About the romanization method of Japanese words in this web site
You might be wondering why some of romanized Japanese words, such as names of cities, are in unfamiliar forms, such as "Toukyou" instead of "Tokyo".
This is because I tried to transliterate the words written in the Hiragana characters into Latin characters as faithfully as possible.
The most essential difference between the often used notations and that I used here is the treatment of long vowels.
For example, both of "o's" in the word "Tokyo" are not pronounced as short vowels. They are pronounced as long vowels when spoken in normal speed, but they are in fact "o"+"u" and pronounced so when spoken very slowly.
When written in Hiragana characters (which are syllabic characters), they are written as "To"+"u"+"ki"+"yo"+"u" ("yo" is written in a smaller character to indicate the "i" in the "ki" must be suppressed).
The first "o" in the word "Kyoto" is also pronounced as a long vowel, which is in fact "o"+"u", but the second "o" is a short vowel.
When written in Hiragana characters, they are written as "Ki"+"yo"+"u"+"to" ("yo" is written in a smaller character to indicate the "i" in the "Ki" must be suppressed).
The "O" in the word "Osaka" is also pronounced as a long vowel, but it is in fact "O"+"o".
When written in Hiragana characters, they are written as "O"+"o"+"sa"+"ka".
I want to distinguish them.
Another problem is the consonant "n".
In Japanese, an "n" can be a syllable by itself as well as a part of a syllable.
For example, (1)"a-ni"(elder brother), (2)"a-n-i"(easy), and (3)"a-n-ni"(implicitly) must be pronounced differently even if you speak very fast.
I will write them in this site (1)ani, (2)an'i, and (3)anni.
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