How to spell long vowels?
The biggest shortcoming of Roman transliteration of Japanese is that there’s no universally accepted method of indicating long vowels except for “ii”. The Ministry of Education of Japan once endorsed the use of overbar (Place a short horizontal bar on the vowel letter), but it never saw wide use. For the vowels [a] and [o], there are three common schemes. One of the most frequently used methods is just to give up indicating the length! For example, “Ryo” (my first name) could be ryo-o (two syllables with a long “o”) or ryo (one syllable with a short “o”). From the spelling alone, you can’t tell which. It’s in fact a long “o”, but I’ve given up indicating it. “Tokyo” is the same: both o’s are in fact long (which makes this word consist of four syllables: to-o-kyo-o). “Kyoto”, on the other hand, is Kyo-o-to. Another widely used scheme is to add an “h” after “a” and “o” as in “rahmen” for ra-a-me-N (a Japanized Chinese noodle) and “Endoh” for e-N-do-o (a common family name). This scheme w
