General Question

Nevada83's avatar

Have you ever seen a Japanese name with a long vowel being represented by doubling the vowel?

Asked by Nevada83 (1029points) January 20th, 2020

I’ve seen names like Ōshima with the long O sound represented by spelling it Ooshima, as one example of this. I’m kind of in a little bit of an argument online about it, because someone saw it spelled Ooshima and they said they spelled it wrong, and I’m trying to tell them it’s not, it’s just representing the long O.

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3 Answers

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Check Wikipedia ! you are correct.

kritiper's avatar

When two vowels are shown, the sound is said twice or said twice as long.
O’s are always pronounced like a long O.
A’s are always pronounced like “ah.”
I’s are pronounced like long e’s
E’s are pronounced like a long a
So Anime, in Japanese, is pronounced “ah-nee-may.”

Demosthenes's avatar

Yes, “Ooshima” would be another acceptable way to write ”Ōshima”. The name, which means “big island” is written 大島 and the character 大 can be transliterated as either “oo” or ”ō”.

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