Katakana, one of Japanese’s 3 character systems (if you exclude the Roman one which is, in a pattern that holds for many imported things, nearly as ubiquitous as the ones thought to be “Japanese” but kept at a cultural arm’s length) is the one typically used to transcribe loan words and give phonetic pronunciation guides for foreign languages. Problem is, it’s bound by the same rules that govern all Japanese – 5 vowels, no final consonants except /n/, no “s” before “i”, “ra” and “la” both turn into the Japanese “ラ”, et cetera. Et cetera, for example, would be re-transcribed from Katakana back into the Roman alphabet as etto setera. And the r would be pronounced with the tongue flicking against the back of the teeth, kind of like in Spanish.
One would think the intimidation of trying to reproduce linguistic oil paintings with phonemic crayon would dissuade people from even trying, and just learning oils instead. But no. This is the Katakana (re-Romanized) pronunciation guide to the lyrics of a certain well-known song, which was given to some local elementary kids as a part of their weekly English class by a teacher who I wish I could say knew better. Try to figure out which song it is, and if you succeed, try singing it like this.
uen yuaa uerii fiirin smoo
uen tiaazu aa in yoo aizu
ai uiru dorai zen oo
aimu on yoo sai
oo uen taimuzu ge rafu
an furenz jasu kyantu bii fain
raika burijji oobaa torabuu wootaa
ai uiru re mi dan
raika burijji oobaa torabuu wootaa
ai uiru re mi dan
