ローマ字じ

ロ

ー

マ

じ

Common wordJLPTN4Freq.FrequencyTop 20,000

Meanings

1

noun

Latin alphabet; Roman alphabet

Refers to the alphabet itself, as used in English and many other languages. Often contrasted with かな and 漢字.

Written forms

ローマ字じ
Standard kanji-katakana spelling; the most common written form.
羅馬字ろーまじ
ateji (phonetic kanji usage)rarely-used kanji form
Ateji spelling using kanji for phonetic value; rarely used in modern Japanese.

Kanji

字character, letter, word
羅gauze, thin silk, Rome
馬horse

Similar words

ラテン文も字じ
ラテン文字 is a more technical term for the Latin script itself, while ローマ字 often implies its use for Japanese romanization.
かな
かな refers to the native Japanese syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), whereas ローマ字 is the Latin-based representation.
漢かん字じ
漢字 are Chinese characters used in Japanese writing; ローマ字 is an alternative script using the Latin alphabet.

Etymology

Compound of ローマ (Rōma, 'Rome') and 字 (ji, 'character, script'), literally 'Roman characters'. The kanji spelling 羅馬字 is ateji, using kanji phonetically for 'Rōma'.