japanese essay in hiragana

Crunchy Nihongo!

Easy to learn Japanese Lessons!

Hiragana Reading Practice

Either if you have memorized the shape of Hiragana manually or by using mnemonics provided by our guide , you will still need to practice a lot of reading to lock them up to your long term memory. But yes, it’s not easy to gather material to practice Hiragana. So we try to create a page for you to practice your reading!

One of the best resource for beginners to practice reading are children’s book & easy to read manga . If you only want to choose one, the best one is from Ghibli’s picture book series. They are thick (over 150 pages), use simple sentences, equipped with furigana and not to mention, the price cost the same as a 10-20 pages children book! So worth to have~

In any case that you can’t get your hand on the books, you can use this page to practice reading! This page takes 2 part of Princess Kaguya story and layouted in a way so you can focus practicing Hiragana reading. We’ll keep adding more stories, so please look forward to them!

Important notes before you start

Treat these pages only as a reading practice and not as a lesson to learn japanese.

You can totally ignore the meaning. Just try to read the hiragana correctly since understanding the meaning of a sentence require more knowledge in Japanese grammar and is an entirely different skill set than what you want to achieve now, which is to read Hiragana & lock them up in you long term memory.

If you focus on both the word & meaning, your brain will get exhausted very quickly and might get discouraged to learn further.

But what if I want to learn Japanese?

Check out lesson index instead, or if you have budget and only want to read one book, get Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar . Once you read it, you’ll be able to use other books to practice reading Japanese and expand your vocabularies effectively with less frustration.

Some hiragana are read differently

Notice some hiragana which being used as particles in a sentence are read differently. • は A particle to mark topic, is read as WA • へ A particle to mark direction of movement, is read as E • を A particle to mark direct object, is read as O

You don’t have to memorize the usage of particles for now

Just focus on noticing them and read them correctly. To make it easier to you, hiragana used as particle and read differently is written in bold .

Now that you’re ready to practice, pick one of these stories below!

Note that these stories are a work in progress. They are incomplete stories but you can use them to practice reading Hiragana with no problem 😀 Happy learning~ 

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Japanese Writing Practice: Ultimate List of Resources for Every Level

Japanese writing can be one of the scariest aspects of learning Japanese! And there’s no shortcut to success – you simply have to get your Japanese writing practice in . Luckily there are no shortage of tools to help you with this!

Whether you are a beginner looking to practise your Japanese handwriting, or an advanced student in need of Japanese essay writing practice, there are lots of free and cheap resources out there at every level.

Here’s my roundup of the best websites, apps, printables and other tools for Japanese writing practice.

Japanese writing practice apps

Free websites for japanese writing practice online.

Easy Japanese writing practice for beginners

Japanese hiragana and katakana writing practice.

If you are new to learning Japanese, you’ll want to get your hiragana and katakana down pat before you move on to anything else.

Spending time on your hiragana and katakana writing practice not only helps you memorise the characters, it will also improve your handwriting and help you become accustomed to correct stroke order, which will be a massive benefit when you move on to learning kanji !

There are loads of free Japanese katakana and hiragana writing practice sheets online for you to download and print at home. Here’s a selection:

Free Japanese hiragana and katakana writing practice sheets pdf workbook

This free workbook from JapanesePod101 introduces all the hiragana and katakana characters and has spaces for you to trace, and then copy them out. The workbook also contains flashcards to practise your recognition. Note: you need to create a free account to access the workbook.

Japanese hiragana writing practice sheets

An alternative source to print out hiragana practice sheets, with grid lines to help your handwriting.

Japanese katakana writing practice sheets

An alternative source to print out katakana practice sheets, with grid lines to help your handwriting.

Free BLANK Japanese writing practice sheets

If you just want blank Japanese graph paper to practise writing out your characters, I have created my own in various sizes/formats for you to download and print!

Kakikata print maker

An awesome website (designed for Japanese parents/teachers to use with their children) where you can design and print your own worksheets with kana or kanji characters of your choice, in various formats. You can even choose to add stroke order! Useful if you want to practise a particular word or set of characters.

Japanese Tools: create your own kana practice sheets

Here is another useful site where you can create your own Japanese practice writing sheets with the characters of your choice, printed with a gradual fade to trace/copy.

Japanese kanji writing practice

If you are studying kanji from a textbook or course and you just need blank kanji graph paper to practise writing on, you can print that out here .

If you are looking for pre-printed kanji worksheets with kanji to copy out, the best resource I have found is this one:

This amazing website lets you download and print kanji writing practice worksheets for kanji sets according to JLPT level, Japanese school grade level, Wanikani level, Kanji Garden app level, or frequency. It’s totally free and so useful!

Easy Japanese sentence writing practice

Once you know your kana and a few kanji, you might start to think about writing out some Japanese sentences.

JapanesePod101 writing practice worksheets 

JapanesePod101 has a selection of free Japanese writing practice sheets, available as pdfs that you can download and print yourself. They currently have 16+ free writing practice workbooks on beginner-friendly topics such as daily routine or ordering food. This is a good way to get used to writing out simple Japanese sentences at the beginner level. 

However, I wouldn’t recommend them for complete beginners because they use kanji – so you should be familiar with some kanji and the basic rules of stroke order before you use them.

As soon as you are able to form Japanese sentences on your own, I recommend you start a Japanese journal and/or sharing your sentences with others using the resources in the intermediate/advanced section below!

When you are learning to write in Japanese, I recommend writing them out by hand as much as possible because it helps you learn by muscle memory and helps you develop neat handwriting! However, it’s also useful to have a great writing practice app or two on your phone so you can study on the go.

There are lots of great apps out there to practise writing Japanese characters. Here are some recommendations:

Skritter is an app for learning Japanese (and Chinese) writing and vocabulary. You can use Skritter to learn kana and kanji from scratch, or simply to review what you’ve learned. It uses handwriting recognition and a spaced repetition system (SRS) to help you learn effectively.

Under the ‘test’ settings section you can choose to focus on writing only, or add in flashcards for reading and definition too.

It works well alongside other courses and textbooks to practise your characters. They have pre-made flashcard decks from various textbooks which is great when you get on to drilling vocabulary.

As with Skritter, you can either use this app to learn kana and kanji as a complete beginner, or just to practise writing the characters you already know. In fact, it’s probably the best app I’ve found if you just want a simple flashcard-style writing practice app with handwriting recognition. It’s a little clunkier to use but once you’ve got it set up, it’s easy. If you already know the kana and you just want to practise, choose ‘Yes, but I need more practice’ during the set-up stage.

The Scripts app from the makers of Drops teaches you kana and kanji (and also has the option to learn other languages’ scripts, such as hangul or hanzi, if you’re doing the polyglot thing). You learn by tracing the characters with your finger on the screen.

It’s a good option if you are learning to write the Japanese characters from scratch. However, I could not see an option to skip the ‘learning’ stage and just review, so if you’ve already mastered your kana it won’t be for you.

Learn Japanese! 

This is a very simple and easy to use app to learn how to write hiragana and katakana. However, you only learn 5 characters at a time and I couldn’t see a way to skip to review only, so again, great for complete beginners but not if you just want to practise.

Intermediate and advanced Japanese writing practice

At the intermediate and advanced levels, you are well beyond copying out characters/sentences on worksheets, and you will be creating your own compositions in Japanese. In fact, I highly recommend doing this as soon as you are able to! 

One popular method to get your Japanese writing practice is to keep a daily diary or journal in Japanese . You can try to incorporate new grammar and vocabulary you’ve learned, or simply write whatever comes into your head just to get used to writing in Japanese.

Even jotting down a few private sentences in your own notebook will be beneficial. But if you want to step it up a notch, use one of the websites/apps below to share your writing with other learners and native speakers and receive feedback.

If you’ve been studying languages for a while you might be mourning the loss of Lang8, a site where you could post journal entries in your target language online and get feedback from native speakers. Here are a couple of Lang 8 alternatives I’ve found:

LangCorrect

LangCorrect is a site where you can practise your Japanese writing online by writing daily journal entries and getting corrections from native speakers. It’s fairly active with the Japanese learning community, and you can usually expect to get a few comments/corrections within a few hours (don’t forget to take the time difference into account!). They also have journal prompts in case you’re feeling the writer’s block. It’s free to use.

Journaly is a similar site I’ve heard, about although I haven’t used it and I have the impression its user base is smaller than LangCorrect. It’s free to use and there is also a paid version which has a few extra benefits, such as bumping up your posts to get more attention.

This is a free website offered by Dickinson College. Its main purpose is for connecting language exchange partners, but they also have a feature where you can post writing samples to receive corrections from native speakers.

r/WriteStreakJP

This subreddit is a forum to practise writing in Japanese. It’s for anyone at any level who wants to practise their Japanese writing. The idea is that you write something every day to build up a ‘streak’ and build the habit of writing in Japanese regularly.

You can write whatever you feel like; many people write diary-like entries about their day, or share random thoughts, or write about something new they’ve learned etc. There are native Japanese speaking mods who drop by to correct mistakes.

There are a lot more learners than native speakers on the forum, though, so unfortunately you’re not guaranteed feedback. But it’s still a great place to practise writing (and reading!) Japanese.

HelloTalk is a language exchange app where you can connect with Japanese native speakers, chat via text, voice or video call and receive feedback on your Japanese. In addition to connecting with people directly, you can also create ‘moments’ (write posts such as sharing journal entries, or pictures of your day) and ask general questions, and receive comments/feedback from other users.

Be warned, recently I hear a lot of users complaining that people use the messaging function like a dating app – but you may have better success using the ‘moments’ function or messaging people yourself first.

Another language exchange app where you can exchange text messages with a Japanese-speaking partner and receive corrections.

HiNative  

On HiNative you can ask questions about language usage and get feedback from native speakers. You can write your questions either in Japanese or English. This question/answer service is free. Premium paid members can also post diary entries to get feedback.

More resources for Japanese writing practice

Here’s a mixture of other useful tools and resources I’ve found for Japanese writing practice that don’t fit neatly into the above categories! This section contains a mixture of free and paid resources.

Japanese water calligraphy practice kits (paid)

Why not go old-school and practise your Japanese characters with a real calligraphy brush! In Japan, students often practise their calligraphy with these nifty ‘magic’ kits, where you paint with water on the special water-activated paper, which fades away after a few minutes so you can reuse it time and time again. This is a fun way to refine your Japanese handwriting while reviewing the characters!

Printable Japanese journals with writing prompts (paid) 

I found this printable Japanese journaling/writing practice kit on Etsy. It contains dozens of writing prompts at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, so you’ve got no excuse not to jot down a few sentences in Japanese every day! Check out the other great resources by the same author.

Japanese planner templates (free)

If you want to take daily notes or plan your day/week in Japanese, this site has loads of free Japanese planner templates to print out.

Japanese writing practice notebooks (paid)

The paper used in Japan for school compositions/essay writing practice is called genkouyoushi . There are lots of genkouyoushi notebooks with cute cover designs available on Amazon.

Free printable genkouyoushi (Japanese composition paper)

Alternatively, you can print out your own genkouyoushi-style blank writing sheets here for free.

Japanese sentence/usage databases

These databases are useful tools that I often use when writing in Japanese to check how words are used. You can search for a Japanese word and see it in context of many authentic, native Japanese sentences, to get an idea of correct and natural usage. You can also use them for sentence mining , if that’s your thing.

• Reverso – my favourite. Need to create a free account to see all sentences.
• Natsume – see how often a word is used, and which particles and other words usually follow it
• Sentence search with audio

How to Write Japanese Essays book (paid)

If you are studying Japanese to a very high level, for example to enter a Japanese university or company, you will need Japanese essay writing practice. The book How to Write Japanese Essays comes highly recommended and will train you to write in the formal academic style that is taught in Japan.

Japanese writing practice roundup

Which tools and resources do you use for Japanese writing practice? If you know any I’ve missed out, please share in the comments!

See these related posts for more useful resources to learn Japanese:

• Japanese Writing Paper: FREE Printable Blank Japanese Writing Sheets
• FREE Websites for Japanese Reading Practice (At Every Level)
• 10+ Effective Ways to Get Japanese Speaking Practice (Even if You Study By Yourself!)
• Where to get Your Japanese Listening Practice: The Epic List of Resources!
• The Ultimate List of Japanese Podcasts for Listening Practice (Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced)
• Best YouTube Channels to Learn Japanese {20+ Japanese YouTubers!}

Rebecca Shiraishi-Miles

Rebecca is the founder of Team Japanese. She spent two years teaching English in Ehime, Japan. Now back in the UK, she spends her time blogging, self-studying Japanese and wrangling a very genki toddler.

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The Complete Guide to Learning Hiragana: Reading & Writing (With Video)

ひらがな ( hiragana ) is the fundamental component of the Japanese writing system. カタカナ ( katakana ) and 漢字 ( kanji ) are the other two writing systems in Japanese.  If you want to learn all of the hiragana for free with step-by-step videos and descriptions, this guide is for you.

In Japan, people start learning ひらがな ( hiragana ) at a very young age, usually in preschool or early elementary. Mastering hiragana might seem overwhelming; however, this article will teach you everything you need to know about writing, pronunciation, and any valuable tips regarding hiragana .

Modern Hiragana Characters

Modern hiragana has 46 base characters: five singular vowels, 40 consonant-vowel unions, and one singular consonant. Some of you may have seen it before, but the 46 characters are organized in a chart format, which is called  あいうえお表  ( aiueo hyō ). 

The chart has ten rows of up to five  hiragana  characters. The upcoming sections are organized according to the chart. In this guide, all  hiragana  characters will be explained. You’ll learn how to pronounce and write each correctly.

*Note: While there are many methods to memorize the hiragana characters, it’s just as easy (if not easier) to just remember the characters as you practice writing them. The characters are simple and are pretty simple to remember with a little work. If you follow this up by reviewing the characters (flashcards work great for this), you’ll remember all of the characters in no time.

Part I: How to Read and Write Hiragana: 直音 (Chokuon) – Basic Characters

These are all of the basic characters of hiragana . Be sure to practice reading and writing each character to ensure that you master all of them. We’ll be using these basic characters to create more complex hiragana later on.

If you want to use the blank hiragana practice sheets as seen in the video, you can get that here: Blank Hiragana Writing Practice Sheet

あ行 (A Gyō) – A Row: Pronunciation

あ ( a ) is often the first character people learn. As with all characters, try to match of balance and stroke lengths of the examples shown in the video.

This character looks very similar to お ( o ), so pay close attention to the stroke order. It is different than writing お ( o ). Also notice that お ( o ) has a small slash on the right side while あ ( a ) does not.

