Arigatou? Arigatoo?

Dan B · Jun 22, 2004, 11:41

From my very recent study of Hiragana, I've been wondering if some Romaji translations of Japanese are wrong.

(Please don't hesitate to correct me if, in fact, I am wrong.)

While the Hiragana for "Thank you" (or, perhaps more accurately, the more informal "Thanks") would correlate to the characters

ありがとう

it would seem that the pronunciaton of this word is

a ri ga to o

Though the last syllable uses the Hiragana for "u," I'm given to understand that this merely means that we are to extend the ending vowel-sound of the character "to," resulting in a longer "o" sound.

Yet people seem to write this in Romaji in both ways. "Arigatou" is thus taken to be the same as "Arigatoo"...and we are presumably expected to simply hope that the reader knows what's actually happening with regards to the pronunciation of the Hiragana. But how many beginning learners--for whom we might presume Romaji is really intended--are aware of this subtlety? And how and when are they to learn this subtlety of pronunciation without learning the Hiragana-based rationalization for this seeming inconsistency?

Given that Romaji is ostensibly intended to serve as a means to help non-Japanese people pronounce Japanese words, is it really appropriate to write "Arigatou?" I'm not only asking about this word, of course, since many others follow the same pattern. ("Doomo" versus "doumo," for another simple and related example.)

Which Romaji is actually correct? Or, far more importantly, which pronunciation of Japanese is actually correct?

Thanks,

Dan

m477 · Jun 22, 2004, 13:25

Both/neither. There are several different systems of romanization, none is universally accepted. Do a search for kunrei, Hepburn, hyoujun.

Personally, I prefer "arigatou". Always romanizing like "arigatoo" is ambiguous, since "oo" could represent either おお or おう.

**Glenn** · Jun 22, 2004, 13:33

I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons. I think that you may be interested in this message about different ways to romanize the elongated "o" sound.

PaulTB · Jun 22, 2004, 17:12

Originally Posted by Glenn

I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons.

Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map.

**Glenn** · Jun 23, 2004, 05:19

Originally Posted by PaulTB

Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map.

True, but I meant when they can be used. I still prefer them when I can't use them, though, I just don't use them.

Dan B · Jun 23, 2004, 08:21

Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses.

It's a shame that no single standard has emerged, but none of them are really that radically different, I suppose. I should think that a careful student (as I aspire to be) would usually be able to discern the appropriate meaning or pronunciation. Then again, I may well end up in "A Gaijin's Tale" kind of situation where I misinterpret something and end up with my foot in my mouth--or, worse yet, someone else's foot in my mouth!

Interestingly enough, the same topic (methods of writing in Romaji) came up with my father this afternoon. In the late 1970s, he served at the American Embassy in Tokyo and, before he and our family moved to Japan, my dad spent about 6 or 7 months in intensive, full-time study of Japanese. He became quite fluent in that short time, but then he's always been a bit of a linguist, having studied at least 3 different languages in high school. Alas, I don't seem to have inherited his knack for languages.

In any case, he met with me for lunch today to give me an opportunity to practice my very limited Japanese, answer any questions I'd come up with so far, and share some of his notes from when he was studying Japanese.

As I read the Romaji he had used for certain things, it quickly became obvious that he had learned a different Romaji standard than I've picked up from my teacher and texts (for ち he wrote "ti," while I use "chi," for example). He said that was the standard used in Jordan's text on Japanese language at the time.

But it really wasn't difficult to quickly make the transition and read everything that he was writing in Romaji.

So, perhaps I've made much ado about nothing!

Dan

PaulTB · Jun 23, 2004, 17:20

Originally Posted by Dan B

Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses.

It's a shame that no single standard has emerged

Some people are working on it

http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/index.html

Kenkaku musei · Jun 23, 2004, 22:09

Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu.

i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also.

note to readers: did i say that correctly?

PaulTB · Jun 23, 2004, 22:42

Originally Posted by Kenkaku musei

Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu.

i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also.

note to readers: did i say that correctly?

Er, no. I think that was back to front. I'd guess ...

Watashi mo arigatoo yori arigatou no hou ga suki desu.

