Displaying macrons in Windows XP

I confess - I was a lazy bastard and didn't use macrons when I wrote the word "romaji" in the eponymous post yesterday. Macrons are those lines above vowels which signify that the vowel sound is long, e.g. ō. They are a feature of the Hepburn system of romanisation and are very handy because doubling up vowels to show elongation results in things like "roomaji" which will screw up your pronunciation up even more than rōmaji already does. So, with a big slice of humble pie I apologise for pointing out the mote in my neighbour's eye when I should have dealt with the plank in my own and I offer my not-so-quick and dirty guide to adding macrons in XP (I am using the office computer).

1. Click the Start menu.

2. Navigate through to the Character Map palette:
    Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Character Map

    （すべてのプログラム＞アクセサリ＞システムツール＞文字コード表 for Japanese keyboards)

3. Open the Character Map, select the font  you are using, or the closest match  (this blog uses Lucida Grande but the Character Palette  had Lucida Console - close enough!)

4. Select and Copy the character you need.

5. Write a spiffy article, complete with macron enabled　rōmaji!

Tags learning Japanese | romaji | romanisation

      

Comments

[justin]

ahh screw em, when the language has a built in syllabary they never should have even bothered with romanization, with Chinese its different, they have none so its learn a contrived syllabary or learn a contrived romanization. i can read japanese but still trip up if i have to read some god awful thing like okikaseitadakemasudeshouka FFS!

[justin]

ahh screw em, when the language has a built in syllabary they never should have even bothered with romanization, with Chinese its different, they have none so its learn a contrived syllabary or learn a contrived romanization. i can read japanese but still trip up if i have to read some god awful thing like okikaseitadakemasudeshouka FFS!

[Haf]

This may be a little late, but I just stumbled over your blog yesterdat. :)
Yeh, roomaji may worsen the pronounciation of english speaking Japanese students, ok.
But there's another way to deal with this without using macrons:
oo = ou

You can find this in Japoanese text books which are written in German, and I like this way much better, as it follows the hiragana version of a word with a long vowel.

Of course, not using romaji at all is still the best way. :) But sometimes you have to show a word to someone who can't see kana and kanji on his computer or who don't know how to read them.