Quote:
Originally Posted by Koir
Just a question: if romaji is such a horrible, horrible, world-destroying blight on existence, why does it still exist? As a whipping post for advanced Japanese-speaking students?
Bear in mind this is coming from a person who can't read Japanese at all anyway, so that snide castoff response won't work.
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First off, I'm not an advanced Japanese-speaking student. I'm a native speaker of that language. You wouldn't know it because you aren't interested in learning Japanese; therefore, you wouldn't read my rather numerous posts in the language section. If you are judging me only from my post above, you are being incredibly unfair and unreasonable. Ask anyone who posts frequently in the Japanese Help section (if you know who they are). Unfortunately, members like yourself won't ever get to know how much I've done for JF.
Why does romaji still exist? How in the world would this man from a non-alphabet language and cultural background know the answer? Romaji is you guys' creation, not ours. If I were to guess, however, it would be because some people are simply too lazy to learn the real Japanese writing systems even after having decided to try their hand at learning the language.
Just imagine what you would think of me if I were writing all this using Japanese letters and if I still called it "English". I would be receiving all kinds of negative comments, wouldn't I? That is exactly how I feel about romaji. It's writing Language A using the writing system of Language B. It isn't pretty in my eyes if not in yours. Study Japanese using romaji and you won't be able to read anything important. No websites, no newspapers, no magazines, no restaurant menus, no anything. There's not a single reason I should be promoting romaji. I studied my butt off to learn English. Why shouldn't I expect the Japanese-learners to do the same instead of cheating themselves with romaji? Had I studied English using Japanese letters, I wouldn't even be on JF.