diff --git a/lib/Lingua/JA/Kana.pm b/lib/Lingua/JA/Kana.pm
index 4f73c23..8ae9466 100644
--- a/lib/Lingua/JA/Kana.pm
+++ b/lib/Lingua/JA/Kana.pm
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ use utf8;
 
 our $VERSION = sprintf "%d.%02d", q$Revision: 0.5 $ =~ /(\d+)/g;
 
+use re ();
 require Exporter;
 use base qw/Exporter/;
 our @EXPORT = qw(
@@ -121,8 +122,13 @@ our $Re_Romaji2Kata = do {
         my $ra = Regexp::Assemble->new();
         $ra->add($_) for keys %Romaji2Kata;
         my $str = $ra->re;
-        substr( $str, 0,  8, '' );    # remove '(?-xism:'
-        substr( $str, -1, 1, '' );    # and ')';
+        if ($] >= 5.009005) {
+            my ($pattern, $mod) = re::regexp_pattern($str);
+            $str = $pattern;
+        } else {
+            substr( $str, 0,  8, '' );    # remove '(?-xism:'
+            substr( $str, -1, 1, '' );    # and ')';
+        }
         qr/$str/i;                    # and recompile with i
     }
     else {