Words Starting With あ (A)

• あひる ( ahiru ): Duck (animal) • あるく ( aruku ): To walk

い ( i ) looks relatively similar to り ( ri ). い ( i ) has two vertical lines that are similar in length, whereas り ( ri ) has a longer line on the right side.

Words Starting With い (I)

• いす ( isu ): Chair • いか ( ika ): Squid

う ( u ) looks a little bit like the katakana character ラ ( ra ). Be sure to practice writing う ( u ) with a flowing curve instead of the rigid, straight lines that ラ ( ra ) has.

Words Starting With う (U)

• うめ ( ume ): Japanese plum • うに ( uni ): Sea urchin

Some people think that え ( e ) looks like う ( u ) character described above. Just be sure to pay attention to the second stroke and feel how the last stroke (“the tail”) flows off of your pen.

Words Starting With え (E)

• えんぴつ ( enpitsu ): Pencil • えいご ( eigo ): English

お ( o ) does look very similar to the first character we learned, あ ( a ). Many people get these two characters mixed up in the beginning, so be sure to follow the correct stroke order of both characters. お ( o ) has a small slash on the right side for its final stroke. This is also why you need to practice writing the characters; not only will it help you to remember the characters faster, but you’ll notice more details that you may miss if you just practice reading them.

Words Starting With お (O)

• おに ( oni ): Demon • おなか ( onaka ): Stomach

か行 (Ka Gyō) – Ka Row: Pronunciation

When you start to learn katakana , you’ll notice that the カ ( ka ) looks almost identical to this hiragana か ( ka ). The biggest difference is the third stroke in this hiragana character. However, the hiragana か is also more rounded at the upper right-hand corner. Be sure to follow the video to see exactly how it’s written.

Words Starting With か (Ka)

• かさ ( kasa ): Umbrella • からあげ ( karaage ): Deep-fried food, usually chicken

This character also looks similar to its katakana equivalent (キ). So be sure to focus on how this hiragana き ( ki ) is written. The great thing about hiragana and katakana characters looking similar to each other is that it makes it easier to remember both.

However, き ( ki ) also looks similar to the hiragana さ ( sa ). Be aware that き ( ki ) has an extra horizontal line running through it.

Words Starting With き (Ki)

• きつね ( kitsune ): Fox • きけん ( kiken ): Danger

This character is a breath of fresh air since it’s one of the few (if not only) characters that looks familiar. It is similar in shape to the “less than” symbol, just spread out a little wider.

Words Starting With く (Ku)

• くじら ( kujira ): Whale • くらげ ( kurage ): Jellyfish

け ( ke ) is similar to the hiragana character は ( ha ). The difference is at the end of the third and last stroke. The third stroke of け ( ke ) trails off to the left side while は ( ha ) goes back and loops over itself.

Words Starting With け (Ke)

• けしごむ ( keshigomu ): Eraser • けっこん ( kekkon ): Marriage

The computerized version of Japanese writing differs from how it’s written by hand. This character is a good example. The image shown to the left doesn’t have a small “hook” at the end of the first stroke. However, if you were to write こ ( ko ) by hand, you would need to put this small hook at the end in order for it to look nice.

Words Starting With こ (Ko)

• こども ( kodomo ): Child • これ ( kore ): This

さ行 (Sa Gyō) – Sa Row: Pronunciation

As mentioned above in the ka -row section, さ ( sa ) looks a little like き ( ki ). However, さ ( sa ) also looks like the hiragana character ち ( chi ), especially when it’s in computer font form. When writing it out by hand, it’s easy to see that the two characters are quite different. In addition to the third and last stroke of さ ( sa ) going in the opposite direction of ち ( chi ), it is also not touching the first two strokes.

Words Starting With さ (Sa)

• さかな ( sakana ): Fish • さしみ ( sashimi ): Raw, sliced seafood (usually fish)

し ( shi ) looks like a backwards “J” or a fishhook. It is also similar to the first stroke of the character も ( mo ), which we’ll learn a little bit later. While this character is only one stroke, it takes a bit of practice to make it look nice. As with all characters, aim to have a nice balance (of the strokes and spaces in-between and around the strokes) when writing them.

Words Starting With し (Shi)

• しまうま ( shimauma ): Zebra • しお ( shio ): Salt

If you combine す ( su ) with し ( shi ) above, you’ll get the popular Japanese food すし ( sushi ). Have fun with “loop” in the second stroke. This type of loop is unique to certain characters in hiragana . It does not appear in katakana or commonly used kanji .

Words Starting With す (Su)

• すいか ( suika ): Watermelon • すず ( suzu ): Bell

This another character that looks similar to its katakana counterpart. The hiragana せ ( se ) has three strokes while the katakana セ ( se ) only has two. However, it can be easy to get these two characters mixed up in the beginning.

Words Starting With す (Se)

• せみ ( semi ): Cicada • せっけん ( sekken ): Soap

The bottom half of そ ( so ) is slightly similar to て ( te ), but the single stroke and look of そ ( so ) is so unique that most people remember it quickly.

Words Starting With そ (So)

• そら ( sora ): Sky • それ ( sore ): That

た行 (Ta Gyō) – Ta Row: Pronunciation

た ( ta ) and に ( ni ) look a little similar. た has an extra horizontal line on the left side (the first stroke). た ( ta ) also has four strokes while に ( ni ) has three.

Words Starting With た (Ta)

• たぬき ( tanuki ): Raccoon dog • たこ ( tako ): Octopus

As previously mentioned, ち ( chi ) can be mistaken for さ ( sa ) since they look similar. It’s almost like a lower case “b” and “d” where the bottom part of the character determines which letter it is. Another thing to note is that “chi” is the Hepburn romanization style. There is another romanization style called  訓令式 ( kunrei shiki ), where ち would be written as “ ti .” Proper English translations use the Hepburn style, but be aware that there are other ways to write romaji.

Words Starting With ち (Chi)

• ちず ( chizu ): Map • ちじ ( chiji ): Governor

つ ( tsu ) looks like し ( shi ) flipped over and turned on its side. Even though they share the same shape, the difference in their position makes them easy to recognize and remember. Practice them both and you’ll see for yourself 🙂

Words Starting With つ (Tsu)

• つくえ ( tsukue ): Desk • つる ( tsuru ): Crane (bird)

て ( te ) almost looks like curvy “T.” As you learn more Japanese, you’ll find yourself using the て ( te ) character a lot. Not only is it common in words, but there is something called the て-Form . It is a way to conjugate verbs, adjectives, and nouns to create all kind of wonderful grammatical patterns. You’ll use this character so much there’s no way you’ll forget it!

Words Starting With て (Te)

• て ( te ): Hand • てがみ ( tegami ): Letter (as in “I wrote a letter to her…”)

と ( to ) is also another character you’ll be using a lot in your Japanese studies. It is a useful Japanese particle that means “and” or “with.” It is also one of the easier particles in Japanese to understand and use. So practice this one because you’ll be using it often in the future!

Words Starting With と (To)

• とけい ( tokei ): Clock • とかげ ( tokage ): Lizard

な行 (Na Gyō) – Na Row: Pronunciation

な ( na ) can feel a little tricky to write at first. Put the effort into writing this character neatly and smoothly, because you’ll be using it relatively often in your Japanese studies. There are two types of adjectives in Japanese ; い-adjectives and な-adjectives. な-adjectives all end in な, so you’ll be using this character a lot when you learn about adjectives.

Words Starting With な (Na)

• なす ( nasu ): Eggplant • なぞ ( nazo ): Riddle, puzzle

As mentioned previously, に ( ni ) looks a little bit like た ( ta ). You just need to be aware of the first horizontal stroke in た ( ta ) (or the lack thereof in に ( ni )).

Words Starting With に (Ni)

• にわとり ( niwatori ): Chicken • にわ ( niwa ): Garden, yard

ぬ ( nu ) and め ( me ) look almost the same. Many people get these characters mixed up, so be sure to learn this correctly from the beginning. The difference is that ぬ ( nu ) has a small loop at the bottom (that looks like a “2”) while め ( me ) does not.

Words Starting With ぬ (Nu)

• ぬりえ ( nurie ): Picture for coloring (like a coloring book) • ぬの ( nuno ): Cloth

This is another character that looks very similar to another. ね ( ne ) and れ ( re ) are very similar. Just like with ぬ ( nu ) and め ( me ), the difference is whether or not there is a small loop on its final stroke. ね ( ne ) has a small loop at the bottom (that looks like a “2”) while れ ( re ) does not.

Words Starting With ね (Ne)

• ねこ ( neko ): Cat • ねずみ ( nezumi ): Mouse, rat

の ( no ) looks like the letter “e” that has been flipped over and rotated. It is pronounced almost the same way as “no” in English. It is also another useful particle , which is used for the possessive form (my book, his computer, my company’s car, etc.)

Words Starting With の (No)

• のり ( nori ): Seaweed (for eating), glue • のみもの ( nomimono ): Drink(s), beverage

は行 (Ha Gyō) – Ha Row: Pronunciation

は ( ha ) and ほ ( ho ) look very similar. The biggest difference is that ほ ( ho ) has two horizontal lines running through the last vertical stroke on the right side. は ( ha ) only has one horizontal line going through it.

Also, は is actually pronounced “wa” when it’s used as a particle. You’ll learn more about this when you start to study basic Japanese sentences.

Words Starting With は (Ha)

• はさみ ( hasami ): Scissors • はな ( hana ): Flower(s), nose

ひ ( hi ) is only one stroke, so just be sure to start from the left side ending the stroke on the right side.

Words Starting With ひ (Hi)

• ひつじ ( hitsuji ): Sheep • ひみつ ( himitsu ): Secret

ふ ( fu ) looks a little complicated to write. It is probably the most difficult hiragana character to write, but you can still learn to write it quickly with a little practice. There are also two ways to write ふ ( fu ). Check out the video to see both ways you can write this character. Also, you would think this character would be read as “ hu ,” not “ fu .” Actually, both are correct, but as explained in the ち ( chi ) description, fu is the Hepburn romanization style and is used much more commonly in proper English translations.

Words Starting With ふ (Fu)

• ふぶき ( fubuki ): Snowstorm • ふきん ( fukin ): Dishcloth

へ ( he ) is another single stroke character. It is pretty easy to write, but just make sure to start on the left side, stroking down towards the right.

Words Starting With へ (He)

• へび ( hebi ): Snake • へや ( heya ): Room

As mentioned in the description for は ( ha ) above, ほ ( ho ) looks almost the same but has an extra horizontal line at the top. Be sure to be aware of this extra line to differentiate between は ( ha ) and ほ ( ho ).

Words Starting With ほ (Ho)

• ほたて ( hotate ): Scallop • ほほえみ ( hohoemi ): Smile

ま行 (Ma Gyō) – Ma Row: Pronunciation

ま ( ma ) looks like the right side of ほ ( ho ), but there is a very important detail you should be aware of. The vertical line going through the two horizontal lines in ま ( ma ) extends above the top horizontal line. You’ll start writing the vertical line (the third stroke) above the top horizontal line (the first stroke). However, in ほ ( ho ), the vertical line does not extend past the top horizontal stroke. For ほ ( ho ), you’ll start the vertical line (fourth stroke) at or just below (but still touching) the top horizontal stroke.

Words Starting With ま (Ma)

• まくら ( makura ): Pillow • まぐろ ( maguro ): Tuna

み ( mi ) is another character with that unique loop shape on its left side. Have fun writing this character as you go down, loop around, and finish the first stroke on the right-hand side.

Words Starting With み (Mi)

• みず ( mizu ): Water • みち ( michi ): Street, road, path

む ( mu ) has a similar shape as す ( su ), except the line keeps going after the loop and extends to the right, and finishes by curving back up slightly.

Words Starting With む (Mu)

• むし ( mushi ): Insect • むすこ ( musuko ): Son

As mentioned earlier, め ( me ) looks almost exactly like ぬ ( nu ). The differnce is that ぬ ( nu ) has a loop at the end while め ( me ) does not.

Words Starting With め (Me)

• め ( me ): Eye • めがね ( megane ): Eyeglasses

も ( mo ) is similar to し ( shi ), but has two horizontal lines cutting through its vertical stroke.

Words Starting With も (Mo)

• もり ( mori ): Forest • もも ( momo ): Peach

ら行 (Ra Gyō) – Ra Row: Pronunciation

ら ( ra ) has a unique shape and sometimes people confuse it for さ ( sa ) or や (ya). It takes a little bit of getting used to, but if you practice writing all the characters (as much as you can!) and review with flashcards/notes, you’ll remember all of them in no time.

Words Starting With ら (Ra)

• らくだ ( rakuda ): Camel • らくがき ( rakugaki ): Graffiti, scribble

This hiragana り ( ri ) looks almost identical to the katakana リ ( ri ). This makes it easy to remember both, but when writing, the hiragana り ( ri ) usually has a small hook at the end of the first stroke.

Words Starting With り (Ri)

• りんご ( ringo ): Apple • りかい ( rikai ): Understanding

る ( ru ) and ろ ( ro ) look very similar, so just remember that る ( ru ) has a loop at the bottom while ろ ( ro ) does not.

Words Starting With る (Ru)

• るす ( rusu ): Absence • るいじ ( ruiji ): Resemblance, similarity

れ ( re ) looks like ね ( ne ). Just remember that れ ( re ) does not loop around at the end of the second stroke. These differences seem very small at first, but after a while you’ll notice them easily.

Words Starting With れ (Re)

• れきし ( rekishi ): History • れんこん ( renkon ): Lotus root

As previously mentioned, ろ ( ro ) looks like る( ru ). Just remember that ろ ( ro ) does not have a loop at the end of its stroke.

Words Starting With ろ (Ro)

• ろうそく ( rōsoku ): Candle • ろんり ( ronri ): Logic

や行 (Ya Gyō) – Ya Row: Pronunciation

Traditionally, the ya -row comes before the ra -row on hiragana charts. However, there are only three characters in the ya -row, so we decided to teach it after the ra -row to make it easier to follow and hopefully easier to understand.

Words Starting With や (Ya)

• やかん ( yakan ): Kettle • やきにく ( yakiniku ): Yakiniku, Japanese grilled meat done in a Korean barbeque style

ゆ ( yu ) is a fun character to write. It almost looks like a picture of a fish. You’ll also see this character if you go to an onsen ( hot spring ) in Japan. At an onsen in Japan, ゆ ( yu ) means “hot water” or “hot spring water” that you bathe in. The kanji for hot water is 湯 ( yu ), but you will often see the hiragana “ゆ” written on signs or noren (short curtains hung at the top of a door/entrance) at onsens.

