Welcome to True Romaji Lyrics!
Masterlist
What is "true romaji"?
This is a term I've coined for simplicity's sake, but it essentially means the romaji has been simplified as much as possible, has all foreign words translated into katakana then romanized and doesn't contain any special characters or accents. It mainly entails:
translating foreign words that were written in the original foreign language (not Japanese) in the original lyrics into romaji/romanized katakana ('dress' -> 'doresu')
typing out all elongated sounds (i.e. no 'ō', only 'oo' or 'ou')
attempting to transcribe background vocals that aren't included in the lyrics
I'll also add some things to make reading romaji easier, being:
adding aprostrophes to differentiate 'n_' sounds from flat 'n's when followed by a vowel (for example, Jun'ichirou)
spacing out all words and particles (for example, 'korega nekoda' -> 'kore ga neko da')
always romanizing 'を' or 'ヲ' as 'wo' instead of 'o'
What are my sources?
I'll mainly use karaoke videos and websites I can find online of the original song as they contain all the katakana for the lyrics (since they're meant to be read by Japanese people after all). If not, I'll use an English to Katakana converter site then sound-match it to the song to make sure it's correct. If all else fails for whatever reason, I will transcribe it myself by ear.
I'm not 100% fluent in Japanese but I'm am amateur and still learning, so the possibility of me making mistakes is always there. If you ever find an error, please let me know and I'll fix it! I can read hiragana and katakana and this blog serves to both help myself and others with reading lyrics easier as well as being a way for me to practice my Japanese reading proficiency.
Can I make a request?
Of course you can! I'm willing to do true romaji lyrics for any song, whether it's Vocaloid, from an anime or game or just general Japanese music. It doesn't matter if I know or have consumed the media the song is from or have even heard the song before! The only rule is it must be Japanese as I'm sadly not proficient in other languages and this blog is dedicated to Japanese music.
Requests are always open, though I cannot say I will get your request done right away as I'm an adult with my own life. I'll try my best to get them done in a timely manner though!
Thank You For Reading!