Constructing a Database of Non-Japanese Pronunciations of Different Japanese Romanizations

Reiko Kaji, Hajime Mochizuki


Abstract
In this paper, we investigated how foreign language speakers pronounce Japanese words transliterated using two major Romanization systems, Hepburn and Kunrei. First, we recorded foreign language speakers pronouncing Romanized Japanese words. Next, Japanese speakers listened to the recordings and wrote down the words in Japanese Kana. Sets of each Romanized Japanese word, its correct Kana expression, its recorded reading, and the Kana dictated from the recording were stored in our database. We also investigated which of the two Romanization systems was pronounced more correctly by foreign language speakers by comparing the correctness of their respective readings. We also investigated which system’s pronunciation by foreign language speakers was judged as more acceptable by Japanese speakers.
Anthology ID:
L08-1478
Volume:
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'08)
Month:
May
Year:
2008
Address:
Marrakech, Morocco
Editors:
Nicoletta Calzolari, Khalid Choukri, Bente Maegaard, Joseph Mariani, Jan Odijk, Stelios Piperidis, Daniel Tapias
Venue:
LREC
SIG:
Publisher:
European Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
Language:
URL:
http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2008/pdf/440_paper.pdf
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Reiko Kaji and Hajime Mochizuki. 2008. Constructing a Database of Non-Japanese Pronunciations of Different Japanese Romanizations. In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'08), Marrakech, Morocco. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
Constructing a Database of Non-Japanese Pronunciations of Different Japanese Romanizations (Kaji & Mochizuki, LREC 2008)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2008/pdf/440_paper.pdf