:: Melody Cafe ::

The (not-so) great internal debate of 「づ」

Alright, I give in. I’ve decided to romanize 「づ」 as ‘zu.’
This breaks one of my tenets of transliterating (romanizing) Japanese characters with less ambiguity, as the character is more distinguishable (from 「ず」 which is also ‘zu’) if written as “dzu.”

I decided to make this change because the combination of the two consonants ‘d’ and ‘z’ can be very confusing for English speakers, making it unnecessarily difficult to process, and because “zu” is more aesthetically pleasing.

I was clearly wavering on this one, romanizing it as “dzu” in some lines and “zu” in others, sometimes within the same song. I have been going back to make everything more consistent when I catch a stray “dzu”, but please help by sending me a comment when you find one.

Of note, this character is rendered “du” according to the Japanese government’s official (Nihon-shiki) system, but please don’t make a fool of yourself by singing “too-doo-ku” instead of “tsuzuku” （つづく）.