[Malacite]

So I've been trying to use google for this to no avail...

How exactly is "Teichyou" spelled? All I can find is the kanji which doesn't help me worth a damn.


It's the Japanese word for Captain btw, or at least that's the meaning I want as JP words have several meanings depending on how it's used.

[Lunaryn]

taichou - 隊長 【たいちょう】 (n) commanding officer; (P)

[TheGrandMom]

Teichou

There are so many different versions of Captain in Japanese, I'm told. There are different spellings for "Navy" or "Army". He told me that this is probably the one you are looking for though.

[Lunaryn]

Hmm, yeah, I suppose this is also a possibility:

teichou - 艇長 【ていちょう】 (n) skipper (of a boat); coxwain

Not marked as being a common usage, though.

[TheGrandMom]

Well since I got the information from someone who's Japanese and lives in Japan, I'd think he knows what he's talking about. It's very difficult for us to understand the nuances of words in Japanese with all the different meanings. One word can have several meanings for one spelling and there can be several different spellings for the same word. It's mind boggling and its one of the reasons that online dictionaries are unreliable.

[Lunaryn]

Well, I'm familiar with the term taichou from other stuff. I suppose it depends on what particular meaning of the term "Captain" you're looking for as well, which wasn't made clear here.

Also, keep in mind that spelling in Japanese is a much different animal than spelling in English. "teichou" isn't some unchallengeable correct way of spelling it; "teityou", "teichoo", or "teichō" are all perfectly valid ways of romanizing the exact same spelling of the word, for instance (I don't like the "oo" and "ō" usages due to ambiguity, myself, but they do get used). Learning to read/type kana helps because of this.

[Tickmeoff]

Originally Posted by TheGrandMom

Well since I got the information from someone who's Japanese and lives in Japan, I'd think he knows what he's talking about. It's very difficult for us to understand the nuances of words in Japanese with all the different meanings. One word can have several meanings for one spelling and there can be several different spellings for the same word. It's mind boggling and its one of the reasons that online dictionaries are unreliable.

Lunaryn isn't wrong, teichou is an uncommon way to refer to a captain, taichou is the most often used term. Malacite also specifically asked for teichou, and I would assume you specifically asked your friend for teichou, so of course he told you what you asked for.

What kind of captain he was talking about also matters. Captain of the police, captain of the national guard, captain of the bakery, we call them all captain of whatever in English but they might all have different titles in Japan.

Also, the whole "omg every word in Japanese means 10000 things" is a huge exaggeration. It's more like kanji have so many different pronunciations that two words with totally different meanings can end up being spoken the same way. It's like someone trying to learn English saying the word "there" has so many different meanings when it really only has one meaning, but there are other words (their, they're) that are pronounced the same but have completely different meanings. You know the difference in Japanese the same way you know it in English, by context or by seeing it written. If you can see the kanji the meaning becomes clear.

[Feba]

It's not that Japanese has a problem with words being hard to decipher, it's that natural languages have a lot of subtlety and nuance with words, period.

Like the word "get" in english. When you think about it, your mind probably jumps to a dictionary definition of "obtaining" something. Foreign students generally associate 'get' with 'obtain'. But it's also widely used, possibly even more commonly, to mean 'become'; as in "I'm getting dressed" or "I got wasted". Who wants to get into a fight on affecting effect, and for that matter effective effects and the affects of effect.

And just to be a dick, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Oh, and if you don't understand why popular punctuation is important, "James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher". GOOD LUCK.

[Malacite]

Thinking more along the lines of the Goteei 13 in Bleach. I'm asking 'cause I wanna change my Gamer Tag for XBL and the JP word for "Captain" sounds much cooler. I really should just get off my ass and take a JP course already like I've been wanting to though.

[Vyuru]

"teityou", "teichoo", or "teichō" are all perfectly valid ways of romanizing the exact same spelling of the word

I highly disagree with the above. There is only one correct way of spelling even if the other ways technically *sound* the same. It's a poor example, but think of the difference between monkeys and monkies, one is correct, the other is not.

Also, for it to be the correct spelling of Teichou, then it has to be able to go into being romanized and then be able to be turned back into hiragana. As far as I know, there is no tyo in japanese, I do not believe that Tsu can work that way.

And the whole each word has multiple meanings, it's really not that bad. Granted I only had two years of japanese, but we didn't run into that many words that were spelled and pronounced the same that had multiple meanings as well. The only ones I can think of offhand were Hana, Kubi, and Hashi. While I'm sure there are others I don't know them. Also, while I wouldn't consider Kubi to be in that grouping other people in my class did.

Now granted, that was all in hiragana, kanji would be different. And it's really not as bad as people make it out to be.

[Feba]

Vyuru, you're forgetting that there are multiple systems of romanization.

Nihon-shiki romanization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for example.

[Lunaryn]

Feba is correct. "cho" and "tyo" are two different romaji for the exact same kana, one doesn't represent an 'alternate' kana that is somehow equivalent. 'tyo' is used by a system that reflects more how the kana alphabet puts sound together rather than what the sound is like in english ('ti' being the 't' consonant sound series with the 'i' vowel sound, even though it's pronounced like 'chi'; the kana represents the sound as the vowel sound part more or less cut off and transitioned into 'yo' (written after 'ti' with a smaller-sized 'yo')).

Of course, this can lead to further confusion since for foreign words you can have sounds like our 'tee'; the kana for this would be ティ which I tend to romanize as 't(e)i', but which it doesn't look like there's a well-established convention for, at least from browsing the wikipedia pages. (The way I wrote it here might be from JSL/JWL, as that's what the books I was using the first time around used, but it's been far too many years to be sure)

If you use an IME to type in kana, you'll note that typing cho or tyo should both produce ちょ. You can also request the two characters explicitly with 'tixyo' or 'chixyo' as x doesn't exist as a consonant sound in Japanese and has been reserved for a small-kana modifier. You would produce てぃ/ティ with 'texi'. See also Wāpuro rōmaji - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia