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Romanization walkthrough

[This is a draft and is incomplete]

Part I - Introduction

This guide is an in-depth supplement to the romanization guideline for romanizing Japanese song and album titles. This guide will not focus on Artist names, as names have slightly different properties[wd].

This guide walks through how to romanize a sample of song titles in VocaDB. The goal of this guide is to improve the accuracy of romanization in VocaDB by helping editors understand some of the often overlooked rules of the Japanese language.

This guide assumes the reader is sufficiently comfortable with mechanical aspects of editing VocaDB Song entries, and has a good understanding of the Japanese language. It also assumes the reader is familiar with VocaDB's Japanese romanization rules.

The purpose of romanizing title is to help non-Japanese speakers read and pronounce the title. [expand]

Part II - Basic romanization

A large number of songs have very easy to read titles. These are just as simple as turning kana into romaji.

[put them in links later]


http://vocadb.net/S/1746
  • ホシノウタ -> Hoshi no Uta

http://vocadb.net/S/67877

  • まとい -> Matoi


Song titles which are direct loan words are also easy to romanize (recall that VocaDB uses the original language for loanwords):

http://vocadb.net/S/31847

  • パラレルワールド -> Parallel World


Titles with common kanji are romanized as one would expect: http://vocadb.net/S/57151
  • タイヨウの子 -> Taiyou no Ko

http://vocadb.net/S/10536

  • 月と風船 -> Tsuki to Fuusen

It is expected that every editor who edits romaji be able to easily output the same romaji for the above song titles. For readers who had trouble, it is recommended they do not attempt to provide their own romanizations on VocaDB.

Part II - Rendaku (連濁)

Rendaku must be carefully considered for many Japanese words, especially nouns. For readers unfamiliar with the concept, the Wikipedia pages linked below may be a good starting point.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/連濁
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku
Simply put, when two words are combined, the latter part of the combined word can either be voiced or unvoiced (adding or not adding daku-ten). Rendaku rules are complex and at times unpredictable. A strong vocabulary and high listening and speaking level is helpful in determining the rendaku of a compound word.

http://vocadb.net/S/70651

  • からふる日和 -> Colorful Biyori

    If we separate this title into からふる and 日和, one may incorrectly romanize the title as "Colorful Hiyori". However, due to rendaku, 日和 is pronounced びより and thus should be romanized as "Biyori".

http://vocadb.net/S/66536

  • ながれ星 -> Nagareboshi

    Rendaku is voiced on 星. Since 流れ星 is a word in itself, there should be no difficulty for this romanization.

http://vocadb.net/S/74995

  • 夜間飛行 -> Yakan Hikou

    Here the rendaku does not apply, thus 飛行 is read normally as "Hikou" (and not "Bikou").

http://vocadb.net/S/7232

  • 夢見心地 -> Yumemi Gokochi

    Rendaku is voiced on 心地, changing "Kokochi" into "Gokochi". Since 夢見心地 is one word, "Yumemigokochi" is also correct.


Sometimes, the rendaku is ambiguous for certain compound words. In such cases, the editor may choose the more common reading. Unless the song producer has stated a particular reading which confirms the rendaku, we assume that both readings (unvoiced and voiced) are correct. This is only applicable to ambiguous readings. The above examples on this page have no ambiguity, so departing from the example produces an incorrect romanization. [*check with moderators on this stance ] [ include more examples][include ambiguous example]

Part III - Portmanteau and Puns

Part IV - Forced readings/made up readings (need a proper term)

http://vocadb.net/S/47354

Part V - Okurigana (maybe)

Part VII - Reader exercise

[Put a few song titles here; readers can try to romanize and test their understanding. They can also choose not to 'answer' some of them, meaning they would not edit those entries if they were on VocaDB. It is important to know one's skill level and avoid making mistakes.]

Notes on Editing

Edit notes should be included when an editor:
  • Takes a particular stance on an ambiguous reading
  • Uses a reading that is uncommon or not obvious at first glance. E.g.
    • Reading found in the PV
    • Reading found in the video description
    • Reading obtained from sources such as Twitter and official blogs

Leaving and edit note allows a reviewer to quickly check the romanization correctness without having to do the research all over again.

If there will be other edit notes (unrelated to romaji entry), the editor can choose split a large edit into smaller chunks to make it easier for others to review the edit history.

notes

ヒをいと読むとき http://vocadb.net/S/60075 , http://vocadb.net/S/73366

Uploader specified readings

を、は、へ、等

Indeterminable but correct readings http://vocadb.net/S/598 「ゆく」か「いく」

Titles with puns (a couple deco27 songs,) http://vocadb.net/S/78014 ,

Part VI


Other tactics for find readings:

@mikuwiki

dictionary

nico description

watching the PV

looking at official page album and song urls, filenames, etc. (sometimes they are romanized)

listening to the audio if the lyrics contain the title

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