Sites You Should Not Use To Learn Japanese

[MMM]

Originally Posted by BenBullock

Sure, but aren't you setting up a straw man there? If a Japanese textbook said it was "domo" or even "doumo" rather than "doomo" or "dōmo", that would be more of a case of the textbook using poor romanization than a case of romanization itself being at fault. I'd expect any textbook or website which was attempting to teach Japanese to be clear about how the romanization corresponded to the pronunciation.

But even in a case like どうも the three beats of the word are much more clear in hiragana vs. the five letters in "doumo" or "doomo" or the four in "dōmo"

The textbook I taught spelled it "doomo". Guess how long it took me to break my students of spelling it どおも...and that was after getting romaji for only about 2 months. Imagine a year of spelling it "doomo" or "dōmo" and then trying to learn the どうも spelling.

[RickOShay]

Originally Posted by BenBullock

That's actually a particularly bad example. The o u in おもう is pronounced differently from the o u in どうも. It's one of the cases in which kana writing varies from the pronunciation. If you're interested in details, I have a whole page of other cases in which kana differs from pronunciation: What are the differences between kana writing and pronunciation? - sci.lang.japan Frequently Asked Questions

Well I was more or less speaking of the word itself and not the individual kanas. But I know it to be true that pronunciations will be stressed differently depending on the word. Not that have any sort of command over this, since it is something that I never really focused on. However, differences like you have mentioned are quite advanced in my opinion, and is not something a new learner would need to worry about.

Originally Posted by BenBullock

Sure, but aren't you setting up a straw man there? If a Japanese textbook said it was "domo" or even "doumo" rather than "doomo" or "dōmo", that would be more of a case of the textbook using poor romanization than a case of romanization itself being at fault. I'd expect any textbook or website which was attempting to teach Japanese to be clear about how the romanization corresponded to the pronunciation.

I would hope there would be proper explanation too, but at least with the kana there is just one style when it comes to written form, thus eliminating the chance of the students getting confused by many different styles etc. Even if romaji could be standardized I would still be against it once, reading beyond a few basic expressions begins, since it would be a hindrance and disservice to the students to deprive them of the clarity provided by kana, and the insight into meaning, and clear separation of particles etc provided by kanji.