h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello.

A note about the Japanese language: unlike English, whether a vowel is long or short is of critical difference. For example, _koshou_ can mean "out of order," and _koushou_ "negotiation." Whether a long "o" is transcribed as "oh" or "ou" is pretty much at the whim of the translator.

To get to the point, the glossary for this page lists "doujinshi" correctly with the elongated vowel, but has the words for young girl and boy as "shojo" and "shonen." Unfortunately, these words actually mean "virgin" and "the early years." They should be transcribed as "shoujo" and "shounen."

I'm not out to sound preachy. I think it's great that you're trying to teach people more about anime and Japanese (I'm sure you know more about anime than I do!) but correct transcription is pretty important, too.

I suspect that part of the problem is people's copying the spellings used in those versions of the Hepburn system that signify vowel elongation using a circumflex or 'long sign' (whatever its proper name is), then not going to the trouble of retaining these when typing.

Thanks for the heads up.

This is a common Otaku problem. Most Japanese animation fans have a limited understanding of the Japanese Language, but we are eager to learn.

Glad to have linguists among us.

Well, the problem's still there, so I'm off to Editorial Feedback.