Luckily when I lived in Italy Roman characters were comfortably in play.
How long did it take you to figure out how to write your address, or is it easier than it appears.
I read through a travelers guide to Japanese around about the time we went to Asia, and I found Japanese to be pretty user friendly in its spoken form - but I never had a reason to delve into the written version.
The top characters were actually pretty common Kanji characters. They represent the name of the prefecture, then the city and street address. (Fukushima City, Nakamachi 1-25)
My name appears above the numbers on the bottom, spelled out phonetically (sucheebu kamingu). As a foreigner, I wasn't allowed to pick a cool Japanese name. They are pretty picky about that over there.
Well, no, of course. I think the name "Satoh" is akin to the West's "Smith".
In Japan anything foreign tends to be ascribed to the Romaji phonetic alphabet. I was more interested in getting a series of Kanji characters to represent my name, rather than the simple romaji. Some of my foreign friends were able to get their official stamps (the hanko signature that one uses in place of the West's handwritten signature) with Kanji characters, but officially their names were still the phonetic romaji transliteration.
I couldn't go by Toshiro Mifune, either. I wouldn't have seriously suggested that, anyway.
5 comments:
Yikes.
Luckily when I lived in Italy Roman characters were comfortably in play.
How long did it take you to figure out how to write your address, or is it easier than it appears.
I read through a travelers guide to Japanese around about the time we went to Asia, and I found Japanese to be pretty user friendly in its spoken form - but I never had a reason to delve into the written version.
The top characters were actually pretty common Kanji characters. They represent the name of the prefecture, then the city and street address. (Fukushima City, Nakamachi 1-25)
My name appears above the numbers on the bottom, spelled out phonetically (sucheebu kamingu). As a foreigner, I wasn't allowed to pick a cool Japanese name. They are pretty picky about that over there.
Are you implying that the natives get to pick cool Japanese names?
Obviously they get to pick Japanese names, but is the phone book filled with Godzillas?
Well, no, of course. I think the name "Satoh" is akin to the West's "Smith".
In Japan anything foreign tends to be ascribed to the Romaji phonetic alphabet. I was more interested in getting a series of Kanji characters to represent my name, rather than the simple romaji. Some of my foreign friends were able to get their official stamps (the hanko signature that one uses in place of the West's handwritten signature) with Kanji characters, but officially their names were still the phonetic romaji transliteration.
I couldn't go by Toshiro Mifune, either. I wouldn't have seriously suggested that, anyway.
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