/me waits to be corrected.

Kenkaku musei · Jun 23, 2004, 23:27

hai doumo arigatou onegaishimasu

jonny-mt · Jun 23, 2004, 23:29

Paul's got it right. 'ijou' (以上) is a word meaning 'over' or 'more than' as in quantity...not quality. Still a nice try, though

As for the whole Romaji thing, I've always believed that anyone who really wants to study Japanese needs to learn the phonetic alphabets as quickly as possible. Romaji to me has always been for those who have little to no idea about Japanese, and so the English pronunciation seems to be more important than the accurate spelling.

Kenkaku musei · Jun 24, 2004, 00:17

ah. i unsderstand thanks

Golgo_13 · Jun 24, 2004, 14:00

I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic.

Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty.

Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you).

PaulTB · Jun 24, 2004, 17:14

Originally Posted by Golgo_13

I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic.

Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty.

Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you).

And I've mentioned this before but will again. That theory is a load of crock.

http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-1906.html

Golgo_13 · Jun 25, 2004, 06:52

Mister Paul Tee Bee,

What's your background in Japanese language studies, would you care to share it with us?

How many years have you studied it, where and how many years have you lived in Japan, etc.

mdchachi · Jun 25, 2004, 13:24

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory.

PaulTB · Jun 25, 2004, 16:56

Originally Posted by mdchachi

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias

Golgo_13 · Jun 26, 2004, 05:50

Originally Posted by mdchachi

What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship.

I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory.

I wasn't asking you.

You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background.

Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion.

He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority

Originally Posted by PaulTB

When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias

Since you won't answer, I'll assume YOU ARE Bart Mathias.

Wakaranai · Jun 27, 2004, 13:16

Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou

mdchachi · Jun 27, 2004, 13:17

> I wasn't asking you.

Doesn't matter, this is a public conversation. If you wanted it to be a private question, you'd have sent a PM.

> You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background.

Yes, that's true.

> Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion.

Yes, that's also true. So why ask for somebody's background when they're posting somebody else's opinion?

> He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority

That's your opinion. My opinion is that he said "load of crock" as if he believed his sources to be authoritative. Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner and that's really the only reason why I stuck my nose in.

PaulTB · Jun 27, 2004, 17:30

It isn't as if this hasn't come up before ...

http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread...light=obrigado

Golgo_13 · Jun 29, 2004, 03:35

Originally Posted by Wakaranai

Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou

Thank you very much

Thank you

Originally Posted by mdchachi

Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner

That's the same response I have to you, except I didn't stick my nose in your business.

Jun 22, 2004, 11:41	#1
Dan B "Follow your bliss." Join Date: Jun 1, 2004 Location: Woodbridge, VA Posts: 86	Arigatou? Arigatoo? From my very recent study of Hiragana, I've been wondering if some Romaji translations of Japanese are wrong. (Please don't hesitate to correct me if, in fact, I am wrong.) While the Hiragana for "Thank you" (or, perhaps more accurately, the more informal "Thanks") would correlate to the characters ありがとう it would seem that the pronunciaton of this word is a ri ga to o Though the last syllable uses the Hiragana for "u," I'm given to understand that this merely means that we are to extend the ending vowel-sound of the character "to," resulting in a longer "o" sound. Yet people seem to write this in Romaji in both ways. "Arigatou" is thus taken to be the same as "Arigatoo"...and we are presumably expected to simply hope that the reader knows what's actually happening with regards to the pronunciation of the Hiragana. But how many beginning learners--for whom we might presume Romaji is really intended--are aware of this subtlety? And how and when are they to learn this subtlety of pronunciation without learning the Hiragana-based rationalization for this seeming inconsistency? Given that Romaji is ostensibly intended to serve as a means to help non-Japanese people pronounce Japanese words, is it really appropriate to write "Arigatou?" I'm not only asking about this word, of course, since many others follow the same pattern. ("Doomo" versus "doumo," for another simple and related example.) Which Romaji is actually correct? Or, far more importantly, which pronunciation of Japanese is actually correct? Thanks, Dan Last edited by Dan B; Jun 23, 2004 at 09:45.

