@sudricprincess - Tumblr Blog

My name is Mika, or Princess, and this my my trainrot blog

This is the place to drop my train art (99% humanized AUs) and train content I adore.

Asks are open at all times and I'd be nothing but thrilled to talk about my AUs

Links

@mermmaidcore: Main blog (follows come from here!)

@mikadrawsart: Art blog

AUs

Idolverse: Collaborative AU with @cyanastrologist, Thomas and co. are a J-pop inspired Idol unit under fledgling agency Shining Time productions. Inspired by Idolmasters & EnStars

Smoke & Sanguinity: AKA Vampire AU, In a dark world where people live in constant paranoia of the very real monsters that surround them, on the Island of Sodor the kind & peaceful vampires try to keep their home safe from the evil vampires who risk the safety of their home and friends.

ECT

#royal artwork: For the art I post here

#princess post: For misc. original posts

#pinned post

ttte-yurishica

I'm studying hirogana now, so

I mostly used Hirogana because it the alphabet i mostly know + in Japan cartoons for kids sometimes have hirogana subtitles

If you have correct hirogana translations of their names, I'll be happy to see them

sudricprincess

Hiya! Someone else already reblogged with the proper hiragana/katakana names, but as someone who's also in the early stages of learning Japanese, I thought I'd offer you my thoughts.

Firstly I'll say, well done with the handwriting, way more readable than my early attempts lol.

So when it comes to foreign names/words, they'd almost exclusively be written in katakana. It's how non-Japanese or "loan words" are distinguished.

Also, it seems like hiragana and katakana are being mixed in some of the names. Particularly ko- (こ/コ) and te- (て/テ). In any given word, it should stick to one or the other. If you have trouble telling them apart, thankfully, google is full of very helpful charts!

If you want a better understanding on how foreign words would be read in Japanese, try looking up Japanese dubs of western cartoons. It's fun! For example the first 2 seasons of mlp in Japanese (with subs!) are on youtube.

Overall, well done so far, and translating character names is a great idea for practice. It's a tricky language to be sure, so best of luck learning it moving forward!

EDIT: A few things I forgot to add I figured were worth mentioning!

When it comes to loan words, translating them usually prioritizes matching pronunciation and syllable count over making sure every letter sound is included. It's why "Percy" would change to "Paashi" (パーシ) instead of "Parushi" (パルシ). It just feels more natural.

Also while I suggested Japanese dubs of English cartoons, you can find use of loan words and names in good old fashioned anime too. Not only to sound cool, but also foreign names that are easy for native speakers to say/write (Maria, Reina, Jimmy, Kevin, ect.) are very trendy in recent years for Japanese parents to name their kids.

rungian

Wotcha both. Im fairly advanced JSL (probably around N2 equivalent now) happy to help new learners hmu if you have any questions. I also have the Japanese dub of several TTTE episodes and The Adventure Begins to hand because lol

When transcribing loan words and foreign names into kana, the best thing to remember is that both kana alphabets are phonetic. It's entirely on sound, and that also japanese has very limited vowel sounds compared to English. Japanese vowels are: a (cat); I (sweet); u (boot); e (pet); o (dot) plus some minor variations like ei, ai, ou. If you know those five, however, you can theoretically pronounce anything!

So when you look at a name like James how do you pronounce it using those five vowels? It doesn't fit the "a" sound which would be jam or the "ai" sound which would come out like chime. The closest we can get is Jems. Then you elongate the vowel. Je-ms.

But hold on, there is no kana for je, there is only ji... so we do the next best thing: ジェームス where the エ is smaller (this is called sutegana but you don't need to know the name to understand how it works.)

These compound kana are very useful for writing sounds that Japanese cannot provide an equivalent for, like v, and for syllables which exist in spoken Japanese but not as standalone letters like sha しゃ nya にゃ cha ちゃ.

#THANK you for explaining this better than i possibly could!#very helpful thx!