Forum - View topico, oh, ou, o-. oo, which do you prefer?
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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When I was younger I would always romanize the long o as oh. I believe this might be the most common way to transcribe it since there are so many titles liike Kai Doh Maru or Riki-Oh. Lately I've seen an increasing amount of ou replacing oh like the popular Gankutsuou. I think I'm slowly starting to favor the ou, since the small kana u is used in Japanese it seems more intuitive, although it does have a greater chance of gross mispronouncing. The only one that I cringe at is when Ooh is translated as oo like Bandai's Kunio Ookawara (ouch) credits which really makes foreigners say Ukawara. I'm also impartial towards O with a line over it, which is harder to use on a computer. Does anyone else have a preference, or strong opinion on the matter?
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Vortextk
 Posts: 892 Location: Orlando, Fl |
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Ou works fine for me. I know hiragana atleast and since that's usually the way it's spelt in hiragana(probably with numerous exceptions that I'll leave to japanese scholars to worry about, I only know the characters not the language), that's easiest for me.
I agree numerous pronunciation problems can come from it, but oh well right? I mean, when I was really young(like..10 years ago, when DBZ had it's early morning sunday spot), I used to say anime much like rhyme. Mispronunciations don't really bother me in most cases because it's so easy. That is, from a normal person. Mispronunciations in dubs can really annoy me though, those should be of professional quality. |
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mrgazpacho
Posts: 316 Location: Australia |
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I say single "o". If the Japanese have to put up with multiple kanji readings, Westerners can darn well suffer multiple "o" pronunciations!
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TestamentSaki
 Posts: 1012 |
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Well... I prefer to put a mere O, or even Ô, as in Ôzora Tsubasa, but when I write, I merely put O as in Ozora Tsubasa.
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shadow_guyver
 Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Usually, the long o is ou, but there are indeed exceptions. Sometimes the long o is actually oo. Tooi (far) and ookii (big) are both examples. I prefer it to be spelled out like that, though there are exceptions to that as well. Take Tokyo for instance. Properly spelled it's actually Toukyou, but I wouldn't suggest spelling it that way, since the "Tokyo" spelling has become so ingrained into English.
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selenta
 Subscriber Posts: 1774 Location: Seattle, WA |
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for me? depends on what kind of sound is trying to be replicated. I can imagine completely different sounds for 'o', 'oh', 'oo', 'ou' and any other spelling I can imagine, so at least in my opinion they should reflect not one idea, but as close as possible to the sound they represent.
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Mylene
 Posts: 2792 Location: Indiana |
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This is how I go about it as well, including the exceptions. I find it easier, especially given how much trouble I have romanji. I hate it when people ask me to translate romanji for them, and I just stare because the o's aren't listed properly, etc. Ou for おう、 oo for おお。 |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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If it is the short お, then I will just use "o". When it gets to おお and おう, then it will be "oh" and "ou". A good way to check out a way I use my romaji is to check out a Japanese/English website that I run. Unfortunately it's not related to anime so if anyone wants the URL go ahead and PM me.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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Like Mylene, my preference is ou for おう and oo for おお since it makes the most sense. I can live with macrons, and I'm okay with oh if it's a personal preference (e.g. Keiji Gotoh and Nanase Ohkawa). What really annoys me is not differentiating long and short o's or, like one book I have, writing them all as "oo", which makes no sense at all as a guide to pronunciation in English since in English oo is normally pronounced completely differently.
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frentymon
Forums Superstar
 Posts: 2362 Location: San Francisco |
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Like others, I prefer using each one in its correct romanized context (o in "o genki", ou in "kikou", oo in "ookii"). I generally prefer "oh" to "ou" when it's in the middle of a name ("Kohsaka, Ohran, Ohno"); otherwise, "ou" usually works better for me.
[EDIT] Fixed a "typo". Last edited by frentymon on Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I just really don't like oo for names like ????? which I suppose Bandai was in the right to translate as Ookawara. His name just looks much more proper as Ohkawara or Okawara. It's just one of those liberties I think works like tempura instead of tenpura.
Shadow Guyver's point about tooi, ookii is true though, since spelled any other way would be plain odd. |
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Wakaiba
 Posts: 62 |
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I'm just studying this in my private Japanese lessons. Understanding how to pronounce their vowel sounds is very confusing; especially when you have words like Kyo (today) that in Hiragana are written as K-yo-oh. I didn't know how confusing they could be, especially in translation. Is the 'o' character formed differiently depending on usage in Katakana?
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6896 Location: Kazune City |
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I'm fine with interpreting ou, and I think it is important to do something to indicate the long "o" sound rather than the short one, considering the many possible confusions that can happen between words that only differ by the length of an "o" sound. But it's true, ou can be easily mispronounced, which is evident from early Utena episodes where the English VAs say her name as "tenju." I think "oh" works best for viewers/readers who don't know Japanese, since they might have preconceived notions on how ou groupings should be pronounced. I don't mind ô, either since I'm used to Spanish and dealing with accent/diacritical marks on letters, both reading them and typing them.
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beast
 Posts: 102 Location: High Ground |
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As a purist, ou and oo respectively.
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mrgazpacho
Posts: 316 Location: Australia |
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Here's an unusual one:
I just attended a concert by the composer of the theme song for Spirited Away. From the pronunciation, I would have gone with ANN's romanisation of her name as KIMURA Yumi, but all the local publicity spelled her given name as "Youmi". I asked the orchestra leader about this, and apparently this spelling is what it is supposed to be "for some reason". |
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