokal (talk) 01:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

wāpuro rōmaji in wāpuro rōmaji?

This should show how "Wāpuro rōmaji" is written in "Wāpuro rōmaji". It would be useful if every Hepburn instance were accompanied by the wapuro as well. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 09:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

My word processor writes "wa-puroro-maji" or "wa-puroro-mazi". ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 15:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

wa-puro ro-maji is how it is written, actually. Wordprocessor romaji is an indication of the physical keys pressed when typing the words (assuming you are not using a kana-based keyboard layout). For want of a better word, "presentation romaji" refers to the romaji forms that include accents (macrons or circumflexes), as commonly seen in some books. Rhialto (talk) 08:38, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

According to this article this should be "waupuro roumaji" if you convert Hepburn to wapuro. The article also says there is no one-to-one correspondence between Hepburn and wapuro either. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 12:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

It's katakana, so it's wa-puro ro-maji. U's are only used for hiragana. Jpatokal (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, well, can we add wa-puro to all instances of Hepburn in the article, to illustrate what wapuro looks like? 76.65.128.198 (talk) 06:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

where are these hyphens coming from? shouldn't it be "waapuro roomaji"? either way - is just as bad as ' or whatever. it's the same thing as the ou issue; you need the context, the original characters, because roomaji is utterly useless and always misleading without them. Despatche (talk) 15:47, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The hyphens come from the physical keys that are pressed. The word in question incorporates the Japanese "long vowel mark", which is normally created by pressing the "-" key on a keyboard. Rhialto (talk) 13:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

how to install?

How can I install wapuro in my computer (Vista) ? --Hans Eo (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)