I always wince slightly when I see one of these pronunciation guides for words that I actually know how to pronounce, because for some reason they're never quite right. (I don't know how I'd do better, mind you, and this pronunciation would get the job done.)
It's hard to express accurate pronunciation of Japanese to English speakers, in writing, because most of them have no idea what a geminate consonant is. If you're speaking, you can show them just what it sounds like verbally and teach them quickly, but in writing like this it's not so simple.
This just comes down to the difference in the phonological inventories of the two languages. English vowels are especiqlly notorious for being incompatible with many languages.
There are orthographies devised for some African languages that are basically IPA, but I don't know to what extend these are actually used. Another thing nicht be languages with very small phonetic inventories, like hawaiian, which is almost IPA except for the glottal stop apostrophe.
I've never even set foot in the Western Hemisphere, try again.
> It's not what IPA is simple (it's not hard for sure), it's what 99% of Americans never even had a chance to at least learn what it is.
How does that compare to say China, Brazil or India?
> Most of the time when you learn some other language the pronunciation is given in IPA.
I have native-level proficiency in 3 languages, all of which use entirely different writing systems. I also studied French in highschool. Guess what I was never taught?
I always wince slightly when I see one of these pronunciation guides for words that I actually know how to pronounce, because for some reason they're never quite right. (I don't know how I'd do better, mind you, and this pronunciation would get the job done.)