# Letter di in Katakana



## RobertoDole

The people I've talked to have reccomended simply not using the character "di" at all, and instead using "de," but If possible I'd prefer to use "di"


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## jazyk

ディ


I have to type dexi (no space between them), maybe it's the same for you.


Jazyk


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## cheshire

RD, that depends on words. (Unless you're talking about non-gairaigo, in which case your friend's advice is right.)
In general, elder people can't pronounce 半母音　correctly. They tend to avoid using it in written and spoken Japanese.


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## RobertoDole

jazyk said:


> ディ
> 
> 
> I have to type dexi (no space between them), maybe it's the same for you.
> 
> 
> Jazyk


ah yes, just what I was looking for



> RD, that depends on words. (Unless you're talking about non-gairaigo, in which case your friend's advice is right.)


whats non-gairaigo?  you mean nihongo?  I was trying to transliterate an english name lol



> In general, elder people can't pronounce 半母音　correctly


...... i recognize the first kanji, cant remember what it means, then you have the kanji 母 which is mother, or haha if im not mistaken, and i dont recognize the last kanji, but i cant see getting "di" out of those 3 kanjis...


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## Beejay

RobertoDole said:


> ...... i recognize the first kanji, cant remember what it means, then you have the kanji 母 which is mother, or haha if im not mistaken, and i dont recognize the last kanji, but i cant see getting "di" out of those 3 kanjis...


Thats because chesire was making a broader reference to a collection that "di" belongs to. I didn't know what that set of kanji meant either, so I looked them up and put together the readings that seemed logical and came up with はんぼおん (hamboon); "semi-vowel". There ya go. :/


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## cheshire

半母音　(han bo in) semivowels like w, y.
They (not all) are familiar with ルーベック　instead of リューベック for example.
Some very elderly people can't even pronouce semivowel "y".


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## RobertoDole

ok, i get it.... I think...
but what are ruubekku as opposed to ryoobekku? ive never heard either word, and you wrote them in katakana, which is usually for foreign words, but they sure dont look english...


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## RobertoDole

RobertoDole said:


> ...... i recognize the first kanji...


oh thats the kanji for half (or semi-)! ^_^


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## cheshire

Today we are all accustomed to far more faithful pronouciation than those in Meiji Era.

In Meiji, キャンディー　was written as キャンデー. Some of them could pronounce ャ　but not ィ. That's why some elderly people today can't pronouce some semivowels correctly.


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## Uebersetzer

I would write ディ　by typing "deli" and then changing hiragana
to katakana.

Cheers


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## Captain Haddock

cheshire said:


> Today we are all accustomed to far more faithful pronouciation than those in Meiji Era.
> 
> In Meiji, キャンディー　was written as キャンデー. Some of them could pronounce ャ　but not ィ. That's why some elderly people today can't pronouce some semivowels correctly.



Isn't じ the natural Japanese pronunciation for the "dee" sound? I think there are quite a few loanwords that use it.


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## Flaminius

> Isn't じ the natural Japanese pronunciation for the "dee" sound?


Probably it depends on phonetic environments.  I know ジーゼル was once a popular pronunciation for _diesel_ and リン酸ジブチル is still the veritable nomenclature for _dibutyl __phosphate_, so ジ was a popular transcription for "di" at word initial positions.  I don't think, however, this was the case for "di" at word final positions.


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## notnotchris

The popular drink Lipovitan-D is pronounced

リポビタン・デー

but, as others have mentioned, you can construct a ディ in modern Japanese. As for how to type it, I always go for the method with the fewest keystrokes, which is dhi in this case.


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## cheshire

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%9D%E3%83%93%E3%82%BF%E3%83%B3D

1962　年に発売開始という古い商品だから、「デー」なのでしょう。今なら「ディー」とつけただろう。


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## Captain Haddock

notnotchris said:


> The popular drink Lipovitan-D is pronounced
> 
> リポビタン・デー



That may have nothing to do with the "di" sound. The letter D is pronounced /de:/ (でえ) in most major languages, including French and German.


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## RobertoDole

Captain Haddock said:


> The letter D is pronounced /de:/ (でえ) in most major languages, including French and German.


But in French and German, if you were to write "di," I'm fairly certain it would be pronounced "dee"as in delicious or deed.


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## Captain Haddock

You pronounce "delicious" funny, methinks. 

That sound would normally be spelled "die" in German, "di" in French. However, the name of the letter 'd' is certainly pronounced で ("day" without the diphthong) in those languages.


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## Beejay

Captain Haddock said:


> You pronounce "delicious" funny, methinks.


When I read his post, I was thinking "Hmmmm really? >_> I pronounce the 'de' in delicious pretty much how I pronounce the japanese で/デ!" but it didn't seem relevent so I didn't post it.

.. But I guess I've posted it now.. Ewps.


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## Captain Haddock

This is getting off-topic, but in normal English, the e in "delicious" is the neutral schwa vowel (as is the "iou" vowel sound).

But there's always the Valley Girl "dee-lish!"


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