Up until just last year "si" "ti' and "tu" were the proper official way to romanize "shi" "chi" and "tsu": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki

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59percentmore 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Official" in only the strictest sense. Everyone has used Hepburn since forever, the government just got around to acknowledging that.

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qingcharles 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And thank the lord that the romanization of Japanese (with its few little quirks) is one of the simplest transliterations there is.

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jaggederest 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And, since the English equivalent of those sounds doesn't exist, there's no confusion the way there would be between "she" and "see" in english. Complaining that there's no english equivalent of the russian (взгляд / vzglyad)'s initial cluster would be similar in feel - no english words use it, so the romanization can be whatever you like, really.

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lmm 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> And, since the English equivalent of those sounds doesn't exist, there's no confusion the way there would be between "she" and "see" in english.

Erm, wtf? The English "si" sound does exist and sounds different from し. There is a reason people don't want to write Sinzyuku, and while I think they're making the wrong tradeoff, it is a tradeoff and should be acknowledged as such.

	▲	jaggederest 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		"As a result, the sequences [ti si di (d)zi] do not occur in native or Sino-Japanese vocabulary."[1] Unless I'm missing something, Japanese phonology doesn't include the sound english has as "si", only "shi"? I'm not a native speaker though, it's entirely possible that I am missing something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology