But spelling out and singing aren't normal speech. Spelling/singing can break apart diphthongs, like NAI becomes NA-I.
生 is not written with い due to the /e:/ having a different sound from that one in from おねえさん. It does not (when you aren't spelling). It is written the way it is for ancient historic reasons.
> Similarly, the OU in 東京 (toukyou) and the OO in 大きな (ookina) are different
No, they are't.
> I hope this helps.
こう言うバカな戯言は少しも誰にも役に立つはずないんだぜ。
Why would you want to confuse the hell out of those learning Japanese by spelling せんせい (sensei) using an E with a macron, a la "sensē," when that is not at all how you spell it or type in phonetically in an IME? Having a one-to-one romanization for each Hiragana phonetic is far more logical for learners, who are essentially the target of romanized Japanese, than creating a Hooked on Phonics version that is completely disconnected from writing reality.
I also think your comment, written in Japanese, saying, "This stupid nonsense isn't going to be of any use to anyone," is both ignorant and uncalled for.
Phonetically, in natural speech, the vowel often compresses toward a long /e/ sound, so you may hear something closer to sense or sensee depending on context and speaker.
In stylistic writing (e.g. light novels or dialogue), you might occasionally see phonetic renderings to reflect speech, but in formal or instructional contexts, “sensei” remains the correct and expected form.
In short:
• Orthography: sensei
• Phonetics: can vary in actual speech
• Stylistic writing: sometimes bends toward pronunciation
Different layers, different purposes.
I think this may mostly be a case of people talking past each other.
One side is focusing on orthographic convention (how it’s written and typed), the other on phonetic realization (how it’s actually pronounced in speech).
Those aren’t contradictory claims — they’re just different layers of the same thing.
I wholeheartedly agree that it is fine to write things like "Sup?" when appropriate, such as dialogue in a novel. You see this all the time in Japanese TV, books, magazines, manga, etc. However, I disagree that elisions should dictate how we spell words in regular written communication, especially when discussing a tool meant to help non-native Japanese speakers learn the language. And as the parent poster pointed out, when singing, you would sing "se n se i" rather than "se n se e." The same is true of haiku and other instances where the morae (linguistic beats similar to syllables in English) are clearly enunciated.
As I said, sensei is technically four morae and different than "sensē," and, in my opinion, should remain that way in Romaji, it being a writing system and one method for inputting Japanese text.
Thanks for the respectful conversation. I appreciate the points you brought up.
Sorry, yes. That is my mistake. Hepburn doesn't use any such ē notation. Hepburn preserves えい and ええ as "ei" and "ee", conflating only "ou" and "oo" into ō (when they appear in a combination that denotes the long o:).
Hepburn didn’t write “sensē” himself because it 1880s it was still pronounced “ei”, not “ē”. If it were pronounced like it’s pronounced nowadays, you can bet he’d spell it with ē.
It depends on the learner’s (and textbook author’s) goals. Sometimes, having a phonetic transcription of the more common pronunciation is a more important consideration.
Historically, Hepburn’s transcription pre-dates Japanese orthographic reform. He was writing “kyō” back when it was spelled けふ. Having one-to-one correspondence to kana was not a goal.
So writing sensē is kinda on-brand (even if Hepburn didn’t write like this, because in his times it still wasn’t pronounced with long e).
