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This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the PHONETIC  function in Microsoft Excel.

Note: To use the PHONETIC function, your region setting must be one of the Far East languages (Japanese, Chinese, and Korean). For more information, see Change regional format settings in Excel for the web.

Description

Extracts the phonetic (furigana) characters from a text string.

Syntax

PHONETIC(reference)

The PHONETIC function syntax has the following arguments:

  • Reference    Required. Text string or a reference to a single cell or a range of cells that contain a furigana text string.

Remarks

  • If reference is a range of cells, the furigana text string in the upper-left corner cell of the range is returned.

  • If the reference is a range of nonadjacent cells, the #N/A error value is returned.

Example

If cells C4 contains " tokyo tokyo tokyo" and cell B7 contains " osaka osaka osaka", the following are true:

=PHONETIC(C4) equals " tokyo tokyo tokyo tokyo tokyo tokyo"

=PHONETIC(B7) equals " osaka osaka osaka osaka osaka"

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