Jumbichū or Junbichū for じゅんびちゅう, Konban wa or Komban wa for こんばんは？


Can someone give me some advice. In some text books I see N used and in some I
see M used for ん and in a dictionary I see them using n with a line above it.

I assume this is because of the way the words appear in Romaji but would like
some advice as I am getting a bit confused and in particular the dictionary
where an n appears with a line above.




There are multiple ways to romanize Japanese, and each one is based on
different principles. Some try to represent the phonemes of the language; some
try to represent the phonetics (actual pronunciation); others try to represent
the way a word is written in Japanese orthography, or the way a word is typed
into a Japanese computer.

One scheme, called Traditional Hepburn, changes the spelling of ん based on the
following consonant. Why? Because the pronunciation of ん depends on the
phonetic context it appears in, and James Curtis Hepburn wanted to convey some
of these phonetic details in his romanization scheme. Because ん is pronounced
[m] before /b/, こんばんは is spelled _kombanwa_ in that scheme.

One problem that comes up in romanization is how to distinguish between んい and
に. If you write ん as _n_ , they'll both end up looking like _ni_ , and you
won't be able to distinguish words like かんい and かに. Different romanization
schemes solve this problem in different ways. The dictionary you're looking at
uses the line over n to distinguish the two, so かんい and かに are _kan̄i_ and
_kani_ respectively. Another dictionary might write _kan'i_ and _kani_ to
distinguish the two.

In any case, the word is the same and is pronounced the same way. These are
just minor differences in how the word is romanized.




There are multiple ways to romanize Japanese, and each one is based on
different principles. Some try to represent the phonemes of the language; some
try to represent the phonetics (actual pronunciation); others try to represent
the way a word is written in Japanese orthography, or the way a word is typed
into a Japanese computer.

One scheme, called Traditional Hepburn, changes the spelling of ん based on the
following consonant. Why? Because the pronunciation of ん depends on the
phonetic context it appears in, and James Curtis Hepburn wanted to convey some
of these phonetic details in his romanization scheme. Because ん is pronounced
[m] before /b/, こんばんは is spelled _kombanwa_ in that scheme.

One problem that comes up in romanization is how to distinguish between んい and
に. If you write ん as _n_ , they'll both end up looking like _ni_ , and you
won't be able to distinguish words like かんい and かに. Different romanization
schemes solve this problem in different ways. The dictionary you're looking at
uses the line over n to distinguish the two, so かんい and かに are _kan̄i_ and
_kani_ respectively. Another dictionary might write _kan'i_ and _kani_ to
distinguish the two.

In any case, the word is the same and is pronounced the same way. These are
just minor differences in how the word is romanized.