Jun 22, 2004, 13:33	#3
Glenn 考え中 Join Date: Jan 8, 2004 Posts: 5,544	I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons. I think that you may be interested in this message about different ways to romanize the elongated "o" sound. __________________ Avoid Mojibake! -- 文字化けを避ける！ Dictionary at Goo - English-Japanese, Japanese-English, Japanese Language Teach Yourself Japanese and Teach Yourself Japanese Message Board Jim Breen's online dictionary and kanji lookup

Jun 22, 2004, 17:12	#4
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	Originally Posted by Glenn I personally prefer using circumflexes or macrons. Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map.

Jun 23, 2004, 05:19	#5
Glenn 考え中 Join Date: Jan 8, 2004 Posts: 5,544	Originally Posted by PaulTB Except that they tend to suck muchly when used in Japanese encoded pages. Also o-circumflex ( ô ) is often the only one given in a font character map. True, but I meant when they can be used. I still prefer them when I can't use them, though, I just don't use them.

Jun 23, 2004, 17:20	#7
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	Originally Posted by Dan B Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses. It's a shame that no single standard has emerged Some people are working on it http://www.halcat.com/roomazi/index.html

Jun 22, 2004, 13:25	#2
m477 無修正！ Join Date: Jun 6, 2003 Location: Seattle Posts: 300	Both/neither. There are several different systems of romanization, none is universally accepted. Do a search for kunrei, Hepburn, hyoujun. Personally, I prefer "arigatou". Always romanizing like "arigatoo" is ambiguous, since "oo" could represent either おお or おう.

Jun 23, 2004, 08:21	#6
Dan B "Follow your bliss." Join Date: Jun 1, 2004 Location: Woodbridge, VA Posts: 86	Thanks very much, folks! I greatly appreciate all the responses. It's a shame that no single standard has emerged, but none of them are really that radically different, I suppose. I should think that a careful student (as I aspire to be) would usually be able to discern the appropriate meaning or pronunciation. Then again, I may well end up in "A Gaijin's Tale" kind of situation where I misinterpret something and end up with my foot in my mouth--or, worse yet, someone else's foot in my mouth! Interestingly enough, the same topic (methods of writing in Romaji) came up with my father this afternoon. In the late 1970s, he served at the American Embassy in Tokyo and, before he and our family moved to Japan, my dad spent about 6 or 7 months in intensive, full-time study of Japanese. He became quite fluent in that short time, but then he's always been a bit of a linguist, having studied at least 3 different languages in high school. Alas, I don't seem to have inherited his knack for languages. In any case, he met with me for lunch today to give me an opportunity to practice my very limited Japanese, answer any questions I'd come up with so far, and share some of his notes from when he was studying Japanese. As I read the Romaji he had used for certain things, it quickly became obvious that he had learned a different Romaji standard than I've picked up from my teacher and texts (for ち he wrote "ti," while I use "chi," for example). He said that was the standard used in Jordan's text on Japanese language at the time. But it really wasn't difficult to quickly make the transition and read everything that he was writing in Romaji. So, perhaps I've made much ado about nothing! Dan

Jun 23, 2004, 22:09	#8
Kenkaku musei The willing one will know Join Date: Jun 3, 2004 Location: USA Age: 31 Posts: 42	Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu. i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also. note to readers: did i say that correctly?

Jun 23, 2004, 22:42	#9
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	Originally Posted by Kenkaku musei Watashi mo "arigatou" ijou "arigatoo" suki de arimasu. i like "arigatou" more than "arigatoo" also. note to readers: did i say that correctly? Er, no. I think that was back to front. I'd guess ... Watashi mo arigatoo yori arigatou no hou ga suki desu. /me waits to be corrected.