Words Starting With ゆ (Yu)

• ゆき ( yuki ): Snow • ゆず ( yuzu ): Yuzu (type of citrus fruit)

よ ( yo ) looks a little bit like ま ( ma ). However, よ ( yo ) only has one horizontal line (the first stroke) while ま ( ma ) has two. Also, if you look closely, the horizontal line in よ ( yo ) does not go through the vertical stroke. Be sure to practicing writing よ ( yo ) so that the first stroke doesn’t cut across the second, vertical stroke.

Words Starting With よ (Yo)

• よる ( yoru ): Night • よやく ( yoyak u): Appointment, reservation, advance order

わ行 (Wa Gyō) – Wa Row: Pronunciation

わ ( wa ) looks similar to ね ( ne ). The difference is ね ( ne ) has a loop and わ ( wa ) doesn’t.

Words Starting With わ (Wa)

• わに ( wani ): Alligator • わくせい ( wakusei ): Planet

This is actually another character for “ o ,” but it is sometimes written as “ wo ” as shown here. Usually, we write this を as “ o ” in our other Japanese lessons , as it is more standardized for learners of Japanese. The biggest difference between を ( o ) and お ( o ), is that this を ( o ) is a particle, and is not used in any words.

Words Starting With を (Wo)

There is no Japanese word that starts with を ( o ). を is a particle and indicates what the direct object of a sentence is.

The last character! After you complete this, you’ll have learned all of the hiragana characters! However, your work is not done yet. There’s a few more things to learn about hiragana before you have completely mastered everything.

Words Starting With ん (N)

There is no Japanese word that starts with ん ( n ). Do you know a Japanese word game called しりとり ( shiritori )? The players need to say a word that begins with the last character of the previous word that was said by the other player. If a player says a word ending in ん ( n ), they lose the game, as no Japanese word begins with that character.

Congratulations!!! You’ve learned all of the basic hiragana characters. Give yourself a big pat on the back! However, there are still things you need to learn. There are a few things that you can add to some of these hiragana characters to change their pronunciation. Also, you can combine certain characters together to make a “hybrid” character!

Part II: Advanced Hiragana: Characters With Different Sounds

If you mastered all of the hiragana characters on this page, the hard work is over. Now we just need to learn a few more things to truly master all of commonly used hiragana characters in Japanese.

濁音 (Dakuon) – Hiragana with 濁点(Dakuten)

濁点 ( Dakuten ) is the two small dashes that you write on the upper right-hand side of certain characters. This mark looks similar to double quotation marks in English (“). This will change the pronunciation of the character from an unvoiced consonant, to a voiced consonant, 濁音 ( dakuon ).

Sounds confusing? Don’t worry! It’s actually really easy. You just need to remember which characters can take this mark, and the rest is really easy.

The only characters that can take the 濁点 ( dakuten ) are the か ( ka ) , さ ( sa ) , た ( ta ) , and は ( ha ) rows . Let’s see what happens when you add 濁点 ( dakuten ) to the characters in these rows.

濁音 (Dakuon): か (Ka) Row Becomes the が (Ga) Row

Any character in the か ( ka ) row that has a dakuten attached to it will go from a “k” sound to a “g” sound.

• か ( ka ) —> が ( ga )
• き ( ki ) —> ぎ ( gi )
• く ( ku ) —> ぐ ( gu )
• け ( ke ) —> げ ( ge )
• こ ( ko ) —> ご ( go )

濁音 (Dakuon): さ (Sa) Row Becomes the ざ (Za) Row

Any character in the さ ( sa ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten) attached to it will go from a “s” sound to a “z” sound, EXCEPT for し ( shi ). し ( shi ) will turn into じ ( ji ).*

• さ ( sa ) —> ざ ( za )
• し ( shi ) —> じ ( ji )
• す ( su ) —> ず ( zu )
• せ ( se ) —> ぜ ( ze )
• そ ( so ) —> ぞ ( zo )

*Note: じ ( zi ) is the  訓令式 ( kunrei shiki ) reading, which is the system ordered by the Cabinet of Japan. However, ji is the Hepburn style of romaji, which is what is used in most English translations. It is also much closer to the pronunciation of that actually Japanese. For example, the word “じかん” means “time.” It is pronounced “ ji kan.” If you were to pronounce it using the kunrei shiki romanization, it would be “ zi kan,” which would not be the correct pronunciation.

Example Words: ざ (Za) Row

• ざ ( za ) —> ざ ぶとん ( za buton ): Floor cushion
• じ ( ji ) —> じ かん ( ji kan ): Time
• ず ( zu ) —> ず かん ( zu kan ): Picture book
• ぜ ( ze ) —> ぜ んそく ( ze nsoku ): Asthma
• ぞ ( zo ) —> ぞ う ( zō ): Elephant

濁音 (Dakuon): た (Ta) Row Becomes the だ (Da) Row

The た ( ta ) row is a little tricky. It has two exceptions, but it’s not too difficult. Characters in the た ( ta ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten ) attached to it will go from a “t” sound to a “d” sound, EXCEPT for ち ( chi ) and つ ( tsu ).

ち ( chi ) will turn into ぢ ( ji ). Wait a minute! We just learned that し ( shi ) also turns into じ ( ji ). Yes, both of these characters have the same romaji and same pronunciation. How can two different characters have the same reading?

The answer lies in something called 連濁 ( rendaku ) in Japanese. Basically, 連濁 ( rendaku ) is when you combine words together that result in the first consonant of the second word becoming voiced. This is the same thing we are doing here; ち ( chi ) becomes a voiced ぢ ( ji ) with the 濁点 ( dakuten ). Let’s check out an example.

Let’s look at two different words and combine them. はな ( hana ) can mean either flower or nose. For our example, it will mean “nose.” ち ( chi ) also has two meanings; it can either mean blood or ground/earth. In this example, it will mean “blood.”

If we put these words together, it will mean “nosebleed” and it should look like this: はな ち ( hanachi )…BUT

Because of the 連濁 ( rendaku ), the first constant of the second word ち ( chi – blood) will become voiced —> ぢ ( ji ). Therefore, the correct word will be “はな ぢ ( hana ji ).” Most of the time, ぢ ( ji ) is found in the middle or end of words. There are few (if any) words that start with ぢ ( ji ). It’s when the original word uses ち ( chi ) but becomes voiced when combined with other words.

The other exception is つ ( tsu ). With the 濁点 ( dakuten ), it will change to づ ( zu ). This also shares the same romaji as the character す ( su ) —> ず ( zu ). Just like with the ぢ ( ji ) character above, づ ( zu ) is most used as 連濁 ( rendaku ). In other words, づ ( zu ) is mainly used when it is combined with other words (in the middle or end of words, not at the beginning).

Let’s take a look at the whole だ ( da ) row:

• た ( ta ) —> だ ( da )
• ち ( chi ) —> ぢ ( ji )
• つ ( tsu ) —> づ ( zu )
• て ( te ) —> で ( de )
• と ( to ) —> ど ( do )

Example Words: だ (Da) Row

• だ ( da ) —> だ いず ( da izu ): Soy beans
• ぢ ( ji ) —> はな ぢ ( hana ji ): Nosebleed
• づ ( zu ) —> つ づ き ( tsu zu ki ): Continuation (of something; story, work, tv show, etc.)
• で ( de ) —> で ぐち ( de guchi ): Exit
• ど ( do ) —> ど ろ ( do ro ): Mud

濁音 (Dakuon): は (Ha) Row Becomes the ば (Ba) Row

Any character in the は ( ha ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten ) attached to it will go from a “h” sound to a “b” sound.

• は ( ha ) —> ば ( ba )
• ひ ( hi ) —> び ( bi )
• ふ ( fu ) —> ぶ ( bu )
• へ ( he ) —> べ ( be )
• ほ ( ho ) —> ぼ ( bo )

Example Words: ば (Ba) Row

• ば ( ba ) —> ば けつ ( ba ketsu ): Bucket
• び ( bi ) —> び じん ( bi jin ): Beautiful woman
• ぶ ( bu ) —> ぶ り ( bu ri ): Japanese amberjack, yellowtail
• べ ( be ) —> べ んごし ( be ngoshi ): Lawyer
• ぼ ( bo ) —> ぼ くし ( bo kushi ): Pastor

半濁音 (Handakuon) – Hiragana With the Consonant “P”

半濁音 ( handakuon ) only applies to the は ( ha ) row. As seen above, the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading for the は ( ha ) row changes to a “b” sound (ば ( ba ), び ( bi ), ぶ ( bu ), べ ( be ), ぼ ( bo )).

However, the characters in the は ( ha ) row can also be changed to a 半濁音 ( han dakuon ) reading. This changes the “h” sound to a “p” sound. This is done by writing a small circle at the top right-hand corner of the character. This small is written from the bottom to the top, clockwise:

• は ( ha ) —> ぱ ( pa )
• ひ ( hi ) —> ぴ ( pi )
• ふ ( fu ) —> ぷ ( pu )
• へ ( he ) —> ぺ ( pe )
• ほ ( ho ) —> ぽ ( po )

Be sure to notice whether it’s a small circle 半濁音 ( handakuon ) or the two slashes which will create a 濁点 ( dakuon ) at the upper right-hand corner of the character. It can be easy to mix them up, especially when it’s written in a small font size.

Example Words: ぱ (Pa) Row

• ぱ ( pa ) —> ぱ ん ( pa n ): Bread
• ぴ ( pi ) —> ぴ ったり ( pi ttari ): Exactly, precisely
• ぷ ( pu ) —> ぷ に ぷ に ( pu ni pu ni ): Squishy, bouncy, cuddly
• ぺ ( pe ) —> ぺ きん ( pe kin ): Beijing
• ぽ ( po ) —> ぽ ちゃ ( po cha ): Chubby

促音 (Sokuon) – The Small “つ (Tsu)”

The small っ ( tsu ), otherwise known as 小さいつ ( chiisai tsu ), is used to represent a doubled or “geminate” consonant, referred to as a 促音 ( sokuon ) in Japanese. It’s called the small っ ( tsu ) because it is a mini version of the hiragana つ ( tsu ) character:

• Normal tsu : つ
• Small tsu : っ

The small っ ( tsu ) does not have any special pronunciation on its own. Instead, it will affect the pronunciation of the character that follows it. Any character that comes after the small っ ( tsu ) will have its consonant changed into a double consonant . What does this mean? Let’s look at an example:

かこ ( kako ) in Japanese means “the past.) If we put a small っ ( tsu ) in the middle of this word, we would get かっこ ( kakko ). The character that comes after the small っ ( tsu ) (こ in this case) will change into a double consonant. This just means that:

• No small っ ( tsu ): こ ( ko )
• Small っ ( tsu ) in front of character: っこ ( kko )

The small っ ( tsu ) acts as a small pause when pronouncing words. かっこ ( kakko ) would almost feel as if you were saying two separate words, kak and ko . You would say “ kak ” first, followed by a short pause, then say “ ko “. Let’s look at some other examples of words with the small っ ( tsu ).

Example Words: Small っ (Tsu)

• に っ ぽん ( ni pp on ): Japan
• き っ て ( ki tt e ): Postage stamp
• て っ ぱん ( te pp an ): Iron plate which is used to cook food

Part III: Combination Characters

This is the last part! We can combine some of the hiragana characters together to form new characters, but learning how to read them are very simple. You just need to remember which characters go together, and you’ll master this section easily…and you’ll be a hiragana professional!

拗音 (Yōon) – Combination Hiragana Characters

You can take the three characters from the や ( ya ) row; や ( ya ), ゆ ( yu ), よ ( yo ) and combine it with these characters:

• き ( ki ) and ぎ ( gi )
• し ( shi ) and じ ( ji )
• ち ( chi ) and ぢ ( ji )
• ひ ( hi ), び ( bi ), and ぴ ( pi )

How to Combine Hiragana Characters Together

Combining hiragana characters are really easy. All you need to do is take one of the ya -row characters; や ( ya ), ゆ ( yu ), よ ( yo ), and write it smaller, and put it on the lower right-hand corner of one of the characters listed above (if writing it horizontally). If you are writing hiragana in the traditional vertical way, you would first write one of the characters listed above and then put the smaller ya -row character beneath it.

To read this new combined character, you would replace the “ i ” of any character listed above with the reading of the ya -row character. Sounds confusing? Take a look at this and it should clear things right up:

• き ( k i ) + ゃ ( ya ) = きゃ ( kya )
• き ( k i ) + ゅ ( yu ) = きゅ ( kyu )
• き ( k i ) + ょ ( yo ) =きょ ( kyo )
• and so on…

However…

The readings for し ( shi ), じ ( ji ), ち ( chi ), and ぢ ( ji ) are the exceptions. Just like the characters above, you will replace the “ i ” with the reading of a ya -row character. However, you will get rid of the “y” and only use the vowel of the や ( ya ) row character ( a , u , o ).

• し ( sh i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = しゃ ( sha )
• し ( sh i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = しゅ ( shu )
• し ( sh i ) + ょ ( y o ) = しょ ( sho )
• じ ( j i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = じゃ ( ja )
• じ ( j i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = じゅ ( ju )
• じ ( j i ) + ょ ( y o ) = じょ ( jo )
• ち ( ch i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = ちゃ ( cha )
• ち ( ch i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = ちゅ ( chu )
• ち ( ch i ) + ょ ( y o ) = ちょ ( cho )
• ぢ ( j i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = ぢゃ ( ja )
• ぢ ( j i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = ぢゅ ( ju )
• ぢ ( j i )+ ょ ( y o ) = ぢょ ( jo )

Let’s take a look at each of these combination hiragana characters in more detail.

きゃ行 (Kya Gyō) – Kya Row: き (Ki) and ぎ (Gi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

Remember that you can also make these combination hiragana characters with the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of き: ぎゃ ( gya ), ぎゅ ( gyu ), ぎょ ( gyo )

Example Words: きゃ (Kya) Row

• きゃ く ( kya ku ): Customer
• きゅ うり ( kyū ri ): Cucumber
• きょ うふ ( kyō fu ): Fear
• ぎゃ く ( gya ku ): Opposite
• ぎゅ うにく ( gyū niku ): Beef
• ぎょ うざ ( gyō za ): Dumpling

しゃ行 (Sha Gyō) – Sha Row: し (Shi) and じ (Ji) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

The 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of し ( shi ) is じ ( ji ), and it can be combined with any character from the ya -row as well.

Example Words: しゃ (Sha) Row

• しゃ かい ( sha kai ): Society
• しゅ うまつ ( shū matsu ): Weekend
• しょ うじ ( shō ji ): Paper sliding door
• じゃ んけん ( ja nken ): Rock scissors paper game
• じゅ ぎょう ( ju gyō ): Class
• じょ うあい ( jō ai ): Affection

ちゃ行 (Cha Gyō) – Cha Row: ち (Chi) and ぢ (Ji) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

The 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of ち ( chi ) is ぢ ( ji ), and it can be combined with any character from the ya -row as well.

