- 1). Use all the letters of the Roman alphabet except "l" and "q." The sounds denoted by these letters don't exist in spoken Japanese. Use "r' for loanwords with an "l" sound, such as "ritoru" (liter). Loanwords are words with non-Japanese origins that have been incorporated into the Japanese language. While spoken Japanese does not have a "v" sound, there is no other way to write it if the necessity arises.
- 2). Use a macron to denote long vowel sounds. This is the most widely-used convention. If you cannot render a macron with your keyboard, double the vowels, as in doomo arigatoo (thank you) or kyuu (nine). You can also make a long "o" sound by adding a "u", as in doumo arigatou.
- 3). Use a "y" to render palatals, which combine the sound "ki" and a vowel. For example, the sounds "ki" and long "o" combine to form the word "kyoo", which means "today." While "kioo" is a technically correct way to write it, it doesn't encourage the correct pronunciation.
- 4). Denote hard consonants in romaji by doubling them, even though the way to denote a hard consonant in hiragana, the native Japanese phonetic script, is to precede it by the character "tsu". For example, the romaji spelling of the Japanese word for diary is "nikki" in the Hepburn system, as well as in others, and the pronunciation of the word is also "nikki". The hiragana characters used to write it, however, are ni, tsu and ki.
- 5). Add the silent vowel on the end of some verbs or nouns even though it isn't clearly pronounced. Two common examples are "desu" (it is) and "arimasu" (there is), pronounced "des" and "arimas" respectively. This convention arises from the fact that the sound of each Japanese phonetic character, with the exception of "m" and "n", is a combination of a consonant and a vowel. Include the silent vowel sound in all loanwords, such as "gasu" (gas), "inchi" (inch) and "ritoru" (liter).
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