El rōmaji (ローマ字 ''rōmaji''? lit. «caracteres romanos»), en japonés se refiere en grandes rasgos al alfabeto latino. En Occidente, se suele emplear este término para referirse a la escritura de la lengua japonesa en letras romanas o latinas en contraste con la mezcla habitual de kanji, hiragana y katakana. Los kanji son ideogramas, el hiragana y katakana son silabarios, utilizados en el Idioma japonés. Algunos lo escriben Rōmanji, siendo ésta una falta de ortografía bastante común.

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The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in English as rōmaji (ローマ字?, literally, "roman letters") (Japanese pronunciation: [ɽóːmadʑi] ), usually transcribed romaji, sometimes incorrectly transliterated with an n as romanji. There are several different romanization systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization (ISO 3602), and Nihon-shiki romanization (ISO 3602 Strict). Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used. Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts (kana) which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. Rōmaji may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana, such as for names on street signs and passports, and in dictionaries and textbooks for foreign learners of the language. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English (or other languages that use the Latin script) on topics related to Japan, such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, and may also be used to display Japanese on devices that do not support the display of Japanese characters. All Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. Therefore, almost all Japanese are able to read and write Japanese using rōmaji, although it is extremely rare in Japan to use this method to write Japanese (except as an input tool on a computer or for special purposes like in some logo design), and most Japanese are more comfortable reading kanji/kana. The word rōmaji literally means "Roman letters", and in Japan it is more often used to refer to the Latin alphabet itself (as used in English and other European languages) than to any specific form of romanized Japanese.

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