Example Words: ちゃ (Cha) Row

• ちゃ わん ( cha wan ): Rice bowl
• ちゅ うし ( chū shi ): Cancel
• ちょ うれい ( chō rei ): Morning assembly
• ぢゃ ( ja ): Same as じゃ ( ja ), and is usually not used. じゃ ( ja ) is commonly used.
• ぢゅ ( ju ): Same as じゅ ( ju ), and it usually not used. じゅ ( ju ) is commonly used.
• ぢょ ( jo ): Same as じょ ( jo ), and it usually not used. じょ ( jo ) is commonly used.

にゃ行 (Nya Gyō) – Nya Row: に (Ni) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

Example Words: にゃ (Nya) Row

• にゃ ん ( nya n ): Meow (the sound of a cat’s meow)
• にゅ ういん ( nyū in ): Hospitalization
• にょ う ( nyō ): Urine

ひゃ行 (Hya Gyō) – Hya Row: ひ (Hi), び (Bi), and ぴ (Pi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

You can also make these combination hiragana characters with the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of ひ ( hi ):

and the 半濁音 ( handakuon ) reading:

Example Words: ひゃ (Hya) Row

• ひゃ く ( hya ku ): A hundred
• ひゅ う ( hyū ): Sound of winds
• ひょ うか ( hyō ka ): Evaluation
• びゃ くだん ( bya kudan ): Indian sandalwood
• びゅ うげん ( byū gen ): Fallacy
• びょ ういん ( byō in ): Hospital
• ろっ ぴゃ く ( rop pya ku ): Six hundred
• ぴゅ う ( pyū ): Sound of something whizzing through the air
• ぴょ ん ( pyo n ): Jumping lightly or nimbly

みゃ行 (Mya Gyō) – Mya Row: み (Mi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

Example Words: みゃ (Mya) Row

• みゃ く ( mya ku ): Pulse
• きゃりーぱ みゅ ぱ みゅ ( Kyary Pa myu Pa myu ): Name of famous Japanese singer
• みょ うじ ( myō ji ): Last name

りゃ行 (Rya Gyō) – Rya Row: り (Ri) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

Example Words: りゃ (Rya) Row

• りゃ く ( rya ku ): Abbreviation
• りゅ うこう ( ryū kō ): Trend
• りょ こう ( ryo kō ): Trip

Part IV: The History of Hiragana

When you look at the history of the Japanese writing system, 漢字 ( kanji ) are known to be the first characters used. 漢字 ( kanji ) came to Japan from China more than 1,000 years ago. Japanese people back then only used 漢字 ( kanji ).

However, according to many sources, including this educational Japanese website (Japanese only), 漢字 ( kanji ) was only used by men, not women. (In today’s society, there is no such rule regarding kanji ). Therefore, women needed to come up with a different way to communicate with others, and this was when ひらがな ( hiragana ) was created.

Hiragana characters were created by mimicking and breaking down kanji characters. Since the telephone didn’t exist at the time, they used letters to exchange ideas and feelings. For women and men to understand each other, men eventually needed to learn hiragana characters. And this is how hiragana was born and passed on.

I hope you could master all of the hiragana characters with this guide! Please let us know this guide help you to learn how to read and write hiragana , or if you have any suggestions. Be sure to check out more of our Japanese lessons to learn more!

Momoko Hoyt

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Japanese Hiragana

Hiragana developed from Chinese characters, as shown below. Hiragana were originally called onnade or 'women's hand' as were used mainly by women - men wrote in kanji and katakana . By the 10th century, hiragana were used by everybody. The word hiragana means "oridinary syllabic script".

In early versions of hiragana there were often many different characters to represent the same syllable, however the system was eventually simplified so that there was a one-to-one relationship between spoken and written syllables. The present orthography of hiragana was codified by the Japanese government in 1946.

Hiragana and the kanji from which they developed

In each column the rōmaji appears on the left, the hiragana symbols in the middle and the kanji from which they developed on the right. There is some dispute about the orgins of some of the symbols

The symbols for 'wi' and 'we' were made obsolete by the Japanese Minsitry of Education in 1946 as part of its language reforms. The symbols 'ha', 'he' and 'wo' are pronounced 'wa', 'e' and 'o' respectively when used as grammatical particles.

Hiragana syllabary (平仮名 / ひらがな)

The symbols on the right are the basic hiragana syllabary in the order they appear in dictionaries and indices (reading from left to right and top to bottom). Additional sounds (the symbols on the right) are represented by diacritics and combinations of symbols.

Long vowels

Download this chart in Word , or PDF format (also includes katakana).

See a Hiragana chart by Kayo Takumyo (JPG, 409K).

Pronunciation

Characteristics and usage of hiragana.

The hiragana syllabary consists of 48 syllables and is mainly used to write word endings, known as okurigana in Japanese. Hiragana are also widely used in materials for children, textbooks, animation and comic books, to write Japanese words which are not normally written with kanji, such as adverbs and some nouns and adjectives, or for words whose kanji are obscure or obselete.

Hiragana are also sometimes written above or along side kanji to indicate pronunciation, especially if the pronunication is obscure or non-standard. Hiragana used in this way are known as furigana or ruby. In horizontal texts, the furigana appear above the kanji and in vertical texts, the furigana appear on the right of the kanji. In newspapers it is a legal requirement for furigana to be attached to kanji which are not included in the official list of the 1,945 most frequently-used kanji. Newspapers in fact rarely use kanji not included in this list.

Furigana in action

The furigana in the following text are the small hiragana above or beside the kanji.

Horizontal text with furigana

Vertical text with furigana, this text in hiragana, this text in standard japanese (without furigana), transliteration (rōmaji).

Subete no ningen wa, umare nagara ni shite jiyū de ari, katsu, songen to kenri to ni tsuite byōdō de aru. Ningen wa, risei to ryōshin to o sazukerareteari, tagai ni dōhō no seishin o motte kōdōshinakerebanaranai.

Hear a recording of this text

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Hiragana are sometimes used to write words which would normally written with katakana to make them appear more "feminine", particularly in comic books and cartoons for young girls. In children's video games texts are often written entirely in hiragana or katakana.

How to write Hiragana:

Information about Hiragana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana http://japanesehiragana.org

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• Draw it in the drawing area
• Type the name in the text area
• Look for it in the list
• Notice that 漢 is made of several components: 氵 艹 口 夫
• Draw any of these components (one at a time) in the drawing area, and select it when you see it
• Alternatively, look for a component in the list. 氵 艹 口 each have three strokes; 夫 has four strokes
• If you know the meanings of the components, type any of them in the text area: water (氵), grass (艹), mouth (口) or husband (夫)
• Keep adding components until you can see your kanji in the list of matches that appears near the top.
• Draw a component in the center of the area, as large as you can
• Try to draw the component as it appears in the kanji you're looking up
• Don't worry about stroke order or number of strokes
• Don't draw more than one component at a time

• How to read Japanese kanji
• The Kanshudo complete guide to writing Japanese
• Getting started learning Japanese
• How to master the kanji

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StoryLearning

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How To Write In Japanese – A Beginner’s Guide

Do you want to learn how to write in Japanese , but feel confused or intimidated by the script?

This post will break it all down for you, in a step-by-step guide to reading and writing skills this beautiful language.

I remember when I first started learning Japanese and how daunting the writing system seemed. I even wondered whether I could get away without learning the script altogether and just sticking with romaji (writing Japanese with the roman letters).

I’m glad I didn’t.

If you’re serious about learning Japanese, you have to get to grips with the script sooner or later. If you don’t, you won’t be able to read or write anything useful, and that’s no way to learn a language.

The good news is that it isn’t as hard as you think. And I’ve teamed up with my friend Luca Toma (who’s also a Japanese coach ) to bring you this comprehensive guide to reading and writing Japanese.

By the way, if you want to learn Japanese fast (including how to write in Japanese) and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is  Japanese Uncovered  which teaches you through StoryLearning®. 

With  Japanese Uncovered  you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Japanese naturally through story… not rules. It’s as fun as it is effective.

If you’re ready to get started,  click here for a 7-day FREE trial.

If you have a friend who’s learning how to write in Japanese, you might like to share it with them. Now, let’s get stuck in…

Table of Contents

One Language, Two Systems, Three Scripts

If you are a complete beginner, Japanese writing may appear just like Chinese.

But if you look at it more carefully you'll notice that it doesn’t just contain complex Chinese characters… there are lots of simpler ones too.

Take a look.

それでも、 日本人 の 食生活 も 急速 に 変化 してきています 。 ハンバーグ や カレーライス は 子供に人気 がありますし 、都会 では 、 イタリア 料理、東南 アジア 料理、多国籍料理 などを 出 す エスニック 料理店 がどんどん 増 えています 。

Nevertheless, the eating habits of Japanese people are also rapid ly chang ing . Hamburgers and curry rice are popular with children . In cities , ethnic   restaurants serv ing Italian cuisine , Southeast Asian cuisine and multi-national cuisine keep increas ing more and more .

(Source: “Japan: Then and Now”, 2001, p. 62-63)

As you can see from this sample, within one Japanese text there are actually three different scripts intertwined. We’ve colour coded them to help you tell them apart.

(What’s really interesting is the different types of words – parts of speech – represented by each colour – it tells you a lot about what you use each of the three scripts for.)

Can you see the contrast between complex characters (orange) and simpler ones (blue and green)?

The complex characters are called kanji (漢字 lit. Chinese characters) and were borrowed from Chinese. They are what’s called a ‘logographic system' in which each symbol corresponds to a block of meaning (食 ‘to eat', 南 ‘south', 国 ‘country').

Each kanji also has its own pronunciation, which has to be learnt – you can’t “read” an unknown kanji like you could an unknown word in English.

Luckily, the other two sets of characters are simpler!

Those in blue above are called hiragana and those in green are called katakana . Katakana and hiragana are both examples of ‘syllabic systems', and unlike the kanji , each character corresponds to single sound. For example, そ= so, れ= re; イ= i, タ = ta.

Hiragana and katakana are a godsend for learners because the Japanese pronunciation isn’t a problem. If you see it, you can say it!

So, at this point, you’re probably wondering:

“What’s the point of using three different types of script? How could that have come about?”

In fact, all these scripts have a very specific role to play in a piece of Japanese writing, and you’ll find that they all work together in harmony in representing the Japanese language in a written form.

So let’s check them out in more detail.

First up, the two syllabic systems: hiragana and katakana (known collectively as kana ).

The ‘Kana' – One Symbol, One Sound

Both hiragana and katakana have a fixed number of symbols: 46 characters in each, to be precise.

Each of these corresponds to a combination of the 5 Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e o) and the 9 consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w).

(Source: Wikipedia Commons )

Hiragana  (the blue characters in our sample text) are recognizable for their roundish shape and you’ll find them being used for three functions in Japanese writing:

1. Particles (used to indicate the grammatical function of a word)

は     wa     topic marker

が     ga      subject marker

を     wo      direct object marker

2. To change the meaning of verbs, adverbs or adjectives, which generally have a root written in kanji. (“Inflectional endings”)

急速 に     kyuusoku ni        rapid ly

増 えています       fu ete imasu     are increas ing

3. Native Japanese words not covered by the other two scripts

それでも     soredemo     nevertheless

どんどん     dondon     more and more

Katakana  (the green characters in our sample text) are recognisable for their straight lines and sharp corners. They are generally reserved for:

1. Loanwords from other languages. See what you can spot!

ハンバーグ     hanbaagu     hamburger

カレーライス     karee raisu     curry rice

エスニック     esunikku     ethnic

2. Transcribing foreign names

イタリア     itaria     Italy

アジア     ajia     Asia

They are also used for emphasis (the equivalent of italics or underlining in English), and for scientific terms (plants, animals, minerals, etc.).

So where did hiragana and katakana come from?

In fact, they were both derived from kanji which had a particular pronunciation; Hiragana took from the Chinese cursive script  (安 an →あ a), whereas katakana developed from single components of the regular Chinese script (阿 a →ア a ).

So that covers the origins the two kana scripts in Japanese, and how we use them.

Now let’s get on to the fun stuff… kanji !

The Kanji – One Symbol, One Meaning

Kanji  – the most formidable hurdle for learners of Japanese!

We said earlier that kanji is a logographic system, in which each symbol corresponds to a “block of meaning”.

食     eating

生     life, birth

活     vivid, lively

“Block of meaning” is the best phrase, because one kanji is not necessarily a “word” on its own.

You might have to combine one kanji with another in order to make an actual word, and also to express more complex concepts:

生 + 活   =   生活     lifestyle

食 + 生活   =  食生活     eating habits

If that sounds complicated, remember that you see the same principle in other languages.

Think about the word “telephone” in English – you can break it down into two main components derived from Greek:

“tele” (far)  +  “phone” (sound)  = telephone

Neither of them are words in their own right.

So there are lots and lots of kanji , but in order to make more sense of them we can start by categorising them.

There are several categories of kanji , starting with the “pictographs” (象形文字 shōkei moji), which look like the objects they represent:

(Source: Wikipedia Commons )

In fact, there aren’t too many of these pictographs.

Around 90% of the kanji in fact come from six other categories, in which several basic elements (called “radicals”) are combined to form new concepts.

For example:

人 (“man” as a radical)   +   木 (tree)    =  休 (to rest)

These are known as 形声文字 keisei moji or “radical-phonetic compounds”.

You can think of these characters as being made up of two parts:

• A radical that tells you what category of word it is: animals, plants, metals, etc.)
• A second component that completes the character and give it its pronunciation (a sort of Japanese approximation from Chinese).

So that’s the story behind the kanji , but what are they used for in Japanese writing?

Typically, they are used to represent concrete concepts.

When you look at a piece of Japanese writing, you’ll see kanji being used for nouns, and in the stem of verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Here are some of them from our sample text at the start of the article:

日本人     Japanese people 多国籍料理     multinational cuisine 東南     Southeast

Now, here’s the big question!

Once you’ve learnt to read or write a kanji , how do you pronounce it?

If you took the character from the original Chinese, it would usually only have one pronunciation.

However, by the time these characters leave China and reach Japan, they usually have two or sometimes even more pronunciations.

How or why does this happen?

Let's look at an example.

To say “mountain”, the Chinese use the pictograph 山 which depicts a mountain with three peaks. The pronunciation of this character in Chinese is shān (in the first tone).

Now, in Japanese the word for “mountain” is yama .

