Introduction and First Quetion

[Imparatus]

Hello to all,

My daughter (12) and I have decided to learn Japanese together. She has been fascinated with Japanese culture, food, music and, yes Manga and Anime for at least 2 years now, and has expressed consistent interest in learning the language. I simply love languages, and am similarly enthusiastic. My daughter spent some time at the local community college with a Japanese tutor, and LOVED it. Our plan is to work toward fluency in everyday conversational Japanese, such that after significant time and effort, we can carry on our daily conversations in Japanese. It's a lofty goal, but we're not adverse to effort and taking the time to do it right.

Anyway, thanks for providing such a wonderful resource, and we'd like to start by translating our names into Japanese, written and spoken. How would you think you best translate these two?

Mark Tosiello

Kyra Tosiello

English pronunciation of my daughter's name is KEER'-ah, not KYE'-ra, and the last name is pronounced as it's spelled: TOS'-ee-ELL'-oh

Arigato gozaimasu in advance!

[jemstone]

i suppose something like this,
mark マーク (ma-ku, long vowel a for ma)
kyra キーラ (ki-ra, long vowel i for ki)
tosiello トシーロ (to-shi-ro, long vowel i for shi)

i'm not quite sure if mark and kira requires the long vowels. if kyra is called everyday with a short "i", then i suppose you could take away the horizontal line (like kira in the "death note" anime).

i love the scene you just painted when you described how you and your daughter are learning the language together and striving to speak it fluently. the bond created is sure to bring you both very very much closer to each other. =D

[Javizy]

Welcome to the site. Japanese is a very interesting language to learn, and you'll find the more you progress, the more it has to offer. You should find the JPod lessons a lot of fun to go through together, and if you have any problems, feel free to ask them here.

Assuming your daughter's name is pronounced the same as Kiera Knightly's, the names would be something like this:

Kyra
キーラ
ki-i-ra

Mark
マーク
ma-a-ku

Tosiello
トシエロ
to-shi-e-ro

[jemstone]

ah yes!!! javizy definitely got your last name correct! =D

[Imparatus]

Wow...that was quick! Thanks so much for all of your encouragement, and your excellent information. We are having a great time already, and I appreciate all of your kind words.

I'll transmit the information to my daughter right away, so she'll be able to cross one thing more off of her list.

Thanks again!

Mark

[Imparatus]

Hi again!

Since I'm inexperienced as yet, I need to double-check the pronunciation of :

to-shi-e-ro

Would the o be the long vowel sound (as in "cold") or the short "ah" sound. It's "ah" in the English pronunciation.

Thanks again!

[jaboyak]

Think about it this way:
Japanese = English sound
a = ah
e = the letter "a"
i = see
o - oh
u = cruel

So, you would pronounce it like "toe"

"toe""she"air"row"

Bearing in mind that the "r" sound in Japanese is a little different...

Good luck, though. It's such a fascinating language to learn with all of the in's and out's. ^^

Never hesitate to ask us questions! We love to help!!

ジョン

[Javizy]

It's best not to think in terms of English, but as a beginner you don't have much else to work with. You pronounce Japanese vowels roughly how they are pronounced in the following English words:

あ and
い inner
う root (not as stressed as the English)
え end
お option

わ wa is more like a soft 'ua' in a single syllable. Pronouncing the WUH sound hard doesn't sound very Japanese.

ら-り-る-れ-ろ ra-ri-ru-re-ro sounds are pronounced with a "soft R", as found in Spanish. It's accomplished with a slight roll of the tongue which hits above your front teeth. If you try lightly pronouncing a D, it should be around that region. The roll takes a bit of practice, so try to imitate native speakers on a daily basis to perfect this (shadowing the lessons is a good way to do this). With this note in mind, your surname would be pronounced something like below:

top-shin-end-rot

This is a pretty weak explanation, and it'll take a little more to understand completely, so check out the following links or try a Google search for pronunciation guides.

Native recordings of the kana chart
Lengthier explanation
More about R

[Jessi]

You pronounce Japanese vowels roughly how they are pronounced in the following English words:
あ and

I think this might work unless you are American Maybe the "a" in father is a good example? I'm also wondering about "option" for お. Is "option" pronounced with an お sound in British English? To me, the first "o" in "option" sounds just like あ instead!

Imparatus-san, welcome to the site! I think that's great that you have decided to take on the challenge of learning Japanese with your daughter! The fact that you are both so motivated will really take you a long way. We hope you have fun learning here! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any more questions!

[Javizy]

You pronounce Japanese vowels roughly how they are pronounced in the following English words:
あ and

I think this might work unless you are American Maybe the "a" in father is a good example? I'm also wondering about "option" for お. Is "option" pronounced with an お sound in British English? To me, the first "o" in "option" sounds just like あ instead!

Hmm, I never thought about accents and such. I'm with you with the 'and' just thinking about how Peter says it , but I can't make あption sound like option, my lips sort of pucker up before coming together for the 'puh' when I say it, which is the same shape for お, whereas my mouth opens completely for あ. I'll have to give a bit more thought to these things in future

[QuackingShoe]

Yeah, comparisons end up useless. From my accent, I agree with Jessi's assessment. Option is much more like あ, and so is top/rot, actually. I also have to rebel against the い = inner/shin thing, due to my accent.
I'd recommend not following written comparisons. English is too widespread of a language for such things to be useful. This age is flooded with media, so... use media.

Good luck to you and your daughter. I think things like that are absolutely great.

[jaboyak]

I wish one of my parents wanted to do that with me...

うらやましい。。。

[jaypunkrawk]

That's really cool!!! I wish I would've had somebody close to me to learn the language with.

I wish you guys the best!

がんばりなさい。