I really hope this is not someone’s best attempt at writing in English.

Photo taken here.

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