# ō vs. ou



## darksoda

Hi people i have a doubt, second the wikipedia histories of ghosts can be Gakkou no kaidan and 学校の怪談, *Gakkō no Kaidan* can someone explain why there is two kinds of pronunciation who mean the same thing thanks for help people.


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## darksoda

gakkõ and gakkou is the same meaning just changing the pronounce???


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## 涼宮

Those are 2 ways of romanizing long vowels, either by using ō or 'ou', the latter being commoner (they're the same thing). You have to pronounce a long 'o' and not a short one.


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## Flaminius

There are two ways for transcribing the Japanese long O.  One is with macron, ō, under the Hepburn system, and the other is with caret, ô, under the kunrei system.

Like *Suzumiya* said, 'ou' for long O is common but presumably in sense of being vulgar.  It's a mistake, just like using a separate hyphen after the long vowel (*o-).


I'd like to seize this opportunity to remind you that The WordReference Japanese Forum enables users to type with both conventions (special characters pull-down next to the quote button).  Please do not use <ou> or <o-> for long O.  If the pull-down does not work on your PC, doubling the elongated vowel is advised (oo for ō or ô).


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## 涼宮

About the hyphen, I've seen that it's rather used sometimes for those words that you must pronounce the sounds separately, like in 原因 and 健一 since they are romanized as genin and kenichi it can lead to think that you say them as げにん and けにち and not as げんいん　and けんいち so it's sometimes romanized as gen-in and ken-ichi or gen'in and ken'ichi. I find curious that you say it's vulgar or a mistake as the most common way to romanize long vowels is by using 'ou', you can't get a macron on most computers, it's easier to simply write 'ou' and others write 'oo'.


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## Flaminius

> I find curious that you say it's vulgar or a mistake as the most common way to romanize long vowels is by using 'ou'


If your count includes private Internet materials, blogs and chat etc., then you may be right. I wonder if <o-> and <o> are not close second or third, though. There is no use pointing mistakes out in them.

What we are talking about here is an edited material that are expected to have enough resources to set conventions and consistently follow them.  Unless there is a good reason, one of the two major standards are to be chosen; Hepburn and kunrei.

I don't know if it is the case here but sometimes mistakes (or inconsistencies, if an ad-hoc convention is applied) creep in into brand names.  I would then have the same objection.  That something is often done does not make it a right thing.


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## Ben Jamin

I have seen the long 'o' spelled as 'oh' many times too.


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## goldensea80

To me, I don't see any problem with 'ou', it's natural because it's translated directly from Hiragana/Katakana and it just uses normal Roman characters.



Flaminius said:


> There are two ways for transcribing the Japanese long O.  One is with macron, ō, under the Hepburn system, and the other is with caret, ô, under the kunrei system.
> 
> Like *Suzumiya* said, 'ou' for long O is common but presumably in sense of being vulgar.  It's a mistake, just like using a separate hyphen after the long vowel (*o-).
> 
> 
> I'd like to seize this opportunity to remind you that The WordReference Japanese Forum enables users to type with both conventions (special characters pull-down next to the quote button).  Please do not use <ou> or <o-> for long O.  If the pull-down does not work on your PC, doubling the elongated vowel is advised (oo for ō or ô).


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## Flaminius

The problem with <ou> is that it carries over inconsistency of pronunciation straight from the Japanese orthography.  E.g., the second vowel of _yobou_ (prevention) is the same with the first one in _ookami_  (wolf) but not with the second one in _omou _(to think).

Maintaining a one-to-one relationship with the Japanese scripts, a method of romanisation called transliteration, has its merits for, let's say, online dictionaries.  Generally, however, Japanese romanisation refers preserving the sound than imitating the orthography of the language.


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## goldensea80

Sorry because I am not a native Japanese speaker. So you mean that the "Ou" in "おもう" and "よぼう" are different? But then the hiragana should be alter as well. I think the one-to-one relationship between romaji and hiragana/katakana is important too!



Flaminius said:


> The problem with <ou> is that it carries over inconsistency of pronunciation straight from the Japanese orthography.  E.g., the second vowel of _yobou_ (prevention) is the same with the first one in _ookami_  (wolf) but not with the second one in _omou _(to think).
> 
> Maintaining a one-to-one relationship with the Japanese scripts, a method of romanisation called transliteration, has its merits for, let's say, online dictionaries.  Generally, however, Japanese romanisation refers preserving the sound than imitating the orthography of the language.


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## 涼宮

it's simple. If the 'ou' is a verb in the infinitive form you don't say おー but おう, you pronounce the 'u'. If it's just part of a word, then おう is long. I find strange that you can think that 思う is said as おもー when that's a common verb to say . よぼう it's long because it's a word, not an infinitive. The same applies for conjugated forms such as 呼ぼう (volitional informal form of よぶ)


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## Flaminius

goldensea80 said:


> But then the hiragana should be alter as well.


There was a spelling reform about 60 years ago and your point was one of the things that did not materialise.



> I think the one-to-one relationship between romaji and hiragana/katakana is important too!


Obviously there is no lossless conversion between the three; the Japanese orthography, romanised Japanese, and the pronunciation.  The best we can do is a trade-off depending on the purpose.  If you are doing transcription (more faithful to pronunciation than spelling), then the Hepburn or the kunrei system, either of the two major methods, is preferred.


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