It is unexpectedly hard to express the accurate pronunciation of Japanese words with alphabets. I'll give you an example.
"Ms. Abe, for the sake of brevity, when on a date with Abraham Date - drinking sake in a café? or singing karaoke at home dressed in aizome - you can call him 'Abe'".
Do you get the idea? It's the problem of 'Abe vs. Abé?', 'sake vs saké?', 'date vs daté?', 'home vs aizomé?', and so on. These 'e' at the end of many Japanese names and words are rarely written in alphabets with an accent. As a result, people with family names such as Abe, Date and Fukudome tend to be referred to as if their names rhyme with 'babe, late and Rome'. My youngest daughter doesn't like to be called the wrong way and modified her name's spelling on her passport. That's acceptable.
Look at the first picture taken on Robson or Alberni St. The sign says "Oysi". This Japanese word means "delicious". Looking at this sign, I thought in this way: this spelling must have been written by a native English speaker who had listened to the sound of the original Japanese word. If he or she was Japanese, he or she would write "Oishii". The spelling of 'Oysi" is really reasonable. Such a tiny detail is fun to me here.
(Vocabulary)
against all expectations; unexpectedly 意外に
give an example 例を挙げる
rhyme [自] 韻を踏む, 同韻である
rhyme with sth ＜語＞と韻を踏む
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