So in this case, the Japanese decided to borrow the character山from Chinese, but to pronounce it differently: yama .

However, this isn’t the end of the story!

The Japanese did decide to borrow the pronunciation from the original Chinese, but only to use it when that character is used in compound words.

So, in this case, when the character 山 is part of a compound word, it is pronounced as san/zan – clearly an approximation to the original Chinese pronunciation.

Here’s the kanji on its own:

山は…      Yama wa …     The mountain….

And here’s the kanji when it appears in compound words:

火山は…     Ka zan wa     The volcano…

富士山は…     Fuji san wa …     Mount Fuji….

To recap, every kanji has at least two pronunciations.

The first one (the so-called訓読み kun'yomi or “meaning reading”) has an original Japanese pronunciation, and is used with one kanji on it’s own.

The second one (called音読み  on'yomi or “sound-based reading”) is used in compound words, and comes from the original Chinese.

Makes sense, right? 😉

In Japan, there’s an official number of kanji that are classified for “daily use” (常用漢字 joy ō kanji ) by the Japanese Ministry of Education – currently 2,136.

(Although remember that the number of actual words that you can form using these characters is much higher.)

So now… if you wanted to actually learn all these kanji , how should you go about it?

To answer this question, Luca’s going to give us an insight into how he did it.  

How I Learnt Kanji

I started to learn kanji more than 10 years ago at a time when you couldn't find all the great resources that are available nowadays. I only had paper kanji dictionary and simple lists from my textbook.

What I did have, however, was the memory of a fantastic teacher.

I studied Chinese for two years in college, and this teacher taught us characters in two helpful ways:

• He would analyse them in terms of their radicals and other components
• He kept us motivated and interested in the process by using fascinating stories based on etymology (the origin of the characters)

Once I’d learnt to recognise the 214 radicals which make up all characters – the building blocks of Chinese characters – it was then much easier to go on and learn the characters and the words themselves.

It’s back to the earlier analogy of dividing the word “telephone” into tele and phone .

But here’s the thing – knowing the characters alone isn’t enough. There are too many, and they’re all very similar to one another.

If you want to get really good at the language, and really know how to read and how to write in Japanese, you need a higher-order strategy.

The number one strategy that I used to reach a near-native ability in reading and writing in Japanese was to learn the kanji within the context of dialogues or other texts.

I never studied them as individual characters or words.

Now, I could give you a few dozen ninja tricks for how to learn Japanese kanji. But the one secret that blows everything else out of the water and guarantees real success in the long-term, is extensive reading and massive exposure.

This is the foundation of the StoryLearning® method , where you immerse yourself in language through story.

In the meantime, there are a lot of resources both online and offline to learn kanji , each of which is based on a particular method or approach (from flashcards to mnemonic and so on).

The decision of which approach to use can be made easier by understanding the way you learn best.

Do you have a photographic memory or prefer working with images? Do you prefer to listen to audio? Or perhaps you prefer to write things by hands?

You can and should try more than one method, in order to figure out which works best for you.

( Note : You should get a copy of this excellent guide by John Fotheringham, which has all the resources you’ll ever need to learn kanji )

FAQs About How To Write In Japanese

What is the correct way to write in Japanese?

Japanese is made of three written systems; thus, the correct way to write in Japanese is to use hiragana, katakana, and kanji together. Beginners can start with hiragana and add katakana and kanji as they learn more.

What is the ABC's in Japanese?

Japanese is made of 46 characters (compared to English’s 26). They are: あ, い, う, え, お, か, き, く, け, こ, さ, し, す, せ, そ, た, ち, つ, て, と, な, に, ぬ, ね, の, は, ひ, ふ, へ, ほ, ま, み, む, め, も, や, ゆ, よ, ら, り, る, れ, ろ, わ, を, ん

How is Japanese text written?

Japanese text is written in a combination of hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana are phonetic “letters” used to spell words. Katakana are phonetic characters used specifically for foreign or loan words. Kanji are more complex characters that represent an entire word or idea.

How do you type in Japanese text?

You can type in Japanese by installing a Japanese keyboard/IME (which is short for “input method editor,” indicating that it is a program that can change how you input things into the computer) onto your mobile device or computer.

On Windows, this will be located in Settings > Time and Language > Region and Language > Add a Language, for example. 

Once the IME is installed, using it is generally as simple as clicking on it and selecting “Japanese” instead of English.

Is it worth it to learn to write in Japanese?

Learning to write in Japanese is absolutely worth it! Writing is one of the fastest ways to improve your reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary. It also helps you to engage with others more easily when speaking is not an option.

Summary Of How To Write In Japanese

So you’ve made it to the end of this guide on how to write in Japanese!

See – I told you it wasn’t that bad! Let’s recap what we’ve covered.

Ordinary written Japanese employs a mixture of three scripts:

• Kanji, or Chinese characters, of which there are officially 2,136 in daily use (more in practice)
• 2 syllabic alphabets called hiragana and katakana, containing 42 symbols each

In special cases, such as children’s books or simplified materials for language learners, you might find everything written using only hiragana or katakana .

But apart from those materials, everything in Japanese is written by employing the three scripts together. And it’s the kanji which represent the cultural and linguistic challenge in the Japanese language.

If you want to become proficient in the language and know how to write in Japanese you have to learn all three!

Although it seems like a daunting task, remember that there are many people before you who have found themselves right at the beginning of their journey in learning how to write in Japanese.

And every journey begins with a single step.

So what are you waiting for?

The best place to start is to enrol in  Japanese Uncovered . The course includes a series of lessons that teach you hiragana, katakana and kanji. It also includes an exciting Japanese story which comes in different formats (romaji, hiragana, kana and kanji) so you can practice reading Japanese, no matter what level you're at right now.

– – –

It’s been a pleasure for me to work on this article with Luca Toma, and I’ve learnt a lot in the process.

Now he didn’t ask me to write this, but if you’re serious about learning Japanese, you should consider hiring Luca as a coach. The reasons are many, and you can find out more on his website: JapaneseCoaching.it

Do you know anyone learning Japanese? Why not send them this article, or click here to send a tweet .

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A Hiragana Stroke Guide to あ、い、う、え、お (A, I, U, E, O)

Lessons in the Japanese Writing System

• Essential Japanese Vocabulary
• History & Culture
• Japanese Grammar
• B.A., Kwansei Gakuin University

Hiragana is a part of the Japanese writing system . It is syllabary, which is a set of written characters that represent syllables. Thus, hiragana is a basic phonetic script in Japanese. In most cases, each character corresponds to one syllable though there are few exceptions to this rule.

Hiragana is used in many cases, such as writing articles or miscellaneous words that have no kanji form or an obscure kanji form.

With the following visual stroke-by-stroke guide, you will learn to write hiragana characters あ、い、う、え、お (a, i, u, e, o).

Follow the stroke order to write the hiragana character for "a". This hiragana  character is used in words like あさ ( asa ), which translates to "morning".

Be sure to always use the proper stroke order when practicing. Not only is it correct, but it is also a great way to help you to remember how to draw the character. 

This stroke-by-stroke guide will teach you how to write い. Conveying the "i" syllable, い is also used in words like いぬ ( inu ), which means "dog".

One of the more simple hiragana characters, う is used in words like うみ ( umi ), which means "sea". 

Be sure to follow the stroke numbers when writing え. え is used in words like えき ( eki ), which is the Japanese word for "station".

Learn how to write the hiragana character for "o" in this simple lesson. This character is used in words like おかね ( okane ), meaning "money".

More Lessons

If you want to see all 46 hiragana characters and hear the pronunciation for each, check out the ​ hiragana audio chart as well as the ​ handwritten hiragana chart for more symbols.

• Useful Japanese Expressions
• Making the Right Strokes for さ, し, す, せ, そ (Sa, Shi, Su, Se, So)
• Basic Japanese: Ordering at a Restaurant
• Mother's Day: Haha no Hi
• Expressions Used in Letters
• Hiragana Lessons - Stroke Guide to な、に、ぬ、ね、の (Na, Ni, Nu, Ne, No)
• Japanese Greetings for Special Occasions
• Shiwasu - December
• Be Able to Write か、き、く、け、こ With These Helpful Stroke-By-Stroke Guides
• Japanese Greetings and Parting Phrases
• Definition and Pronunciation of the Japanese Word 'Oishii'
• How to Use the Conditional Form "~Ba" in Japanese
• Japanese Folk Tales & Mukashi Banashi
• How Do You Say "Merry Christmas" in Japanese?
• The Meaning of 'Nani' in Japanese
• Hiragana Lessons - Stroke Guide to は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ (Ha, Hi, Fu, He, Ho)

Learn Japanese

Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

Hiragana Practice Exercises

Fill in the hiragana chart.

Though I already mentioned that there are many sites and helper programs for learning Hiragana, I figured I should put in some exercises of my own in the interest of completeness. I’ve removed the obsolete characters since you won’t need to know them. I suggest playing around with this chart and a scrap piece of paper to test your knowledge of Hiragana.

Click on the flip link to show or hide each character.

Hiragana Writing Practice

In this section, we will practice writing some words in Hiragana. This is the only part of this guide where we will be using the English alphabet to represent Japanese sounds. I’ve added bars between each letter to prevent the ambiguities that is caused by romaji such as “un | yo” vs “u | nyo”. Don’t get too caught up in the romaji spellings. Remember, the whole point is to test your aural memory with Hiragana. I hope to replace this with sound in the future to remove the use of romaji altogether.

Hiragana Writing Exercise 1

Sample: ta | be | mo | no ＝ たべもの

More Hiragana Writing Practice

Now we’re going to move on to practice writing Hiragana with the small 「や」、「ゆ」、「よ」 、and the long vowel sound. For the purpose of this exercise, I will denote the long vowel sound as “－” and leave you to figure out which Hiragana to use based on the letter preceding it.

Hiragana Writing Exercise 2

Sample: jyu | gyo－ ＝ じゅぎょう

Hiragana Reading Practice

Now let’s practice reading some Hiragana. I want to particularly focus on correctly reading the small 「つ」. Remember to not get too caught up in the unavoidable inconsistencies of romaji. The point is to check whether you can figure out how it’s supposed to sound in your mind.

Hiragana Reading Exercise

Sample: とった ＝ totta

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Japanese Writing System: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana Explained

Hiragana, katakana, and kanji make up the Japanese writing system. When you first start learning Japanese, figuring out how to read and write can feel overwhelming; after all, Japanese is completely different from the Roman alphabet! You then learn that there are actually three different writing systems used all at once. How is that even possible? Not to worry – these systems are simpler than you might expect! Each one has its own unique, defining characteristics and uses; once you learn more about these, reading and writing Japanese will be a breeze!

We’ve covered smaller articles for each Japanese writing system. Don’t forget to check out our Hiragana & Katakana chart and quiz for a more detailed guide and resource recommendation.

Jump To:  

• Origin of the Japanese Alphabet

Origins of the Japanese Alphabet

Do you know about the history and the origin of hiragana and katakana? Originally, the Japanese ancestors did not have a writing system. Around the fifth century, they started using kanji, ideograms that were adopted from China and Korea. They only used the phonetic reading of the kanji, regardless of their meaning. At that time, the ideograms were called manyogana (万葉仮名).

However, kanji’s characters are composed of many strokes. They take longer to write, as we are sure you have noticed by now! Due to their difficulty, those ideograms were slowly simplified into kana alphabets, namely hiragana and katakana. They are called syllabograms, as each character corresponds to one sound in the Japanese language. According to historians, the change was initiated by Buddhist priests who thought kanji was unable to accurately represent the Japanese language, and that a phonetic alphabet would be better.

Examples of Change

On the left is the manyogana, and on the right are simplified hiragana and katakana forms.

• 安 →あ 阿 → ア (a)
• 以 →い 伊 → イ(i)
• 衣 →え 江 → エ(e)

This change is thought to have taken place between the eighth and ninth centuries.  Hiragana can be considered a simplified calligraphy form of the kanji’s strokes. On the other hand, katakana is taken from a single element of a kanji. In some cases, the Hiragana and Katakana are created from different ideograms.

Among Hi ragana and Katakana,  some express the same sound and have similar shapes, such as り and リ. However, some can be dissimilar, such as あ and ア.  Hiragana is said to be cursive while katakana is more angular. Do take note that one sound can have more than one hiragana. In 1900 the two kana scripts, hiragana, and katakana were codified. This led to the clear establishment of rules for the Japanese system in 1946.

Japanese Writing System #1: Hiragana

Whenever you just start out learning Japanese, hiragana is usually the first writing system you learn. Hiragana is technically a syllabary or a way of writing where symbols represent whole syllables (such as “ba” and “to”) instead of individual sounds (such as “b” or “t”) 5 . This is because all Japanese words are made up of these small syllables, so there’s no need to write out individual sounds!

In Japanese, there are 46 basic syllables:

• the basic vowels: a, i, u, e, o.
• the k-line: ka, ki, ku, ke, ko.
• the s-line: sa, shi, su, se, so. (Notice that the “si” sound is instead replaced by “shi.”)
• the t-line: ta, chi, tsu, te, to. (Notice that the “ti” and “tu” sounds are instead pronounced closer to “chi” and “tsu.”)
• the n-line: na, ni, nu, ne, no.
• the h-line: ha, hi, fu, he, ho. (Notice that the “hu” sound is actually said as “fu.”)
• the m-line: ma, mi, mu, me, mo.
• the y-line: ya, yu, yo.
• the r-line: ra, ri, ru, re, ro.
• wa, o/wo, and n. (These sounds are unique, so they are generally placed together. The “o/wo” symbol can be pronounced either way and “n” is considered a whole syllable in Japanese.)

There are also 23 additional syllables in Japanese; these are formed with additional marks that we’ll cover in a minute.

• the g-line: ga, gi, gu, ge, go.
• the z-line: za, ji, zu, ze, zo. (Notice that “ji” is used instead of “zi.”)
• the d-line: da, ji, zu, de, do. (“ji” and “zu” are pronounced the same way as in the z-line, but have different uses.)
• the b-line: ba, be, bu, be, bo.
• the p-line: pa, pi, pu, pe, po.

Writing Hiragana

So, now that we’ve covered the basic sounds, let’s see how these syllables are written down in hiragana:

Hiragana is generally round in shape, with lots of curves and bends. This characteristic is a key way to tell what symbols are hiragana! You can also combine a consonant with a / ya / yu / yo / sound by attaching a small 「や」、「ゆ」、or 「よ」 to the / i / vowel character of each consonant.

