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American Spelling

British spelling

MAL Rewrite favors (not favours) American spellings rather than British spellings.
If you are aware of two variants of a word but are unsure which one is preferred in American English, it may be helpful to use Google's Ngram Viewer. Make sure to select the correct corpus (American English 2019) from the dropdown!

Examples

Correct
Incorrect
color
colour
favorite
favourite
traveling
travelling
neighbor
neighbour
judgment
judgement
onward
onwards
toward
towards
gray
grey

Words of Japanese origin

Names of real Japanese places are almost always treated as English words rather than as Japanese words which are being romanized. As such, they do not follow the MAL romanization guidelines. This also applies to words of Japanese origin that are found in English dictionaries.

Examples

  • Correct: Tokyo, Budokan, Osaka, Noh, daimyo, dojo
  • Incorrect: Toukyou, Budoukan, Oosaka, Nou, daimyou, doujou