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meat
11th September 2002, 05:47
Hi guys, I was wondering what the pronunciation of uke is? is it pronounced oo-ke, oo-ki, yu-ki or yu-ke? I hate trying to pronounce romanji!

Tatsuko
11th September 2002, 06:11
Hi guys, I was wondering what the pronunciation of uke is?


It's oo-keh.

Michael Bland
11th September 2002, 08:09
Tatsuko already answered your specific question on "uke", but just a note for any further questions you might have:

Japanese pronuciation is incredibly easy - as far as languages go.

VOWELS
Japanese vowels are always pronounced the same - like a long vowel in English... Or have you ever taken Spanish? Just the same!

A = "awe" in "awesome"
I = "ee" in "feet"
U = "oo" in "boot"
E = "ay" in "day"
O = "o" in "No"

Hope that helps you.

-Michael Bland

meat
11th September 2002, 12:56
Thanx Tatsuko and thanx Michael, I do know how to pronounce Jap vowels(I am a first year uni student), but most of the time when reading romaji its impossible to tell whether a vowel is supposed to be pronounced long or short(take Osaka for instance). If its hiragana, no problem.

Tatsuko
11th September 2002, 14:05
but most of the time when reading romaji its impossible to tell whether a vowel is supposed to be pronounced long or short(take Osaka for instance). If its hiragana, no problem.


Blame it on the numerous different methods of romanization. :) (The biggest difference between them being how they handle the long vowels.) It's one of the reasons I've never liked romaji.

But if I must use romaji, I use a simple "what you see is what you get" method. I write out the long vowels as they are written in Japanese - thus for example I write doujou instead of dojo. And in the rare occasion where the long o is written in Japanese as おお instead of おう, like in 遠い ?iとおい?j, I will write it out with two o's as it is in Japanese. (In this case it would be tooi). The only time I don't write out the long vowels is when it's a recognized place name, like Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka...

Michael Bland
12th September 2002, 03:29
In the question of Japanese long vs. short vowels, as well as the question of which system of Romanization to use, I think it is entirely audience dependent.

I'm comfortable with either system, I just hate it when people mix them up -The Japanese themselves are the biggest perpetrators of mixing Hepburn and Kunrei systems up in the same word.

If your audience (reader) is a native English speaker, then it makes more sense to use the Hepburn.

If the reader is not a student of Japanese, then it often makes more sense to type Dojo, as opposed to doujou. As the "dojo" spelling will get a closer pronunciation. Same goes for "Osaka" getting a closer pronunciation from a non-japanese student than "oosaka" would.

Hope that helps.

Joseph Svinth
12th September 2002, 20:26
There is also the fact that using foreign spellings and italicization rather than existing loanwords is more than a little pretentious.

For example, perfectly good English words in the dictionary (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate, 1990) include judo, jujutsu, karate (acceptable pronunciations include kurotty), Bushido (capitalized), kendo, sumo, taekwondo, and dojo. No diacritical marks, no macrons, yet astonishingly enough, the meanings are the same in English as in Japanese (or, in taekwondo's case, Korean).

Many Chinese terms have also come over. Often the correct English spelling is Wade-Giles. Thus, if you want to write t'ai chi ch'uan, you don't need italics but you should use the diacriticals. However, if you use Pinyin, then you should use italics, as taijiquan is not yet in the dictionary.

Parmenion
13th September 2002, 05:04
My Aikido teacher used to say (sometimes still does when he forgets) "yuki" when he meant Uke. Quite funny. Yuki means 'snow'.

Tatsuko
13th September 2002, 05:37
Originally posted by Joseph Svinth
There is also the fact that using foreign spellings and italicization rather than existing loanwords is more than a little pretentious.


Well, in my case, I will often have to romanize Japanese words that go beyond the easily recognisable loan words such as dojo, etc. And I need to keep the method of romanization consistant. I chose the method I did because I found it to be the clearest and least ambiguous as far as long vowels go. It's also the first method I learned, so I guess that factored into it too. :)

Joseph Svinth
13th September 2002, 09:32
Consistency is for ease of communication, but (IMO) it should not be a straightjacket. Despite what the spellchecker insists, sometimes I want passive voice, or to say auger (a drill) rather than augur (to divine), and sometimes people don't transliterate their personal names the way that the academics say they should. (Names are the biggest problem -- the father was Yabu Kentsu, but the son was legally Kenden Yabe...)

PwarYuex
15th September 2002, 12:04
Originally posted by Michael Bland
Hope that helps you.

It wouldn't help anyone without American accent/pronunciation.

cguzik
16th September 2002, 21:09
Can anyone explain why some romanizations of the founder of aikido's name are written "Uyeshiba"?

Isn't the correct pronounciation (for someone with an American accent) "oo eh she bah"? This would correspond to the more common romaji spelling "Ueshiba".

I know people who insist on pronouncing the name "oo yay she bah" (because they've seen it written as above) and it drives me batty. Of course, if I've got the pronounciation wrong myself please let me know...

Best,

Chris