Hirigana question

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Hirigana question

Postby AnimeGirl » Sun Mar 20, 2011 5:47 pm

Hi! I was wondering about something. How would you write a Japanese word with a double consonant (sp?) in it's romaji form in Hirigana? Like "matte" (wait) for example. "n" is liek the only single form in the phonetic system, so how would you write words such as "matte"?

Also, know any good Hirigana/Katakana translating sites that are free? I need one for typesetting for one of my manga titles, and it's easier to just C&P then write it. And I want to translate "Cadence" in Katakana, not Hirigana, since it is a NAME, so I am guessing it'd look like Keidensu in Romaji.

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Postby goldenspines » Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:02 pm

A double vowel would be preceded by a small "tsu", for example: まって

Actually, it's fairly easy to type hiragana and katakana on your computer (if you have windows, and I've heard it's even easier on a Mac).
On Windows:
Go to Control Panel > Region and Languages > go to the tab "keyboards and languages" > press "change keyboards" > click "Add" > then scroll down to Japanese and mark the "Japanese" and "Microsoft IME" check marks > Click "Ok"

Then, a language bar should appear on your screen (either in the lower right hand corner or the top let hand". Now, you can switch from typing in English to typing in Japanese.


And because Cadence is a non-Japanese name, it will be in katakana, sorry. All foreign names and words are spelled out in katakana. So if you want to be true to the language, that is your only option. Therefore, it would look like ケイダーンス 
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Postby Midori » Sun Mar 20, 2011 6:27 pm

I think ケイデンス is a more direct transliteration.

But yeah, all major operating systems have ways to input text in Japanese; you just have to learn how to do it. Generally, you type romaji ("keidennsu") and it'll turn it into hiragana ("けいでんす"), and you can press space to turn it into Kanji, or some other key to use katakana (F7 on my OS; I don't know about yours). There may be a couple extra caveats, such as that you sometimes have to type a double n ("nn") to get ん (to disambiguate from syllables that begin with n). Long consonants can just be typed naturally ("matte" -> まって), though if you need to make a little tsu by itself you can type "ltu", or sometimes "xtu"

As for a translation site, well, I don't know if you can rely on something like that. It'd make more sense to learn the kana and do it yourself, though it may take a few days to memorize them.
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