Hello,
In some Japanese textbooks (and in some scholarly texts on Japanese), there is a convention of writing ty-, sy- and si where standard Romaji would have ch- and sh(i). For example,
tyō/tyoo instead of chō 町
syō/syoo instead of shō 正
hanasi instead of hanashi 話
I know that the standard Japanese pronunciation of these consonants (the ones written ch and sh in standard Romaji) is not exactly the same as the standard English pronunciation of "sh" as in shake, or "ch" as in child, but I don't know of any phonetic environment in which these consonants are pronounced [tj]/[sj], as the spellings ty-/sy-would suggest.
Are there any contexts in which the Japanese consonants normally written ch-/sh- are pronounced [tj]/[sj] (respectively), or is there another reason for using the spelling ty-/sy-to represent these sounds?
Thank you for any assistance
In some Japanese textbooks (and in some scholarly texts on Japanese), there is a convention of writing ty-, sy- and si where standard Romaji would have ch- and sh(i). For example,
tyō/tyoo instead of chō 町
syō/syoo instead of shō 正
hanasi instead of hanashi 話
I know that the standard Japanese pronunciation of these consonants (the ones written ch and sh in standard Romaji) is not exactly the same as the standard English pronunciation of "sh" as in shake, or "ch" as in child, but I don't know of any phonetic environment in which these consonants are pronounced [tj]/[sj], as the spellings ty-/sy-would suggest.
Are there any contexts in which the Japanese consonants normally written ch-/sh- are pronounced [tj]/[sj] (respectively), or is there another reason for using the spelling ty-/sy-to represent these sounds?
Thank you for any assistance
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