If you aren't quite sure how Godzilla got It's name, let me put it into a formula for you. You might also be curious to know or have wondered where the z or d in the name Godzilla came from then if Godzilla actually is just Gojira. The reason for the d and the z stems from the various ways westerners have come to represent graphically the sounds of the Japanese language. I personally think the z is for pizzazz. I mean what kind of killer, giant monsters don't have a z in their name.
In Japanese, Godzilla is pronounced Gojira, a combination of the words gorilla and whale. Gorira + Kujira = Gojira. Gorira meaning Gorilla + Kujira meaning whale combined becomes Godzilla. The ji of Gojira is sometimes written zi, to distinguish it from si or shi which is what it would be without the ten-ten mark. If you don't already know, the ten-ten mark is a single quotation mark put after other syllables to change the vocalization. IPA website on vowels here
Adding a " ten-ten mark to to the sa, shi, su, se, so line of of the Japanese syllabary *(See Mora(e): syllable like entities of which Japanese has 46.)transforms them into za, zhi, zu, ze, zo, or ja, ji, ju, je, jo, depending on the particular romanization used.
Ok I also wanted to mention here the proper nouns ikura written in Katakana which is the roe of salmon , and iruka is the word for a Porpoise. Avoid mixing these type of word together but use a tactic to memorize them. Here is a way I thought of to practice this kind of word in a phrase and being able to memorize them on long term memory for good. The way to memorize a word and not forget is to figure out a personal method, one which works best for you, something you can make memorable through associations you infer upon it.
If you thought that was easy then you might want to mix upo them up. If you were to say, "Iru ka?", it could mean, "Are you there? So all in all, there are three things iruka could mean.
Definitions of iruka:
1. (is) somebody or something (i.e. an animal since they too use iru in the form of to be etc.) there...
2. a porpoise, a dolphin
Towards Better Japanese
Ganbatte ne!
Do Your Best!
Makurasuki
