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What's my name in Japanese? (make requests here!)

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piru
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Joined: October 30th, 2006 10:47 am

Postby piru » December 17th, 2006 11:46 am

If I want to transform a foreign word into katakana,
Can I generally say that I use the original pronounciation of the word?

For example Munich.
I would have pronounced it english style,
but this website gave me ミュンヘン, which is closer to the german pronounciation 'Muenchen'

Whereas Finland, which I think is Suomi for natives, is still pronounced フィンランド

Germany is ドイツ not ドイツランド
So it's more the dutch way of saying it.

Is there a rule which pronounciation I should use to write katakana?

Bueller_007
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Joined: April 24th, 2006 8:29 am

Postby Bueller_007 » December 18th, 2006 5:03 am

piru wrote:If I want to transform a foreign word into katakana,
Can I generally say that I use the original pronounciation of the word?

For example Munich.
I would have pronounced it english style,
but this website gave me ミュンヘン, which is closer to the german pronounciation 'Muenchen'

Whereas Finland, which I think is Suomi for natives, is still pronounced フィンランド

Germany is ドイツ not ドイツランド
So it's more the dutch way of saying it.

Is there a rule which pronounciation I should use to write katakana?

No. It depends which language the word originally came from, and they came from all over. There's a general rule that the language of origin is used, like Moscow is モスクワ because Moscow is "Moskva" in Russian, but there are lots of exceptions to this. Many loanwords come from English (of course), Dutch (their only long-lasting contact with Europe during sakoku) and Portuguese (their ?first? contact with Westerners).

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JonB
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Joined: December 20th, 2006 2:35 am

Also depends on how it is written

Postby JonB » December 21st, 2006 5:24 am

It took me a while to decipher シュマハー which looks like how it is written but not how you say it.

Hint - famous F1 driver

bachu
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Joined: December 4th, 2006 11:48 am

Postby bachu » December 22nd, 2006 1:43 pm

hi everyone, this is my first post at japanesPod101.

first of all pardon my english, it´s not my mother tongue. Sorry.

im learning japanese on my own so..........im not sure about my name.
any help???

Nicolas Bassano
ニコラスバスラノ

is this correct???

thanks

Yoshiko
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Joined: August 27th, 2006 10:35 am

Postby Yoshiko » December 30th, 2006 11:20 am

I'd say
ニコラス バサノ does the 's' really sound long?

here comes in my question: In hiragana you put っ before it to make it double, like in 'yappari'. やっぱり but how about katakana?

my name would be アフケ ワン エワイク
Aafke van Ewijk : a-fu-ke wa-n e-wa-i-ku
Best I could make of 'wij', haha! A Japanese friend of mine always gets really confused about 'ij', 'eu', 'ui' in Dutch.

bachu
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Postby bachu » December 30th, 2006 12:24 pm

yeah , the S is long.

dont know how to do it in katakana, maybe..........

バッサノ or バーサノ

either way im not sure

thanks anyway

法月
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Joined: December 29th, 2006 8:02 pm

Postby 法月 » December 30th, 2006 8:15 pm

The "Nicholas" part is right, but depending on what you want your last name to sound like, it could be:

バッサーノ or バッサノ
(with the former sounding like "basSAno" and the latter sounding like "BASsano")

Vision
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Joined: December 10th, 2006 5:24 pm

Postby Vision » January 6th, 2007 5:54 pm

What would my name be? My name is Arvin Mathur.

I think the Romanji would be Aavin Maatu. What would the Kana be?

Tom
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Joined: December 29th, 2006 9:18 pm

Postby Tom » January 6th, 2007 8:14 pm

Vision wrote:What would my name be? My name is Arvin Mathur.

I think the Romanji would be Aavin Maatu. What would the Kana be?

アービン マーツ for (aavin maatsu)
By the way, I made it to Japan

oni666
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Joined: January 10th, 2007 12:38 pm

Postby oni666 » January 17th, 2007 12:41 pm

Hoj,
How do you write/say my name in Japanese? My name is: Jeroen van Bommel.
arigatoo gozaimasu! :D

Alan
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Joined: June 15th, 2006 7:09 pm

Postby Alan » January 17th, 2007 9:32 pm

Probably: ジェローン ヴァン ボメル (jero-n van bomeru) :wink:

Kirika
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Joined: January 30th, 2007 7:10 pm

how do i spell my name?

Postby Kirika » January 30th, 2007 7:20 pm

How would you spell my name in katakana or kanji? Its Lauren Gonzalez

I know that in the japanese language there is no sound for L and its substituted by R so i was thinking i might just shorten it to Ren or something since thats easier to say in japanese but i have no idea what im going to do with my last name -_-'

Psy
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Postby Psy » January 30th, 2007 8:29 pm

ローレン・ゴンザレス is one way you could write it. In general, unless you're really lucky or really talented, non-Japanese names look silly in kanji. You might try choosing a name that resembles the underlying meaning of your given name instead.

zakroika
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Postby zakroika » February 8th, 2007 10:33 am

konichiwa,
recently I lisened Introduction #2 First Impressions leasson and I was think, How my name sounds in japanese.

my name is Šarūnas (Lithuanian name)

domo arigatou gozaimasu
Last edited by zakroika on November 10th, 2008 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jordi
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Postby Jordi » February 12th, 2007 4:59 pm

jkid wrote:My guess is you would write it this way...

サイモン・ヒッウ
sa i mon hi tsuu

Any corrections? :)


I’d write 
サイモン ヒス
sa i mo n hi su

but that's just my take on it.

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