Sometimes you may want to convert from Hiragana to Katakana, or back again, or... I dunno, maybe you wanna get the English pronunciation of these words. I'll be honest and say it's of no concern or interest to me, but I needed this in Python and so I ported it, figured I'd release it.
It's MIT licensed. Credit for much of this also belongs to Kim Ahlström and his linguistics/etc work on Ve.
pip install jTransliterate
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from jTransliterate import JapaneseTransliterator
# Transliterate from Latin/English to [Hirag/Katak]ana
x = JapaneseTransliterator(u'kanazawa')
print x.transliterate_from_latn_to_hrkt()
# Should print "かなざわ"
# Transliterate from Hiragana to Latin/English
b = JapaneseTransliterator(u'かなざわ')
print b.transliterate_from_hira_to_latn()
# Should print "kanazawa"
# Transliterate from either Hiragana or Katakana to Latin/English
print b.transliterate_from_hrkt_to_latn(text = u'カナザワ')
# Should print "kanazawa"
# Transliterate from Katakan to Hiragana (You... probably never need to do this)
print b.transliterate_from_kana_to_hira(text = u'キットカート')
# Should print "きっとかーと"
# Transliterate from Hiragana to Katakana
print b.transliterate_from_hira_to_kana(text = u'かなざわ')
# Should print "カナザワ"
# If you want to convert between half/full width kana, you can use the following
# functions. I didn't care enough to do demos here. ;|
b.transliterate_from_halfwidth_to_fullwidth()
b.transliterate_from_fullwidth_to_halfwidth()Hit me up on them Twitters or find me on them internets at the links below.
Twitter: @ryanmcgrath
Web: Veno Designs