Good news for students in Japan: Hepburn romaji may be made official

It looks like Japan might finally make Hepburn romaji official. They have been talking about this for a while now, but a recent draft recommendation gives me hope that this is on the cards for the near future. The draft addresses the method to change the current system for expressing Japanese words in the Roman alphabet. Incredibly, it has not been updated in about 70 years.

While it won't change much for most people, because most place names and train stations already use the Hepburn romanization, where it will make a big and very welcome change is in elementary schools. Currently most elementary schools teach the kunrei-shiki, which I have never understood, because it is not useful. The Hepburn romaji is far more useful as it is the phonetic pronunciation of Japanese words.

To give you an example; tikatetu. Tikatetu is the official English spelling of the Japanese for subway. But nobody uses it right? We all use chikatetsu. You see it in the romanization of names too. My own children's names are foreign (Irish), and are spelt correctly with the alphabet on their passports. However, in school they have to use the Kunrei-shiki spelling, which is completely off for three of four of my children. If the Hepburn romanization is made official, they can use the spelling as per their passport.

By all accounts, it sounds very promising that the move to the Hepburn romaji will be made official. It is great news for those of us with kids or teaching kids in Japanese schools.