How Do I Convert Japanese Characters to Roman Letters?
- Hiragana means "ordinary syllabic script." It consists of 48 different syllables which have Roman transliterations. Pronunciation is important in Japanese, so even reading a transliterated text can prove difficult. Understand the sounds of the hiragana before reading aloud from the Roman letters.
- Katakana is the second syllabic script, and its characters are taken directly from original kanji characters. The language was originally used to simplify pronunciation from Chinese texts, but has recently been used for writing foreign loan words and foreign names. It contains 48 characters, each for a different sound.
- Working from Japanese into Roman characters is a job that requires patience. Each character should be identified first by type (kanji, hiragana or katakana) and then the syllable (for hiragana and katakana) can be looked up on a character chart. With time and practice, you'll get faster and feel more comfortable.