Can someone please help me clarify what this person is saying?

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

That's a pretty interesting turn of phrase. Did you just make it up, or is it a saying in Japanese or English I'm unfamiliar with?

Just made it up, man.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by berrypie

Generally, どうも should be written as doumo or dōmo; but since it's inconvenient, some people may just write domo (it may be considered wrong? however I do see some textbook omit the u or ō)

I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would say it is correct to write it as "domo." The big romanization systems all require it to be written another way.

Hepburn and Revised Hepburn: dōmo
Modified Hepburn and JSL: doomo
Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki: dômo
waapuro style: doumo
Ministry of Foreign Affairs style: dohmo, doumo, and doomo are all acceptable

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Whoa, before this turns into something more hostile...

Sashimister - I think you have to step back for a moment to see part of what Koir is talking about. And it isn`t just you, and I don`t really think it is entirely about romaji vs. kana.

I am against using romaji, but I can still see part of this and can understand some of the exasperation.

It seems that recently more and more outright hostility is directed toward romaji users... And a lot of it isn`t necessary in my eyes. Instead of informing new users that they`ll progress much better, etc, by using kana - there is an attitude of "if you use romaji you aren`t good enough to learn Japanese" projected. Mistakes are blamed on the fact that they have used romaji, and a lot of the time - even if it`s the first post - they`re treated with incredible impatience.

I think that this is the "attitude of elitism" mentioned. For a lot of learners, their first exposure is in romaji, and there are some schools that even teach without using kana for quite some time.

I will never suggest that anyone should be using romaji, but is it necessary to be so dismissive of people who use it on their first few posts?

As usual, Nyororin comes and settles down the angry people. You are valuable on so many levels to JF, Nyororin. (Everytime I want to say your name, my head wants to bob around and make the sound effect にょろにょろ.)

I'm partly to blame for the hostility, I think. I'm going to try and be more positive. I think I generally succeed, but sometimes I do fail and behave angrily. This keyboard and Internet bring out the worst in me. :/

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Sashimister

lol Sounds as if I had said something unreasonable.

If the majority of JF members agree with you on the romaji issue, I'll be more than happy to get the heck outa here as I have much more than a single member's influence on the language section as of now. Endorsing the use of romaji, which has nothing to do with Japanese, is the last thing I want to do. I'm not a vendor of fake fur.

You said nothing unreasonable, and I don`t recall ever saying that romaji should be an ok way to write in Japanese.
I don`t think that anyone is endorsing the use of romaji, and we certainly don`t want you to leave. And this most certainly isn`t just you.

My opinion on what might need a little more thought are threads that have this sort of pattern - obviously not in these words, but in feeling;

OP; Hey, anyone know what "nanika nanika arigato" means?

A: Not another romaji user! Ugh. Why don`t you try writing it in REAL Japanese?

OP; I don`t know any Japanese, my friend just wrote it at the end of a letter to me. But I do want to learn!

A, B; Well nobody is going to help you as long as you don`t write it in kana, because romaji isn`t real Japanese. Why don`t you even bother to try to learn yourself?

OP; Fine... Is this right? なにか なにか ありがと

A, B; Look! You wrote it wrong. That`s because you were using romaji - it screwed you up. That`s why we always say not to use it!! You`ll never learn right as long as you use it!

-------------------

I understand impatience with romaji. I understand not liking it. It is great to get people off of romaji ASAP. I`m all for that... But there are a lot of users who come with a question, and instead of getting a kind answer - the first response they get is something telling them that they aren`t worth anyone`s time unless they write in kana. This sounds very cold. And there are quite a few who leave almost immediately after getting that sort of response.
It`s easy to become short tempered when it is something you`re telling people everyday, but these are all different people. They may be taking high school Japanese classes which don`t really study kana (for some idiotic reason). They may have be in some other course that uses romaji - I know of some university level textbooks entirely in romaji (Why, I couldn`t tell you...)
Or maybe a self study with a crappy book that doesn`t stress the need to learn kana first and foremost.

All of these are flaws with books and methods - not necessarily a flaw with the person wanting to learn. But unfortunately when these people are mixed in with "memorized 3 phrases from anime!" people, it`s far far too easy to place the blame on the individual.

I personally think it would be a great idea for someone like Sashimister to make a nice thread explaining why we should all use kana - and we can link to that post when a new user asks something using romaji so that impatience doesn`t leak through. And also so that no one feels they are being personally attacked. (Because I know that no one is, but impatience and exasperation can feel that way if you`re a new user and it`s the first response you get.)

Romaji should be avoided at all costs... Too many people do not know this so need to be taught, not scolded. The scolding should be reserved for repeat offenders.

ETA; Wow, there were a number of new posts while I was typing that up. But I think I covered everything and nothing needs to be added.

ﾆｮﾛﾘﾝﾎﾟﾝ

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Whoa, before this turns into something more hostile...

Sashimister - I think you have to step back for a moment to see part of what Koir is talking about. And it isn`t just you, and I don`t really think it is entirely about romaji vs. kana.

I am against using romaji, but I can still see part of this and can understand some of the exasperation.

It seems that recently more and more outright hostility is directed toward romaji users... And a lot of it isn`t necessary in my eyes. Instead of informing new users that they`ll progress much better, etc, by using kana - there is an attitude of "if you use romaji you aren`t good enough to learn Japanese" projected. Mistakes are blamed on the fact that they have used romaji, and a lot of the time - even if it`s the first post - they`re treated with incredible impatience.

I think that this is the "attitude of elitism" mentioned. For a lot of learners, their first exposure is in romaji, and there are some schools that even teach without using kana for quite some time.

I will never suggest that anyone should be using romaji, but is it necessary to be so dismissive of people who use it on their first few posts?

I must have just recently joined this debate. My purpose for arguing on the side of everyone else here who is against using romaji is on the basis of it not being good for Japanese learners, or being used to write and communicate with.

And so far what I have read, nobody is making fun of anybody or trying to make themselves feel superior to those who use romaji. So I would like to know specifically were these posts are. I agree with you that people should not have "have an attitude of elitism", but I would like to know where people are sounding like this, so I can see that this "elitism" is not being mistaken for simple arguing against romaji's usage for practical reasons.

[superabbytcs]

Well, you see the problem I always run into with writing a very well-known and used phrase in Hiragana is that everyone uses the Romaji. Words like(and forgive me if I'm writing them in Romaji wrong, also): Konnichiwa, Arigatou, and such are rarely found(in my experience) actually written in hiragana. My first 'instict' was to write "Domou" because I thought that you held the 'o' sound, but then I second-guessed myself and thought the o was not held.

Romaji definitely has its faults, which are plainly seen from what I wrote, however, if you take an English speaker who has absolutely no knowledge of the Japanese language and only give them hiragana, they would probably be more likely to quit learning Japanese then try to learn hiragana. A lot of native English speakers I know hear or see Japanese and think it's the hardest thing in the world and they would never even dare learn it. This is where Romaji comes in handy. They are able to relate a new foreign language into their own writing system, which makes it easier for them to comprehend.

It's sort of funny because native English speakers find it so confusing and hard to understand in Japanese each 'letter' or character reprensents an entire word or syllable, however, the alphabet is very similar if you think about it. A B C. They have 'names', but when you use them in a word they have 'sounds'. True, we do not have letters that make up entire words like Kanji, but it's pretty similar besides that.