7/27/2019 Some General Rules for Rendering English Words Into Katakana

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Some general rules for rendering English words into katakana:

In words that contain an r sound after a vowel, the katakana word usually justextends the vowel sound.

Ex: mark -> ma-kuマーク (The - in these examples represents the chouon,

above.)

Ex: fork -> fo-kuフォーク 

The v sound is generally replaced by the b sound.

Ex: video -> bideoビデオ 

D and t, when they do not have a vowel after them, are usually replacedwith do and to, respectively.

Ex: dress -> doresuドレス 

Ex: contest -> kontesutoコンテスト 

The "j" sound, when it doesn't have a vowel after it, is usually replaced with ji .Ex: orange -> orenjiオレンジ 

The other single consonant sounds, when they do not have a vowel after them,are usually replaced with the appropriate consonant followed by u. (Somenotable exceptions to this are the words cake and steak, which turn into ke-kiand sute-ki.)

Ex: class -> kurasuクラス 

Ex: club -> kurabuクラブ 

Ex: home -> ho-muホーム 

L and r are both replaced with characters from the ra ri ru re ro line of thekatakana table.

Ex: milk -> mirukuミルク 

Ex: room -> ru-muルーム 

The "see" sound is generally replaced with shi . (The newer combination ofa se or su character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)

Ex: sink -> shinkuシンク 

The tu sound is generally replaced with chu. (The newer combination ofthe to character followed by a half-sized u is used in some words.)

Ex: tube -> chu-buチューブ 

The soft "th" sound is replaced with characters from the sa shi su se so row ofthe katakana table.

Ex: thank you -> sankyu-サンキュー 

Ex: bath -> basuバス 

The hard "th" sound is replaced with characters from the za ji zu ze zo row of thekatakana table.

Ex: weather -> ueza-ウエザー 

7/27/2019 Some General Rules for Rendering English Words Into Katakana

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Since the only w sound in Japanese is wa, all other w sounds are generallyreplaced with u.

Ex: wine -> wainワイン 

Ex: waiter -> ue-ta-ウエーター 

Ex: whisky -> uisuki-ウイスキー 

Words that have a short vowel followed by a consonant will often double theconsonant. (This is not the case when the consonant is n.)

Ex: truck -> torakkuトラック 

Ex: bed -> beddoベッド 

Ex: pet -> pettoペット 

Ex: pen -> penペン 

The "y" sound, except when followed by a, o, or u, is usually replaced with i .

Ex: you -> yu-ユー 

Ex: year -> iya-イヤー

 

In order to make foreign words sound more like their originals, additionalcharacter combinations have been introduced. These new combinationsrepresent fa, fi, fe, fo, si, ti, tu, di, du, wi, we, wo, va, vi, vu, ve, vo, tsa, tsi, tse,tso, che, she, and je. This means that words that came into the language earlierwill sometimes follow different spelling rules than words that have beenintroduced more recently. Unfortunately, most Japanese people do not actuallypronounce some of the new characters as they are intended to be used(especially the characters with v and w). So, the spelling has become more

complicated without making the pronunciation much better. Some words evenhave more than one acceptable spelling now.

Ex: fork -> ho-kuホーク  (old ho spelling)

Ex: fork -> fo-kuフォーク  (new fo spelling)

Ex: vendor -> benda-ベンダー  (old be spelling)

Ex: vendor -> venda-ヴェンダー  (new ve spelling, still usually pronounced as

be)

Now that we've gotten all that tedious explanation out of the way, let's get on toactually writing the characters.