  The theoretical description of synchronization phenomena often relies on
coupled units of continuous time noisy Markov chains with a small number of
states in each unit. It is frequently assumed, either explicitly or implicitly,
that coupled discrete-state noisy Markov units can be used to model
mathematically more complex coupled noisy continuous phase oscillators. In this
work we explore conditions that justify this assumption by coarse-graining
continuous phase units. In particular, we determine the minimum number of
states necessary to justify this correspondence for Kuramoto-like oscillators.