Now, let’s take a look at those 23 additional sounds:

• the g-line: が(ga), ぎ(gi), ぐ(gu), げ(ge), ご(go).
• the z-line: ざ(za), じ(ji), ず(zu), ぜ(ze), ぞ(zo).
• the d-line: だ(da), ぢ(ji), づ(zu), で(de), ど(do). 
• the b-line: ば(ba), べ(be), ぶ(bu), べ(be), ぼ(bo).
• the p-line: ぱ(pa), ぴ(pi), ぷ(pu), ぺ(pe), ぽ(po).

Did you notice something about the above sounds? The hiragana for the g-line is identical to the k-line, and the same goes for the z-line and s-line, the t-line and the d-line, h-line and the b- and p-lines! The only difference is the addition of diacritical marks; these marks go to the upper right of the hiragana and can be either two short diagonal marks (called a dakuten ) or a small circle (called the handakuten ). This is pretty nice, as you don’t have to memorize even more symbols!

There are also contracted sounds in Japanese. These sounds are basically combinations of sounds ending in “-i” and the y-line, and are considered one syllable as well . All you have to do for these is add a small y-line hiragana after the main hiragana! (Notice that not all of these syllables keep the “y” sound.)

• the k-line: きゃ(kya), きゅ(kyu), きょ(kyo)
• the s-line: しゃ(sha), しゅ(shu), しょ (sho)
• the t-line: ちゃ(cha), ちゅ(chu), ちょ(cho)
• the n-line: にゃ(nya), にゅ(nyu), にょ(nyo)
• the h-line: ひゃ(hya), ひゅ(hyu), ひょ(hyo)
• the m-line: みゃ(mya), みゅ(my) みょ(myo)
• the r-line: りゃ(rya), りゅ(ryu), りょ(ryo)
• the g-line: ぎゃ(gya), ぎゅ(gyu), ぎょ(gyo)
• the z-line: じゃ(ja), じゅ(ju), じょ(jo)
• the b-line: びゃ(bya), びゅ(byu), びょ(byo)
• the p-line: ぴゃ(pya), ぴゅ(pyu), ぴょ(pyo)

So, that is the basics of how hiragana is written. However, there are also double consonants and long vowels which are written with variations in hiragana (and katakana). We recommend checking out our full-length article here to learn more about those!

How to Use Hiragana

Hiragana can be used for many things; it’s like the all-rounder of writing Japanese and it represents all the syllables of the Japanese language! Hiragana is used when writing verb endings, particles, grammar words (such as conjunctions), and many native Japanese words, as well as for words that do not have a corresponding kanji character. Hiragana is also used in furigana ; this is when hiragana is written in a small font above kanji for those who don’t know the kanji’s reading.

Long Vowels and Double Consonants in Hiragana

In Japanese hiragana, double consonants are represented by adding a small “tsu” character (っ) before the consonant that is doubled. For example, the word “katta” (勝った), meaning “won”, would be written as かった, with a small “tsu” between the two “t” characters.

Long vowels in hiragana are done by extending a consonant or vowel with another vowel — depending on the vowel in accordance with the following chart.

For example, the word “ookii” (大きい), meaning “big”, would be written as おおきい.

Let’s start off with a simple sentence – “My pet’s name is Bob.” (What a funny name for a pet!) In Hiragana, this looks like this:

わたしの ぺっと の なまえ は  ぼぶ です。 Watashi no petto no namae wa bobu desu.

So, we can write a whole Japanese sentence just using hiragana! This is how most people (including native speakers) start off reading and writing Japanese. Of course, as you learn about katakana and kanji, some of these words will be replaced.  However, you will see that the particles (の[no] and は[wa]) and the native verb です(desu) will remain the same, as these are some of the things that specifically use hiragana!  

Now that you’ve learned the basics, it’s time for practice! Head on over to our list of practice sheets, apps, and quizzes to make sure you’ve got a solid understanding of hiragana!

Tips for Writing in Japanese

1. there are no spaces in the japanese writing system.

Japanese is written with no spaces, so a combination of hiragana, kanji, and katakana helps distinguish words within a sentence. As you improve your Japanese writing and reading skill, you’ll start to feel that reading kanji is often easier than reading a sentence that consists of solely hiragana.

2. Be careful of hiragana characters that sound and look similar

Pay more attention when pronouncing “tsu” and “su”. Beginner-level students also have a hard time discerning ro (ろ), re (れ), ru (る) — and nu (ぬ) and me (め) because they look similar.

3. Correct stroke order and direction are important

Writing hiragana with the correct stroke order and direction will help you intuitively know how to write new characters and it has a big effect on how readable it ends up looking.

Japanese Writing System #2: Katakana

After hiragana, it’s a good idea to learn katakana next; katakana works the exact same way that hiragana does, just using different characters; some katakana’s symbols even look similar to their hiragana counterparts!  In fact, hiragana and katakana are often collectively referred to as kana , since they are so similar!

Writing Katakana  

• the g-line: ガ(ga), ギ(gi), グ(gu), ゲ(ge), ゴ(go).
• the z-line: ザ(za), ジ(ji), ズ(zu), ゼ(ze), ゾ(zo).
• the d-line: ダ(da),　ヂ(ji), ヅ(zu), デ(de), ド(do). 
• the b-line: バ(ba), ビ(bi), ブ(bu), べ(be), ボ(bo).
• the p-line: パ(pa), ピ(pi), プ(pu), ぺ(pe), ポ(po).

The contracted sounds are also formed the same way as in hiragana. However, katakana has additional combinations with small vowel letters to transcribe foreign sounds which did not originally exist in Japanese. These are generally easy to pronounce, as you simply combine the consonant of the main katakana symbol with the vowel of the smaller one.

Examples of this include the フェ (fe) inカフェ ( kafe ), theティ (ti) in  パーティー ( paatii ), and the ウィ (wi) in ハロウィーン ( harowiin )!

You can see that katakana is simpler and has more straight lines than hiragana; this is one major way to tell them apart!

How and When to Use Katakana

Another way to tell them apart is their usage. Katakana is used for foreign loanwords or words from different languages. ハンバーガー(hanbaagaa, hamburger) and アルバイト (arubaito, part-time job) are examples of Japanese words taken from English and German respectively. Many non-Japanese names are spelled using katakana as well!

Katakana is also used often used for onomatopoeic words, which are words that imitate sounds, such as “pikapika” (sparkling), “gacha” (clacking sound), or “wanwan” (dog’s bark).

Katakana can also be used to emphasize words, similar to how words might be italicized or bolded in English. You can usually see this more in signs or advertisements, like メガネ, megane (glasses) or ラーメン (raamen, glasses).

Long Vowels and Double Consonants in Katakana

Long vowels in katakana are so much simpler than hiragana. All long vowel sounds are denoted by a simple dash: ー.

For example, the word “アート” (aato), meaning “art”, has a long “a” sound represented by the horizontal line over the “a” character.

Double consonants in Katakana are represented using a small “tsu” character (ッ) just like in Hiragana. For example, the word “バッグ” (baggu), meaning “bag”, has a double “g” sound represented by the small “tsu” character.

Example of Katakana

Remember the pet with the funny name? Let’s take another look at that sentence, this time adding in katakana – try to guess where the katakana will be!

わたしのペットのなまえは ボブ です。 Watashi no petto no namae wa bobu desu.

Did you guess petto and bobu ? Both of these words are English loanwords and names, so they would be written in katakana. Including katakana when writing Japanese is also a great way to make the words easier to distinguish from each other; writing in all hiragana could make it hard to tell words apart – since Japanese doesn’t normally use spaces!

Difference between Hiragana and Katakana

Why are there 2 syllabic Japanese scripts? In the event that the difference is stylistic, you will learn that hiragana is used to write native Japanese words. Those words will have no kanji representation or the ideogram is too ancient or too difficult to write. This kana script is also the one used to write grammatical elements such as particles: を (wo)、に (ni)、へ (he;e)、が (ga)、は (ha)..

On the contrary, the Japanese use katakana to write words of foreign origin and foreign names. If you like to read manga in Japanese, you will have certainly noticed that katakana is also used to represent onomatopoeia and emphasis.

Have you heard of the word “furigana”? Furigana is hiragana and katakana characters written in small forms above kanji in order to show the pronunciation. Furigana is used in kids’ books and Japanese language textbooks for learners, in order to teach the reading of unknown kanji.

Japanese Writing System #3: Kanji                                                               

Kanji is usually the last system to be learned, even for native Japanese speakers! Kanji are Chinese characters and were Japan’s first writing system. They were first introduced to Japan over 1,500 years ago; hiragana and katakana actually evolved from these symbols!

Kanji are complex characters that represent words or ideas, and they form the backbone of the Japanese writing system. In fact, it is estimated that there are over 50,000 kanji characters, although only a fraction of those are commonly used.

Reading Kanji

Kanji is different from hiragana and katakana in that there are multiple ways to pronounce a single character. This is because there is a Chinese way to read a character (called the on-yomi ) and a Japanese way (the kun-yomi ). The on-yomi was the original way, but when kanji started to be used to write native Japanese words, new pronunciations were added 1 . So, if you see a character pronounced one way in one word, but differently in another, this is why!

Writing Kanji

All kanji are made up of one or more radicals . A radical is simply a small symbol that, either by itself or when combined with other symbols, makes up a complete kanji character. Take for instance the radical 一. By itself, this is the complete kanji for ichi (one). But, it can be added with the radical亅to form the kanji 丁! There are 214 total radicals used in 13 different positions when forming kanji, though some radicals and positions are used more frequently than others. If you think of all kanji as being made up of these smaller radicals, then they will be easier to learn!

There are roughly four main types of kanji, based on how and why the radicals are arranged 1 :

1. Pictograms

These kanji originally came from pictures, simply drawing the object itself to represent it in writing 1 . It’s like writing “😊” to represent “smiley face” – just like emojis today! Take a look at 山 ( yama, mountain) for example; doesn’t the character 山 remind you of how a mountain looks, with a pointy peak at the top?

2. Simple Ideograms

These kanji originally used lines and dots to “represent numbers or abstract concepts. 1 ” So, instead of drawing an object, you would try to visually represent the idea you wanted to convey. Take “up” and “down” for instance; drawing a dot above a line could represent “up” while a dot below a line would signify “down.” This is where 上 ( ue , up) and 下 ( shita , down) came from 1 !

3. Compound Ideograms

Basically, these are kanji formed by combining two or more simpler kanji 1 . The kanji used in 休む ( yasumu , to rest), for example, is a combination of 人 ( hito , person [often written as ⺅ when used as a radical]) and 木 ( ki , tree) 1 . A lot of the time, the two simpler kanji are chosen because of their connection to the resulting character. For休, a person leaning against a tree would be resting – which is why 人and 木 were chosen to form this character!  

4. Phonetic-ideographic Characters

These kanji are usually found when a character’s original on-yomi sounded like a native Japanese word, but the kanji associated with the sound didn’t represent the word’s meaning. So, to remedy this, those in the past added an additional kanji to clarify the meaning. In other words, these kanji are formed by combining one kanji that has the word’s pronunciation and another kanji that represents the word’s meaning. One example of this is the character for sei (clean). Water is generally associated with cleaning, so the kanji for water水 ( mizu , often written as ⺡) is added to the kanji 青 ( sei , blue) to get 清 sei (clean).

As you can see, kanji are definitely more complex than hiragana or katakana, but don’t worry – there are plenty of simple kanji too! Plus, knowing the radicals and kanji types will help to make learning and remembering kanji easier . Knowing the stroke order , or the steps in which each character is written, can help make memorization easier too; check out this site to look up any kanji and see its stroke order (and other helpful information)!

Kanji is used for nouns, verb stems, and adjectives. So, kanji are used for most major words that you will encounter in everyday Japanese! While hiragana and katakana are crucial, you also can’t rely on just those when reading and writing; you have to learn kanji as well!

Let’s take one last look at Bob, this time reading the sentence as it would be written in everyday Japanese:

私のペットの名前はボブです。 Watashi no petto no namae wa bobu desu.

Well, using kanji certainly makes the Japanese sentence shorter! In this case, the pronoun watashi (I) and the noun namae (name) use kanji. If there was a different verb in this sentence (like “look” or “ate”), then there would most likely be kanji there as well. Finally, using these new symbols makes the sentence even easier to read, as they are visually quite different than hiragana or katakana!

While all of this might seem overwhelming at first, it’s nothing you can’t handle with a little practice! Simply writing the kanji out is a great way to see how the radicals work together and to memorize their combinations; but, if you’re looking for something a little bit more high-tech, there are also some kanji apps we recommend you can use to practice as well!

Well, we certainly covered a lot of ground today! Let’s review everything to make sure you remember what we learned.

Japanese has three types of writing systems: hiragana , katakana , and kanji . Hiragana is curvy, represents small syllables, and is used for grammatical information, particles, and native Japanese words! Katakana is straight, also represents small syllables, and is used for loanwords from other languages. Kanji are complex characters made up of radicals, represent a concept, a sound, or a mixture of the two, and are used for nouns, verb stems, and adjectives.

And those are the main points! Not so bad, right? You are now ready to start reading and writing Japanese like a pro! If you feel like you need more help though, feel free to reach out to us or join one of our many Japanese language classes here !

Want to learn Japanese online, in Tokyo or Yokohama? Contact us to get started!

What is the japanese writing system.

The Japanese writing system uses three scripts: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

What is Hiragana used for?

Hiragana is used to represent native Japanese words, grammatical particles, and verb endings.

What is Katakana used for?

Katakana is used to represent foreign words, loanwords, onomatopoeic words, and emphasis.

How many characters are there in Hiragana and Katakana?

There are 46 characters in each of the Hiragana and Katakana scripts.

How many kanji do you need to know to be fluent?

To be considered fluent in Japanese, you need to learn somewhere from  1500 to 2500 kanji characters  

What is the ABC's in Japanese?

There is no such thing as the Japanese alphabet, but the closest thing would be called hiragana and katakana.

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Japanese Letters

The Japanese language has three types of characters: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic symbols, each representing one syllable while Kanji is ideogram, each stand for certain meaning.

Speaking and listening, right here .

Click each character for more

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About Hiragana

Hiragana is Japanese writing system along with kanji and katakana . 

Hiragana characters are relatively simple in form and are written with fewer strokes. Each hiragana character represents a single syllable .

For example : The hiragana character " ね " represents the syllable " ne ," and the character " こ " represents the syllable " ko ." and when you combine these two hiragana " ねこ ," it will read " ne ko " and it means cat.

By combining these characters together, it is possible to write any word in Japanese using the hiragana writing system.

Hiragana is an important part of the Japanese writing system and is essential for anyone learning to read and write in Japanese.

