14993
Just started learning Japanese again. My college offers no class on this so I
am learning on my own. I have been using Rosetta Stone on and off again for a
while now.

One thing I have noticed is that Rosetta Stone uses は and を in basic sentences
such as:

> おんなのひとは、おちゃをのんでいます

This sentence gives the Romaji:

> onna no hito wa ocha o nonde imasu

Now I know

  * は = ha 
  * を = wo

Why would they use those in place of わ and お?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2014-03-22T05:39:14.960
14992
2019-08-22T22:50:23.673
2019-08-22T22:50:23.673
1628
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question
particles particle-は orthography hiragana rōmaji
Rosetta Stone uses は instead of わ
When being used as a **grammatical particle** ([助詞]{じょし}), は is pronounced わ
(wa), を is pronounced お (o), and へ (which you may not have come across yet) is
pronounced え (e).

I've never used Rosetta Stone but it seems quite strange that it would not
mention this...

Information as to the historical reason for this difference between spelling
and pronunciation can be found in the answer to [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/348/why-is-%E3%81%AF-
pronounced-as-%E3%82%8F-when-used-as-a-topic-particle).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-22T06:12:22.040
14993
2014-03-22T09:18:19.853
2017-04-13T12:43:48.447
-1
3010
14992
answer
Often the particle は is written "wa" in Latin letters, because は, when used as
a particle, is in fact pronounced the same as わ. Of course, は, when it is not
a particle, is usually pronounced "ha".

を is pronounced お, and therefore sometimes transcribed "wo" and sometimes "o".

Similarly, the particle へ is pronounced the same as え, whence "he" or "e".

For text input, you have to write "ha wo he" for は を へ, but for best
pronunciation approximation, "wa o e" are often used.

So, as it should, Rosetta stone is writing correct Japanese and chooses rōmaji
(not ~~Romanji~~ , see [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/9913/why-
is-%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E5%AD%97-spelt-without-an-%E3%83%B3)) for
approximating pronunciation (presumably [Hepburn
romanization](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization#Particles)).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-22T06:27:25.250
14994
2014-03-22T06:27:25.250
2017-04-13T12:43:44.260
-1
1628
14992
answer