How to write "yi" in katakana


I'm trying to write the name of a Chinese friend, Ying. I know that the sounds
"yi" and "ye" don't exist any more except for the deprecated hiragana
characters, and katakana doesn't have either of them. The question, how should
I write it?

A Japanese friend suggested イン, but this misses out two kinda important
consonants from the word. Is there no better way of representing this name in
katakana?




イン is pretty much the standard way to transliterate Chinese "ying" to kana.
Here are some examples:

  * [陶晶瑩](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%B6%E6%99%B6%E7%91%A9) - Taiwanese celebrity 
    * Pinyin: Táo Jīngyíng
    * Kana: タオ・チンイン
  * [劉若英](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8A%89%E8%8B%A5%E8%8B%B1) - Taiwanese celebrity 
    * Pinyin: Liú RuòYīng
    * Kana: リウ・ルオイン
  * [馬英九](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%AC%E8%8B%B1%E4%B9%9D) - President of Taiwan 
    * Pinyin: Mǎ Yīngjiǔ 
    * Kana: either ばえいきゅう (on'yomi of each kanji) or マー・インチウ (direct transcription of what it sounds in Chinese)

> but this misses out two kinda important consonants from the word

A little on this. When a word ends in ん, that ん can take on the sound of [ŋ].
For example, if you listen to [yuu0equal0u's recording of
わんわん](http://ja.forvo.com/word/%E3%82%8F%E3%82%93%E3%82%8F%E3%82%93/#ja) or
[panna's recording of
たくさん](http://ja.forvo.com/word/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8F%E3%81%95%E3%82%93/#ja) on
Forvo.

Often, the transliteration doesn't reproduce exactly the original
pronunciation of the word. For example,
[スティーブ・ジョブズ](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%96%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%96%E3%82%BA)
sounds a bit different from how "Steve Jobs" is pronounced in English.

* * *

As to "yi", い・イ is definitely one way (although not the only way) of
transliterating this sound. We can see this in the kun'yomi of some kanjis:

  * 意 e.g. 意思
  * 医 e.g. 医者
  * 以 e.g. 以上
  * 衣 e.g. 衣服 




Yi (and other characters) existed in Japanese a long time ago and I found an
old katakana sheet that has the missing characters. This image is from 1873:
![Old katakana worksheet](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uHmqI.jpg)

More on this at this Japanese wikipedia page for:
[ヤ行イ](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A4%E8%A1%8C%E3%82%A4). Also, note
that this page has the respective hiragana characters too.

In reality, most native Japanese will not be able to read the "classical yi"
or other classical characters.

There are contexts where the classical characters are still used, most notably
**Yebisu Beer** ; look at the katakana character after 琥珀:

![Kohaku Yebisu from www.moippai.com](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zQchy.jpg)  
<http://www.moippai.com/beer-reviews/kohaku-yebisu-(amber-yebisu)-259.html>

It looks like the katakana for "we"... which actually has me confused at the
moment because I always thought it was "ye"...

Anyways! Although the beer is "Yebisu" in romaji and "Yebisu" (or "Webisu"?)
in katakana, it is pronounced エビス.

**To answer your question though** you should probably go with イン as the
others have suggested but if you really want to use the character for yi, it
does it exist; just understand that most people will not be able to read it
and, even if they can read it, they will still pronounce it イ.