Types of Hiragana

46 Primary Hiragana

Primary Hiragana are classified into five groups based on the position of the vowel sound in relation to the consonant sound that precedes it. 

Dakuon & Handakuon

Voiced Consonants

Dakuon (濁音) characters are hiragana characters that represent voiced consonant sounds. For example, the character が ( ga ) is a dakuon character that represents the sound " ga ," as opposed to the unvoiced consonant sound represented by the character か  ( ka ).

Handakuon (半濁音) characters are hiragana characters that represent a semi-voiced sound; p-sound. ぱ (pa) ぴ (pi) ぷ (pu) ぺ (pe) ぽ (po).

Y-vowel Sounds

Yo-on (拗音) characters are hiragana characters that represent a combination of a consonant sound and one of the three y-sounds: や (ya), ゆ (yu), or よ (yo).  They are created by attaching a small, half-size version of the y-sound to the basic hiragana character  as you can see in the Hiragana Pronunciation table.

For example, the character きゃ (kya) is a yo-on character that represents the sound " kya ," as opposed to the consonant sound represented by the character き  (ki) followed by the y-sounds や (ya).

Double Consonants

Sokuon (促音) or a small Tsu is a half-sized hiragana character つ (tsu) that is used to represent a doubled consonant sound in the Japanese language. It is written immediately after the consonant sound and indicates that the initial consonant of the following syllable is doubled.

Hiragana Glyphs

Get your free Hiragana glyphs here! This downloadable sheet is designed to fit on a standard copy paper size, so you can easily print it out. Simply click the download button and start practicing your Hiragana characters today!

Hiragana Pronunciation

Click hiragana to listen to the sounds..

PRIMARY HIRAGANA

Primary Hiragana are classified into five groups based on the position of the vowel sound in relation to the consonant sound that precedes it.

あいうえおかきくけこ 

Voiced variations.

DAKUON & HANDAKUON

がぎぐげご ぱぴぷぺぽ

Combined sounds.

Yōon (拗音) characters are hiragana characters that represent a combination of a consonant sound and one of the three y-sounds: や (ya), ゆ (yu), or よ (yo).  They are created by attaching a small, half-size version of the y-sound to the basic hiragana character  as you can see in the Hiragana Pronunciation table.

For example, the character しゃ (sha) is a yo-on character that represents the sound " sha ," as opposed to the consonant sound represented by the character し  (shi) followed by the y-sounds や (ya).

じゃじゅじょみゃみゅみょ

Double consonants.

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Hiragana Course: 10-Day Challenge

Learn Hiragana: Day-1 Vowels

Learn Hiragana: Day-2 K-Line (Ka gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-3 S-Line (Sa gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-4 T-Line (Ta gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-5 N-Line (Na gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Midterm Test

Learn Hiragana: Day-6 H-Line (Ha gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-7 M-Line (Ma gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-8 Y-Line (Ya gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-9 R-Line (Ra gyō)

Learn Hiragana: Day-10 W-Line & Solo N (Wa gyō & N)

Learn Hiragana: Final Challenge Exam

Learn Hiragana: 61 Variations

Shop Hiragana Workbook & Worksheet

--------------, master japanese hiragana with our beautifully created workbooks our " hiragana i" workbook includes 46 primary hiragana to practice, while " hiragana ii"  workbook includes 30 dakuon/handakuon and 39 yo-on hiragana. both books are available in left-handed versions as well. improve reading and writing skills with our fun and effective practice workbooks..

Japanese Primary Hiragana Hard Cover

Japanese Primary Hiragana

Japanese Primary Hiragana Soft Cover

Japanese Primary Hiragana For Lefty Soft Cover

Japanese Primary Hiragana for Lefty

Katakana have the same sounds as Hiragana, it is mainly used to represent words imported from other languages; such as "Website", "Google", "Banana", and people's names, etc.

Most words in Japanese are written in Kanji. Kanji are Chinese characters adapted for Japanese, are heavily used in writing. and it has been evolving with Japan’s culture over the years.

FREE lessons at Romaji Hub! Learn the basic sounds, rules, and practice exercises of Romaji. With our Romaji Mastery Quiz, you'll be able to test your understanding and improve your skills. 

Learn Hiragana: The Ultimate Guide Memorize hiragana in hours or days, not weeks or months.

June 30, 2014 • words written by Koichi • Art by Aya Francisco

To learn hiragana is to create a foundation for the rest of your Japanese. By learning hiragana, you will learn the basics of Japanese pronunciation. It will also open doors in terms of the Japanese resources you can use. There are no (good) Japanese textbooks or learning resources that don't require you to know hiragana. In essence, it's the first step to learn Japanese.

Many classes and individuals spend months learning hiragana. This is too long. You should be able to learn everything in a couple days. A week, tops. Some people have reported back that they could read all the hiragana after a few hours, using this method. How long it takes depends on you, but if you follow the steps laid out below, you'll come out the other side with the ability to read hiragana.

To make this possible, you will employ a few important methods.

Mnemonics: Due to hiragana's relative simplicity (at least compared to kanji), image-based mnemonics are a perfect method for memorization. Each hiragana character has a memorable illustration that goes along with it. For a long time I believed that mnemonics were a waste of time. If this is you, I recommend you give it a serious try. It's amazing what you are able to memorize when using a mnemonic method.

No Writing: "WHAT? NO WRITING!?" you scream. I know what you're thinking. But, think about it for a moment. When's the last time you actually wrote something by hand? Probably the last time you had to sign your name on a receipt at a restaurant. The need to write by hand is going down. Most of your written communication comes in the form of typing. Learning to read can be done very quickly and is very useful. Learning to write doubles or triples how long it takes to learn hiragana, with very little real-life benefit. It will be important to learn eventually, but for now you have more important fish to fry.

Exercises: After studying each column of hiragana, there are exercises for you to go through to review what you've just learned. They also happen to be very well thought out, too. If you do them, and you don't cheat (yourself), you will learn hiragana. In these exercises, you should do your best to force yourself recall items, even when you don't think you can come up with the answer. The more effort and strain you put into recalling something, the stronger of a memory your brain will end up building (as long as you actually recall it, that is).

For the most part, if you follow along and do everything that this hiragana guide says, you will learn the hiragana. It will be difficult not to.

Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Book

Before getting to it, I wanted to let you know that we also have Learn Hiragana Book — a PDF version of this Learn Hiragana content you can print or use on your tablet.

Although I would still focus on "being able to read hiragana" first, moving your hands to handwrite as well as to trace over the characters will help you associate the shape with the sound.

If hands-on practice sounds like your kind of studying method (or if you simply prefer going analogue), check out the book. It comes with extra practice on handwriting.

Tofugu's Hiragana Charts

As the first step, download this hiragana chart . It shows all the hiragana (including "variation" hiragana) you will be learning on this page. If you have a printer, print it out. If not, you can follow along digitally too.

Optionally, download the hiragana "mnemonic" chart . It's a handy chart that shows basic hiragana along their mnemonic images, which we'll be using on this page to help you remember the hiragana. Temporarily or not, it'll make a good replacement for the "Live, Laugh, Love" poster on your bathroom wall.

Hiragana Pronunciation

Next, learn how to pronounce the hiragana. Since hiragana pronunciation is such a listening and speaking thing, we made a video to cover this topic. Follow along.

When you can pronounce the five "vowel sounds" of hiragana, move on to the next section, where you'll learn to read them.

あ （ A ） い （ I ） う （ U ） え （ E ） お （ O ）

This is the first (and most important!) column in hiragana. It sets the pronunciation of every other column coming after it, because every other column is basically just the a-i-u-e-o column with consonants attached to them. The same basic sound repeats over and over and over, with a consonant plus these five vowel sounds, so make sure you have the right pronunciation for these five right from the start.

Shall we? No, that's okay, after you.

あ is pronounced like " ah !" like when you come to a realization. It also sounds like the a in "c a r."

To remember this kana, find the capital A inside of it. This "A" will tell you that this kana is also "a" aka あ. There is another similar kana, お, but that one doesn't have an "A" in it, which is how you can differentiate them.

い is pronounced like the ee in " ee l."

To remember this kana, just think of a couple of <u>ee</u>ls hanging out. They're upright because they're trying to mimic the letter "i" which also stands upright and also happens to be the way you spell out this character in romaji 1 .

う is pronounced like the oo in " oo h… ahhh!" when you're watching fireworks. In other words, it sounds like u in " U NO," the card game, or the number one in Spanish.

To remember this kana, notice the U shape right in it! It's sideways but it's there, telling you what this kana is. Be careful, there's another similar hiragana, つ, but that one isn't wearing a hat like U (you) are. Ooh, ahh, what a nifty hat!

え is pronounced like the e in " e gg."

To remember this kana, think of it like an <u>e</u>xotic bird. The feathery thing on its head gives it away that it's exotic and not normal. It also lays <u>e</u>xotic <u>e</u>ggs , because it's an exotic bird, after all.

お is pronounced like you're saying " oh ." It also sounds like the o in " o rigami."

Can you see the letter o in here, two times? This one looks similar to あ, except for its one key difference: there are two letter "o" symbols visible in there. Make sure you use this to differentiate this kana (お) and that similar kana (あ). This is one area of hiragana where a lot of people trip up, but by using this mnemonic you will be able to figure them out every time.

あいうえお Tasks

Now that you've put these kana into your brain (at least somewhat shakily) it's time to pull them out. Recall is the foundation of memory, and you're going to start doing just that. For each "tasks" section make sure you follow along perfectly. Skipping these steps may cause you to fail later on in the future. Having a strong base to build off of is important with each section.

• Head over to Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz . Select only the あ/a box under the "Main Kana" list, then hit "Start Quiz!" and keep practicing until you can get them all right.
• Print out, copy, or download this worksheet . You'll need to go through it, filling in the boxes with the romaji for the kana. Try your best not to cheat – even if you spend a while trying to remember a kana it will be beneficial to your memory (as long as you're able to recall it on your own). Looking up the answer doesn't help your memory at all, but struggle (with accomplishment) tells your brain that this is a thing worth remembering. Try using the mnemonics when you need to recall something you can't figure out right away. This should be fairly easy with only five kana (and maybe a little boring too), but when you're done move on to the next five hiragana.

か （ KA ） き （ KI ） く （ KU ） け （ KE ） こ （ KO ）

The next set of hiragana is from the "k-column." This is just the K sound plus the vowel sounds you learned above, making it ka-ki-ku-ke-ko. There are no weird exceptions in this column either, so enjoy it while you can.

か is just the K sound plus あ, making a ka sound. It's pronounced like ka in " ka rma."

See how this kana looks like a mosquito ? What a convenient coincidence. Mosquitos happen to be called か (<u>ka</u>) in Japanese. You also say " <u>cu</u>t it out, darn mosquito!" when they try to suck your blood, so that should be easy to remember.

き is just the K sound plus い, making a ki sound.

In fact, it sounds just like the word " key " which is the mnemonic we end up using.

To remember this, notice how much it resembles a <u>key</u> .

Note: In some fonts, the bottom part is detached from the main part. For example: <span class="ki-and-sa">き</span> . The pronunciation is still "ki" though!

く is just the K sound plus う, making a ku sound. It's pronounced "coo," like both syllables of the word " cu ckoo" (or just the first syllable, depending on your variety of English).

To remember this, think of this kana being the mouth of a <u>coo</u>-coo / <u>cu</u>ckoo bird popping out saying "ku ku, ku ku!"

け is just the K sound plus え, making a ke sound. It's pronounced like ke in " ke lp."

See how this kana resembles some wiggly <u>ke</u>lp ?

こ is just the K sound plus お, making a ko sound. It's pronounced like co in " co habitating." In British English, it is more like co in " co in."

こ is a couple of <u>co</u>-habitation worms. They're so happy together, co-habitating the same area! Alternatively, you could imagine a couple of short <u>co</u>rds laying on the ground next to each other.

かきくけこ Tasks

More tasks! This time we'll include the あいうえお column along with this "K-column" you just learned.

• Using Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , select the あ/a and か/ka boxes, and quiz yourself on those cards. How quickly can you identify and answer these ten hiragana characters? When you've completed this task at least five times, move on to the next step.
• Print out, copy, or download this worksheet . Complete it by filling in the blanks with the romaji for each of the kana. This time it will be both of the columns that you've learned (so far) so it should be a little more interesting (and half familiar).

Once again, when you get stuck just think back to the mnemonic before you cheat. When you're done you can move on to the next group.

さ （ SA ） し （ SHI ） す （ SU ） せ （ SE ） そ （ SO ）

Now that you have the "K-column" under your belt it's time for the "S-column." There is one weird exception in this column, and that's for "si" aka "shi." It's pronounced just like the word "she" in English, and doesn't quite follow the pattern you've seen up until now. You'll want to use "sa- shi -su-se-so" for this column.

さ is just the S sound plus あ, making a sa sound. It's pronounced like sa in " sa lsa."

Notice how this kana looks like two hands stirring a bowl of <u>sa</u>lsa . This salsa is so chunky and thick, you need two hands just to stir it!

Note: Like き, the bottom part of さ is detached from the main part in some fonts. For example: <span class="ki-and-sa">さ</span> .

し is just the SH sound plus い, making a shi sound. It's pronounced like shee in " shee p."

Take note that this is the first "exception" kana where it doesn't follow the patterns that show up everywhere else. Instead of being "si" it's "shi" (though you will see it written both ways when dealing with romaji. One more reason why you ought to just learn hiragana already).

This kana looks like a giant shepherd's crook used to herd <u>shee</u>p . Baaaa… get in that corral, sheep!

す is just the S sound plus う, making a su sound. It's pronounced like the word " sue ," or su in " su it."

See the <u>s</u>wing doing a loop-dee-loop throwing that poor kid off of it? Imagine him screaming "I'M GONNA SUE SOMEBODY FOR THIIIIIiiiissss" as he flies off into the distance.

せ is just the S sound plus え, making a se sound. It's pronounced like se in " se ll."

This kana looks like a mouth with a big vampire fang in it. Someone's trying to <u>se</u>ll you a <u>se</u>t of vampire teeth because they are just so <u>se</u>xy ! Oh Dracula, always trying to make a quick buck.

そ is just the S sound plus お, making a so sound. It's pronounced like so in " so da." In British English, it's more like so in " so ng."

See how this kana looks like a mouth slurping <u>so</u>da ?

さしすせそ Exercises

Now that we've done three sets of five, it's time for exercises! As usual, these exercises will help you to practice kana you've previously learned plus the ones you just learned.

• Back to Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz . Select the あ, か, and さ boxes and quiz them. Do this five times. Once you've done this, move on.
• Using this worksheet , print out, copy, or download it and fill out the boxes with the correct romaji. If you can't remember something try to think back to the mnemonic first before cheating.

