MarioWiki:Japanese

Although many editors are not familiar with Japanese characters, specific Japanese words are often of interest in articles. In these cases, it is usually appropriate to provide a romanization of that word – in other words, to write it using the Latin Alphabet. Romanizations are also known as "rōmaji" or "romaji". Generally, romanizations are only appropriate for names, singular words or short phrases of interest, whereas translations are preferable for long passages.

General Rules

 * Romanizations should be italicized.
 * Romanizations should be lowercase, except for titles.
 * No differentiation between the two syllabic kana scripts and the logographic Kanji is necessary. (Do not romanize katakana in all caps.)
 * In addition to romanization, Kanji can be phonetically rendered using  (insert the kanji and hiragana where indicated). This appears as: KANJI . Never use katakana for this purpose.

Kana Table
For the most part, Hepburn romanization is used on this wiki, so the kana should be romanized according to the following table. Hiragana are on the left, katakana are on the right and the romanization is below them. Red marks romanizations that are unsystematic (i.e. romanized differently than the other kana in their row); editors should be aware of these so as to avoid accidental use of the systematic equivalent.

Extended Katakana
Because extended katakana are not completely standardized in their usage, the correct way of romanizing them can often be difficult to determine. The following table gives some examples of possible romanizations, but editors are advised to use their own judgment in conjunction with the table. The examples provided may not be appropriate to some situations, and extended katakana not covered by the table are very likely to crop up at times.

Small kana not covered below can be romanized as ~ followed by the romanization of the corresponding larger kana.


 * ヌゥ → nu~u

ん and ン
ん and ン should be romanized n in most circumstances.


 * 日本 → nihon
 * こんな → konna
 * アンナ → anna

When ん or ン is immidiately followed by one of the あ‐ or や-row kana, it should instead be n', to distinguish it from the な‐row kana.


 * 禁煙 → kin'en
 * 祈念 → kinen

ん and ン should never be rendered as m.


 * 新聞 → shinbun, not shimbun

Long Vowels
Long vowels should always be noted by placing a macron over the vowel.


 * 大魔王 → daimaō
 * もう → mō
 * ルイージ → ruīji

Note that this is a difference from the usual Hepburn style, which mandates that long え and い be romanized as ei and ii in certain cases. Also be careful to distinguish between cases like 問う（とう） and 糖（とう）. The former should be tou, while the latter should be tō. This is due to the fact that what looks like a long vowel in 問う is actually separated over two different morphemes, and so is pronounced as two distinct vowels rather than a single long one.

っ and ッ
When っ or ッ is followed by a consonant other than n, it should be represented by doubling the consonant directly following it.


 * 閣下 → kakka
 * もっと → motto
 * クッパ → kuppa

Note that っち should be cchi, never tchi.

は, を, and へ
When used as particles, は,を, and へ should be romanized as wa, o, and e, rather than the usual ha, wo, and he.

Subjects With Japanese Names
If a subject must be called by its Japanese name per Naming, it should be romanized in all uses on the Super Mario Wiki. For the most part, the romanization rules outlined above should be followed. However, there are a few differences to keep in mind. While the exceptional "name romanizations" outlined below must be used in the article titles and whenever the subjects are mentioned within articles on the wiki, the "normal romanizations" should still be included in the name column of (this should be done for all cases where the Japanese name is known, even if they also have English titles).

Words originating from English or other languages using the Latin Alphabet should be written as they would be in their language of origin.


 * メンハンマー
 * Normal Romanization → menhanmā
 * Name Romanization → menhammer

Titles should use regular English title case.


 * スーパーマリオ　不思議 のころころパーティ
 * Normal romanization → sūpā mario: fushigi no korokoro pāti
 * Name romanization → Super Mario: Fushigi no Korokoro Party

For the convenience of editors who cannot easily type vowels with macrons, redirects should be created from titles without macrons to the canonical title.


 * redirects to