Carmen
カルメン
Karumen
How It Is Said
- カka
- ルru
- メme
- ンn
Karumen: four beats, each about the same length. Japanese has no strong stress, so the name is said evenly, beat by beat.
What Happens to the Sounds
- In Spanish, an r before a consonant is said, so it is written ル (ru): カルメン.
- ン is a humming n, and it counts as a beat of its own.
Bizet's opera Carmen is カルメン in Japanese.
To Type It
On a computer with Japanese input switched on, type karumenn (nn gives ン), then press F7 on Windows or Control+K on a Mac to turn it into katakana. On a phone, type the same letters with the Japanese keyboard and choose カルメン among the suggestions.
Why Katakana
In Japan, names from abroad are written in katakana, the script for words from other languages. Kanji versions of Western names are mostly invented, and a Japanese reader often sees odd meanings in them; the katakana is what a Japanese person would really write. More on katakana and names
