ō + ā in kana?

[Nahte]

With words like Gochisōsama I find myself unable to translate into kana.
I use JWPce 1.50. When I paste in 'ō' or 'ā' from character map it just shows up as '?'.
The results I get from simply ignoring the ō and pretending it's an o (or a with ā) don't match up with the PDFs on the site either. Can anybody tell me how to properly translate these words/characters?

Much appriciated.

[Taurus]

I think there are various systems for rendering Japanese words into romanised spellings, but as far as I understand it, the ō in Gochisōsama represents a long o. The original Japanese is ごちそうさま (ie. gochisousama). I think it's a little bit confusing because sometimes that ō might indicate 'ou', but other times it might indicate 'oo' (as in ōkami, for example), so you'll need to check the original Japanese spelling.

That's how I understand it at least - I don't have a great understanding of how romaji works.

[Nahte]

That was a massive help.
I think I can work it out by trial and error and looking at the PDFs now.
どうもありがとう、Taurus-san!

[Psy]

As an added note, the 'oo' is considerably rarer than the 'ou.'

[Nahte]

ありがとう、Psy-san.
I will watch for it, I have not come across a 'oo' yet.
However I have seen some 'aa's like in 'māmā'.

[hatch_jp]

ありがとう、Psy-san.
I will watch for it, I have not come across a 'oo' yet.
However I have seen some 'aa's like in 'māmā'.

通り（とおり, toori)）= street, boulevard
通る（とおる, tooru）= go through, pass
氷（こおり koori）= ice
大きい（ookii） = big, large