Jun 23, 2004, 23:27	#10
Kenkaku musei The willing one will know Join Date: Jun 3, 2004 Location: USA Age: 31 Posts: 42	hai doumo arigatou onegaishimasu

Jun 23, 2004, 23:29	#11
jonny-mt 無限馬鹿 Join Date: Jun 23, 2004 Location: Yokohama Age: 26 Posts: 69	Paul's got it right. 'ijou' (以上) is a word meaning 'over' or 'more than' as in quantity...not quality. Still a nice try, though As for the whole Romaji thing, I've always believed that anyone who really wants to study Japanese needs to learn the phonetic alphabets as quickly as possible. Romaji to me has always been for those who have little to no idea about Japanese, and so the English pronunciation seems to be more important than the accurate spelling. __________________ 今日の笑顔は明日の元気。 And if you're bored...

Jun 24, 2004, 00:17	#12
Kenkaku musei The willing one will know Join Date: Jun 3, 2004 Location: USA Age: 31 Posts: 42	ah. i unsderstand thanks

Jun 24, 2004, 14:00	#13
Golgo_13 Koushaku Join Date: Nov 27, 2003 Location: KIX -> JFK -> LAX Posts: 1,402	I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic. Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty. Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you).

Jun 24, 2004, 17:14	#14
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	Originally Posted by Golgo_13 I must've mentioned this before but I will again since it's a relevant topic. Iif you look at the Kanji used for the phrase "arigatou"--有難う; 有り難う--neither one has any meaning of gratitude. 有り=there exists and 難 implies hardness or difficulty. Therefore, these Kanji were arbitrarily chosen just to represent the sound of arigatou, which some linguists have theorized was a corruption of the Portuguese "Obrigado" (thank you). And I've mentioned this before but will again. That theory is a load of crock. http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-1906.html

Jun 25, 2004, 06:52	#15
Golgo_13 Koushaku Join Date: Nov 27, 2003 Location: KIX -> JFK -> LAX Posts: 1,402	Mister Paul Tee Bee, What's your background in Japanese language studies, would you care to share it with us? How many years have you studied it, where and how many years have you lived in Japan, etc.

Jun 25, 2004, 13:24	#16
mdchachi Taicho Join Date: Mar 6, 2003 Location: USA (Detroit area) Posts: 687	What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship. I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory.

Jun 25, 2004, 16:56	#17
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	Originally Posted by mdchachi What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship. When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias

Jun 26, 2004, 05:50	#18
Golgo_13 Koushaku Join Date: Nov 27, 2003 Location: KIX -> JFK -> LAX Posts: 1,402	Originally Posted by mdchachi What difference does it make? He's quoting somebody else's scholarship. I don't have to prove I'm a physicist to post an article explaining the Big Bang Theory. I wasn't asking you. You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background. Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion. He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority Originally Posted by PaulTB When it comes to someone else's Japanese scholarship you can't do much better than Bart Mathias Since you won't answer, I'll assume YOU ARE Bart Mathias.

Jun 27, 2004, 13:16	#19
Wakaranai Regular Member Join Date: Jun 8, 2004 Posts: 74	Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou __________________ + = Prohibition I will drink to that. Yes it is a very lame joke

Jun 27, 2004, 13:17	#20
mdchachi Taicho Join Date: Mar 6, 2003 Location: USA (Detroit area) Posts: 687	> I wasn't asking you. Doesn't matter, this is a public conversation. If you wanted it to be a private question, you'd have sent a PM. > You can post anything you want and I can still ask you for your background. Yes, that's true. > Someone else's scholarship is someone else's opinion. Yes, that's also true. So why ask for somebody's background when they're posting somebody else's opinion? > He said "load of crock" as if he was an authority That's your opinion. My opinion is that he said "load of crock" as if he believed his sources to be authoritative. Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner and that's really the only reason why I stuck my nose in.

Jun 27, 2004, 17:30	#21
PaulTB Manga Psychic Join Date: Jan 22, 2004 Posts: 2,111	It isn't as if this hasn't come up before ... http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread...light=obrigado

Jun 29, 2004, 03:35	#22
Golgo_13 Koushaku Join Date: Nov 27, 2003 Location: KIX -> JFK -> LAX Posts: 1,402	Originally Posted by Wakaranai Well what is the difference between Domo arigatou And juist Arigatou Thank you very much Thank you Originally Posted by mdchachi Also my opinion is that you responded in a juvenile manner That's the same response I have to you, except I didn't stick my nose in your business.

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