Philipp
フィリップ
Firippu
How It Is Said
- フィfi
- リri
- ッp
- プpu
Firippu: 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
- Japanese has no l. It uses its one sound between l and r, a light tap of the tongue, written ラ リ ル レ ロ: リ (ri).
- Japanese syllables end in a vowel or in ン, so the final p takes a light vowel: プ (pu).
- The small ッ is a short pause that doubles the next sound: ップ (ppu).
- A small kana joins the one before it into one beat: フィ (fi).
Philipp Franz von Siebold, the German doctor who studied Japan from Nagasaki in the 1820s, is シーボルト (Shīboruto) there.
To Type It
On a computer with Japanese input switched on, type firippu, 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 フィリップ among the suggestions.
The Same Name in Other Languages
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
