Which reading does Google Translate use for kanji words?


I used a [web service](http://japanese-name-generator.com) to emulate the name
"Siavosh" in Kanji. First, you select your name parts from a table of kana and
then it gives you a combination of kanji with pronunciation of each kanji
superscripted above it. So far everything seems fine, and "Siavosh" is
kanjified as below:

煮武瀬

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ndmXD.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ndmXD.png)

Therefore, considering the above is correct, the resulted kanji would make an
estimated equivalent of "Siavosh" as "Syabuse". But, wait a minute, when I
type the kanji word in Google Translate, it reads completely different. Are we
both right? Am I wrong or is Google? Or even worse, are we both wrong?!




Since you have used that site, you probably have noticed that there are dozens
of kanji that can be read the same way. For example, 者, 社, 車, 斜, 謝 and many
others can be read "sha". But did you know [most kanji have two or more
readings](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/onyomi-kunyomi/)? 煮 can be read both
"ni" and "sha"; 武 is "bu", "mu", "take" or "takeshi"; 瀬 is "se" or "rai".
Therefore, even native Japanese speakers cannot determine the reading of 煮武瀬
in one way. Some may well read it as "nitakerai" or "nimuse".

Ultimately, Japanese kanji is unsuitable for this purpose. Many people ask
here "How do you write _< my name>_ in kanji?", but such a question is already
pointless. Although "kanjification" looks appealing to some Western people,
it's nothing more than a wordplay, and you cannot expect Japanese speakers
read or understand it. Practically, western names have to be written not in
kanji but in katakana, which is a phonetic alphabet in the Japanese language.
Katakana has its own limitation, but it's generally much better at
consistently representing the sound of a foreign word.

