[anrakushi]

i'm an advocate for the removal of romaji all together accept where the word is used in english, such as a location of other words like kimono. romaji delays the ability for a person to learn how to correctly read and write japanese and that is why all through my time learning japanese both in australia and in japan romaji has been banned by the teachers. the only reason i write it here is because people complain.

no person serious about learning japanese should be relying on romaji, you can learn hiragana relatively quickly if you actually put your mind to it.

as for chinese, i've also study this language and visited the country many times. i believe no matter how good a book tries to describe the sound that the pinyin represents it will never get it quite right, you really need to have someone speak it. i believe this is the same for japanese. i mean read ra, ri, ru, re, ro as you would in an american, australian or english accent is going to be different form each other and all accents will not be correct to the japanese sound. say a place like nagoya (something i heard several americans say while in japan even a professor) in an american accent and the sound is quite wrong thus, replying on the spelling of a work in roman characters if a very bad way for learning of to pronounce a word.

and on with the game:
卒業式 - そつぎょうしき - sotugyoushiki - graduation ceremony.