Diphthongs are represented by vowel sequences, as in ブラウン Bu-ra-u-n "Brown", ナイス na-i-su "nice", ディア di-a "dear/deer", レア re-a "rare".
For example, the dish 東坡肉 "Dongpo pork", in pinyin dōngpōròu (dōng·pō·ròu), is represented in Japanese as ドンポーロウ donpōrou, or more commonly トンポーロウ tonpōrou.
[clarification needed] For example, ベネチア Benechia / ヴェネツィア Ve-ne-tsi-a "Venezia" (Italian for "Venice"), オーバー o-o-ba-a "over", ラブ ra-bu / ラヴ ravu "love".
Wa is usually written as ワ, although ウァ is sometimes used in transcriptions from Ancient Greek or Latin (e.g. ミネルウァ Mi-ne-ru-wa "Minerva").
For example: English kick is キック ki-k-ku and castle is キャッスル kya-s-su-ru, but extra is エクストラ e-ku-su-to-ra and battle is バトル ba-to-ru.
Contemporary transcriptions of palatalized consonants from Slavic languages, however, are made using yōon, e.g.: Russian ピャチゴルスク Pya-chi-go-ru-su-ku (Pyatigorsk), Polish ビェルスコ＝ビャワ Bye-ru-su-ko=bya-wa (Bielsko-Biała).
In modern times, an extended katakana system has developed to cater for foreign sounds not present in Japanese.
For example, the word photo is transcribed as フォト (fo-to), where the novel digraph フォ (fo) is made up from フ (normally fu) plus a novel small combining form of オ (normally o).
In other cases novel diacritics may be applied to create new sounds, such as ヴ for vu, which consists of ウ (u) combined with a dakuten to indicate a voiced pronunciation.
When it is assumed that the reader knows the separate gairaigo words in the phrase, the middle dot is omitted, especially for wasei eigo.
For example, the phrase コンピューターゲーム konpyūtā gēmu ("computer game") contains two well-known gairaigo, and therefore is not written with a middle dot; the same principle is applied for パンティストッキング panti sutokkingu ("pantyhose", lit.
For example, デュアル dyu-a-ru "dual", デュエル dyu-e-ru "duel", テスタメント Te-su-ta-me-n-to "Testament", ロンドン Ro-n-do-n "London".
There are no definite rules when it comes to the schwa, however; e.g. ランダム ra-n-da-mu "random", オープン o-o-pu-n "open", ザ za "the".
The British /ə/ which is equivalent to the North American /ɚ/ is transcribed to a(-a); e.g. コンピュータ(ー) ko-n-pyu-u-ta(-a) "computer", モーター mo-o-ta-a "motor".
[3] The older English suffix -age /-ɪdʒ/ is always transcribed to -e-e-ji as if it were pronounced as /eɪdʒ/ as in "age" or "rage"; e.g. メッセージ me-s-se-e-ji "message", パッケージ pa-k-ke-e-ji "package".
English /ti(ː)/ and /tɪ/ is typically transcribed to チ chi (e.g. チーム chīmu "team"), but ティ ti is also used (ティア tia "tear").
Compare the examples of メゾン me-zo-n "maison" and カレー ka-re-e "Calais", in which the same vowel /ɛ/ is transcribed as e and e-e depending on whether it is stressed or not.
Notes The following katakana tokushuon (特殊音)[4] have been developed or proposed specifically for the purposes of transcribing foreign words.
Examples such as トゥ(tu) in カートゥーン(cartoon), ティ(ti) in パーティ(party), ツァ (tsa) in モーツァルト(Mozart) are found mostly in foreign words.