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Japanese pronunciation/grammar questions...

Right, you want to know about the Transcription of kana here.
First of all, almost all of the world uses the Hepburn Transcription method (Heebburun shiki romaji) in which you transcript the WO kana as O in certain cases.

For clarification: WO and O both reffer to the same hiragana: ?
and if used in any other context it is written as WO, but when you are using it in the term of pointing out the Accusativus it Should be written as O.
In the same way the HE kana is transcriped as E when used as a destination pointer.

So in this case you want to use O as the title indicates.
Sagasu - to look
Sagashite - is the Converbium Succesivum form of Sagasu
Fullmoon is kinda self explainatory
So in this case the translation means "Looking for the Fullmoon" which clearly points to an Accusativus form so the WO ? kana should be written as O. The final answer: it should be O.

..I dunno if there's really a romanization rule as to how it's used. But you pronounce it more like 'o' but 'wo' comes out sometimes too. ^^;

In this Case, when the ? kana points to the Accusativus, you ALWAYS read it as O (as in wOrk) and you ALWAYS transcript it as O. THIS is all there is to it. FINITO.

I can imagine some people coming away from your post pronouncing "hajimemashite" with the vowel sound in "hamster," and it makes me shudder.

alice20th wrote:

I can imagine some people coming away from your post pronouncing "hajimemashite" with the vowel sound in "hamster," and it makes me shudder.

Well, it would be more correct if you pronunce hamster with a British accent.

"hat" is not pronounced "hot" in England. I'm not absolutely sure about "hamster," but I don't think it would come out sounding like "homsta" unless you were an American faking a British accent.

Sorry to pull this off topic.

If you type S+Y+A into a Japanese word processor, you'll get the character we pronounce as "sha."

And... there are incidents where the accusativus (which to non-philology students is called the direct object marker) is pronounced "wo," such as in song (not always, but there are times).

Unfortunately, the Hepburn system has many variations, and none of them are official (despite the widespread use of roman letters, the Japanese government has never weighed in on how best to use them). So as a rule of thumb, if you see two sets of spellings of something and they sound relatively similar, they're probably both correct.

Arkard, do you really pronounce "hamster" with the same "a" sound as in "father"? I would have used as an example the sound of laughter, "ha." The Japanese "a" sound is "ah" (as in "open wide and say"). The "o" sound is how we say "oh," and wo (in the rare instances that I've heard it) would sound like "whoa." I figure you were trying to point out the differences of consonants, but I can imagine some people coming away from your post pronouncing "hajimemashite" with the vowel sound in "hamster," and it makes me shudder.

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If you type S+Y+A into a Japanese word processor, you'll get the character we pronounce as "sha."

but of course those words made their way to the american culture so lets not start running around correcting people this kind of pronounciation only applies in Japan.

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And... there are incidents where the accusativus (which to non-philology students is called the direct object marker) is pronounced "wo," such as in song (not always, but there are times).

Thats not really accurate. If the WO kana stands after the U kana, the modern japanese language tends to lengthen the U, making the O sound like WO.

Still, is "accusativus" such a strange word? Even elementary school kids know about this stuff here.

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Unfortunately, the Hepburn system has many variations, and none of them are official (despite the widespread use of roman letters, the Japanese government has never weighed in on how best to use them).

OK, please don't spread rumours.
There is an official version of the Hepburn transcription system, which is a revised one of the original one There is only ONE Hepburn system (though older version of it may exist).

Well I never was big for pronounciation. I always pronounced Hamster in the same way I pronounced Hajimemashite. I don't hear a difference, but maybe that is just me, I am Slovian after all.

if a person were to type the direct object marker on a Japanese word processor, one would have to type "wo," even though it is generally pronounced "o."

Sorry, it is accurate. There are certain song lyrics that retain the "w" pronunciation on the postposition direct-object marker. Also, as I indicated, it's rare. You may not have encountered it, but it's folly to deny that it exists. If linguistics teaches a person anything it's the realization that one should approach absolutes with caution because there are nearly always exceptions.

I'd very much like to see a publication or web page that difines it.

But even so, we're talking about how normal Japanese people romanize Japanese for the purpose of titles and names of manga/anime characters. In the past four years, I've seen at least six different romanization schemes come out of Japan for the Japanese "long o" vowel sound: "o", "oo", "ou" (the word processor variant), "oh", "o" with a macron, and "o" with a circumflex (I've even seen it romanized as "au" once, but just once, so I don't consider it a part of a scheme). Fans of manga and anime must be willing to accept all of these because in the real world, all of these will be used at one time or another.

If there is an official romanization scheme (which again, I would really like to see some reference), the government does not enforce it nor even promote it among their citizens or non-governmental publications. A non-Japanese must expect a variety of romanizations.