DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Grammar and capitalization of Japanese words

**vernotixas** · 04-14-2006, 06:46 AM

When using japanese words in english sentences, do we capitalize them? (kata, iaito, katana, etc) Do we use italics?

I try to use English rules, ie if you are using the Japanese word as a proper noun (name of a place or name of a person) then capitalise. I think therefore you should not capitalise kendo, because you would not capitalise soccer or baseball. But I would capitalise the name of a school. I don't know about the italics. How do we space words that are combined? (ie musoshindenryu or muso shin den ryu or musoshinden ryu) You have to identify what are the words and seperate them. Kendo is two kanji but one word. In your example I believe (but I may be wrong) that it would be Muso Shinden Ryu (I would capitalise because it is the proper name of a school).

04-14-2006, 06:46 AM	#3
vernotixas Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 514 Senior Member	When using japanese words in english sentences, do we capitalize them? (kata, iaito, katana, etc) Do we use italics? I try to use English rules, ie if you are using the Japanese word as a proper noun (name of a place or name of a person) then capitalise. I think therefore you should not capitalise kendo, because you would not capitalise soccer or baseball. But I would capitalise the name of a school. I don't know about the italics. How do we space words that are combined? (ie musoshindenryu or muso shin den ryu or musoshinden ryu) You have to identify what are the words and seperate them. Kendo is two kanji but one word. In your example I believe (but I may be wrong) that it would be Muso Shinden Ryu (I would capitalise because it is the proper name of a school).
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