When you're able to do these two tasks move on to the next five kana.

P.S. Have you noticed how in the worksheets you're being asked to wait 5 minutes then 10 minutes? Waiting is actually an important part of building memory. By waiting and then recalling something as it's fading away, you're telling your mind that it shouldn't forget that item. But, if you keep bringing it up over and over again in a short period of time your brain will just keep it in its short term memory, meaning you probably won't remember it later. Don't skip the waiting periods! In fact, if you think you can wait longer without forgetting much that's even better!

た （ TA ） ち （ CHI ） つ （ TSU ） て （ TE ） と （ TO ）

Time for the fourth column, the "T-column." Now you have a lot to remember! Hopefully mnemonics and the reasons for using them are starting to make sense now. If not, that should happen soon.

Like the さ column, you'll find an exception in the た column. In fact, you'll find two exceptions, them being ち (chi) and つ (tsu). So, for this column we'll have "ta, chi , tsu , te, to."

た is just the T sound plus あ, making a ta sound. It's pronounced like ta in " ta co."

Use your imagination and see this kana as a fork, <u>ta</u>co , and lime garnish for your taco. Wait… you're eating a taco with a fork? That's a bit weird, but you do you, pal.

ち is just the CH sound plus い, making a chi sound. It's pronounced like chee in " chee se."

This is the second "exception" hiragana. Instead of a "ti" sound, it's a "chi" sound. Try not to forget this.

You know when someone tells you to say " <u>chee</u>se " when taking a picture of you? This kana looks like that forced smile you have to make every time you're in a group photo.

つ is just the TS sound plus う, making a tsu sound. It's pronounced like tsu in " tsu nami."

This is another "exception" hiragana. Instead of saying "tu" you say "tsu."

Look at the swoosh of this hiragana. Doesn't it look like a big wave, or <u>tsu</u>nami ?

て is just the T sound plus え, making a te sound. It's pronounced like te in " te lescope."

Can you see a good ol' <u>te</u>lescope ? It's a hand-held one! In Japanese, "hand" is て (<u>te</u>) . That should help you remember that this kana looks like an old-school hand(te)-held telescope.

と is just the T sound plus お, making a to sound. It's pronounced like to in " to e." In British English, it sounds like "to" in " to p."

This kana looks just like someone's <u>to</u>e with a little nail or splinter in it. Imagine how much this would hurt if it was your toe!

たちつてと Exercises

Now that we have a few kana under our belt we'll be adding a third resource to our arsenal. Still, we'll start with something familiar. Just follow along.

• With Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , quiz yourself on the four columns that you know (あ, か, さ, た). When you've done it five times, move on to the next step.
• Copy, download, or print out this worksheet . Fill in all the blanks with romaji. Pay special attention to "exception" kana, like し, ち, and つ and write them out the way I showed you above to make sure that you know the proper reading. Not all romaji-styles will write these kana like this (you'll see "si, ti, and tu" too), but for now write "shi, chi, and tsu" just for the sake of associating the correct pronunciation with each of these particular kana.

When you've completed everything and feel like you can recall all 20 of these kana, move on to the next section. Now it's time to try ten at a time. You're getting better at this, after all!

な （ NA ） に （ NI ） ぬ （ NU ） ね （ NE ） の （ NO ）

This is your first "more than five things to learn" group. In fact, it's a whole ten things! But you'll be just fine. You're getting better at learning the hiragana with all this practice. Too bad there's not 150 hiragana for you to practice on.

な is just the N sound plus あ, making a na sound. It's pronounced like na in " na chos."

The <u>nu</u>n is praying in front of the cross asking for <u>na</u>chos , because she's craving a delicious snack. The cross up in the air should be the main giveaway that this is な.

に is just the N sound plus い, making a ni sound. It's pronounced like nee in " nee dle."

Do you see the <u>nee</u>dle pulling the thread?

ぬ is just the N sound plus う, making a nu sound. It's pronounced like noo in " noo dle."

This kana looks like some <u>noo</u>dles . There are several other kana that are similar to this one (れ, め, ね, わ), but you know this one is noodles because there are no sharp angles in it. It's 100% smooth and bendable, like noodles! It even has an extra loop at the bottom, because it is a noodle.

ね is just the N sound plus え, making a ne sound. It's pronounced like ne in " Ne lly."

This is <u>Ne</u>lly the cat. There are other kana very similar to this one (ぬ, れ, め, わ), but you know this is different. Why? Because it has a loop at the end for the tail, and it's not super bendable like ぬ (noodles) is — see those sharp corners on the left?

To top things off, Nelly is a <u>ne</u>cromancer . Why? I have no idea, you'll have to ask her. It must have something to do with the undead cat army she's creating.

Also, if you know the word <u>ne</u>ko (Japanese for "cat"), you can use that too. This is a ねこ.

の is just the N sound plus お, making a no sound. It's pronounced like no in " no se" or " no ri."

See the big pig <u>no</u>se there? You can also think of this as a " <u>No</u> Smoking " sign (the ones with the cigarette and the big red circle and slash through it). Pick the one that sticks with you the best.

は （ HA ） ひ （ HI ） ふ （ HU/FU ） へ （ HE ） ほ （ HO ）

Now let's look at the next five in this set. If you're feeling really shaky you can jump over to Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz to practice, but you don't have to (yet)!

は is just the H sound plus あ, making a ha sound. It's pronounced like ha in " ha ha" (like laughing!).

This kana looks like an uppercase letter H plus a lowercase letter a .

What does that spell? " <u>Ha</u> !"

Why are you laughing? Stop that. Make sure you can see the H + a in the kana.

ひ is just the H sound plus い, making a hi sound. It's like the English pronoun " he ." In other words, it sounds like he in " he at."

<u>He</u> has a big nose. See that big nose? Now say it out loud. " <u>He</u> has a big nose."

ふ is halfway between the F and H sounds, plus う, making a fu / hu sound. It's pronounced like a softly blown-out version of foo in " foo l," or sometimes hoo in " hoo p."

Someone is over there dancing like a <u>foo</u>l . What's that around their neck? …Oh, that's a <u>hu</u>la <u>hoo</u>p ! That's why they're twisting their body so hard.

へ is just the H sound plus え, making a he sound. It's pronounced like he in " he lp," or " He lens.

Do you know the famous mountain Mt. Saint <u>He</u>lens ? This kana isn't totally flat like Helens is, but it's pretty squat looking. That's why this one is Helens.

ほ is just the H sound plus お, making a ho sound. It's pronounced like ho in " ho e" or " ho ho ho!" In British English, it sounds more like ho in " ho t."

The line on the left is a chimney. The right side is a mutated Santa Claus. He has four arms, a snake tail, and no head. Out of his neck he's uttering " <u>ho</u> ho ho… ho ho ho… "

Hopefully he doesn't come down your chimney.

なにぬねのはひふへほ Exercises

Time to practice ten at a time! It's a lot, but you're getting better at learning these things, right?

• Using Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , quiz yourself on the hiragana from the あ, か, さ, た, な, and は columns. When you've completed this five times, move on to the next task.
• Copy, print out, or download this worksheet and fill in all the boxes. As always, use the mnemonics and try not to cheat. If this is starting to feel easy, try to time yourself to see how long it takes to complete each section and try to beat yourself each time.

When you are done with these exercises it's time to move on to the next set of hiragana.

ま （ MA ） み （ MI ） む （ MU ） め （ ME ） も （ MO ）

Not quite ten in this set (before the exercises), but close enough. Let's start with the "M-column."

ま is just the M sound plus あ, making a ma sound. It's pronounced like the English word " ma " (meaning "mother"). In other words, it sounds like ma in " ma rk."

Removing your head? Doubling your hands and arms? What sort of evil <u>ma</u>gic is this? What makes it weirder is that your <u>ma</u>ma is the one doing this magic. Imagine your <u>ma</u> looking like this. Aghh!

み is just the M sound plus い, making a mi sound. It's pronounced like the English word " me ." In other words, it sounds like mee in " mee t."

Looks like lucky number 21. Who just hit the blackjack? <u>Me</u> ! Who just turned 21 as well? <u>Me</u> !!

む is just the M sound plus う, making a mu sound. It's pronounced like what cows say in English: " moo ." In other words, it sounds like moo in " moo d."

" <u>Moo</u>oooo ", says the cow. " <u>MOO</u>OOOOO ."

め is just the M sound plus え, making a me sound. It's pronounced like me in " me ss.

Look at that beautiful eye! It's so beautiful because of the <u>ma</u>keup on it. Gotta look pretty in the eyes, or else your ensemble will just be " <u>me</u>h ."

If you also happen to know the word for "eye" in Japanese, that will help too. The word for "eye" in Japanese is just め (<u>me</u>) .

も is just the M sound plus お, making a mo sound. It's pronounced like mo in " mo re."

You want to catch <u>mo</u>re so you add <u>mo</u>re worms to your hook.

や （ YA ） ゆ （ YU ） よ （ YO ）

This column is a little strange. There are only three items in here, and "ye" and "yi" are seemingly missing. Actually, they used to exist but now they don't (instead people use い or え, because it sounds pretty similar). Because of that, you only have to learn three kana for this section!

や is just the Y sound plus あ, making a ya sound. It's pronounced like ya in " ya cht." In British English, it sounds more like ya in " ya k."

See how this kana looks like a <u>ya</u>cht with an anchor going down? It's even got a little flag on the rear… how cute.

Alternatively, you can
 think of や as the face
 of a <u>ya</u>k too.

ゆ is just the Y sound plus う, making a yu sound. It's pronounced like the English word " you ."

This kana is a very <u>u</u>nique looking fish! It looks like a big eyeball swimming in the water. What's it looking at? <u>You</u> , you big goofball! Isn't it weird how fish always look like they're staring at you?

よ is just the Y sound plus お, making a yo sound. It's pronounced like yo in " yo -yo." In British English, it's more like yo in " yo nder."

<u>Yo</u> , this kana looks like the letters Y & O ! And look, you can even play <u>yo</u>-yo with it. Look at it slide down and back up again… it's mesmerizing, yo.

まみむめもやゆよ Exercises

Time to practice these eight hiragana (and the previous ones as well). Once again, go through the steps to make sure you know everything well!

• Using Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , quiz yourself on the あ, か, さ, た, な, は, ま, and や columns. Once you've done this three times, move on to step two.
• Using this worksheet , copy, print out, or download it and write in all the boxes.

When you're all done, it's time to tackle the last "main hiragana" section. You're almost there! Not so hard, right?

ら （ RA ） り （ RI ） る （ RU ） れ （ RE ） ろ （ RO ）

Welcome to the last main set! It's only eight characters just like the last set, so hopefully it's not too bad. It does include the infamous ra-ri-ru-re-ro column though, which does tend to give some people trouble pronunciation-wise. Please be sure to check out our " how to pronounce the Japanese R " article for more information on this.

ら is just the R / L sound plus あ, making a ra / la sound. It's pronounced like a combination of " rah rah" (like cheering) and " la la la" (like singing!). To type or write it in romaji, use "r" and write "ra." The same goes for the rest of the R column. Use "r" when writing in romaji!

ら looks like a <u>ra</u>bbit that's standing and facing left. Look at its big droopy ears. So cute!

り is just the R /L sound plus い, making a ri / li sound. It's pronounced like a combination of ree in " ree d" and lee in " lee k."

The <u>ree</u>ds are swaying in the wind.

This kana can also be written without the connection in the middle, too, which makes it more reedlike in that case (I wanted to present the more difficult of the two versions here, though).

る is just the R / L sound plus う, making a ru / lu sound.　It's pronounced like a combination of ru in " ru le" or " rou te" and loo in " loo p."

The is like ろ (you'll learn it in a second) except it has a loop at the end. る is a crazier <u>rou</u>te . There is a <u>loo</u>p at the end. Are there no rules on this road?

れ is just the R /L sound plus え, making a re / le sound. It's pronounced like a combination of re in " re tch" and le in " le d."

This looks like a guy kneeling on the ground, <u>re</u>tching up his dinner.

This kana is similar to め, わ, ぬ, and ね. What makes this one different is the curve at the back. You can identify this as the guy's knees bending, which makes it clear that he's keeled over retching his guts out.

ろ is just the R / L sound plus お, making a ro / lo sound. It's pronounced like a combination of ro in " ro ad" and lo in " lo ad." In British English, it's more like ro in " ro t" or lo in " lo ng."

This is the counterpart to る, except this one doesn't have a loop at the end. So this kana is just a plain old <u>ro</u>ad .

わ （ WA ） を （ WO ） ん （ N ）

And finally, the last group. This is a weird one. It includes わ (which is quite normal), を (which is pronounced just like お, but is primarily used as a particle), and ん (which is the only consonant-only character in all the kanaa). Let's go through them one by one.

わ is just the W sound plus あ, making a wa sound. It's pronounced like wa in " wa sabi."

This kana looks like a <u>wa</u>sp flying straight up.

It looks similar to れ, ぬ, ね, and め. And it looks especially similar to ね. You know ね is Nelly the cat because of the curl of the tail on the end. So you can imagine the cat chasing this wasp, which is why it's flying straight up to get away. Its butt is also a straight, sharp line. This is its stinger!

を is pronounced like o in " o rigami" — just like the vowel お. It used to be pronounced like "wo," but now it sounds exactly like お. Why two kana for the o sound, you wonder? Unlike お, を is primarily used as a grammar element called a " particle ." It marks the object of a sentence.

In romaji, both "o" or "wo" are used for を. To type it, write "wo."

" <u>Who</u>a! " yells the guy with no chin. Someone threw a boomerang into his mouth! That's pretty " <u>who</u>a "-worthy, I think.

ん is just the N sound, that's it. It's the only kana that consists of a single consonant. It's pronounced like the ending n sound in "pen."

In romaji, write "n." To type it, you sometimes have to type "nn." Type double "n"s, especially before vowels and y, so that it won't turn into another kana that starts with n.

This kana looks just like the lowercase n in English. They happen to be the same sounds, as well. How convenient! nnnんんん.

らりるれろわをん Exercises

This is the last of the main hiragana. The exercises will now cover quite a bit (you know quite a bit!), so make sure you understand and know everything before moving on.

• Using Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , quiz yourself on all of the main hiragana. Try to do it as quickly as you can.
• Using this worksheet , fill in all the blanks. You know the drill!

That will finish out all the main hiragana. From here on out it's just combinations of kana or variations on kana you already know, which makes things both easier and harder. Let's start with the "variation hiragana," also known as…

Dakuten & Han-Dakuten

Dakuten is a symbol that looks like this → ゛. Looks like a double quotation mark, right?

This dakuten symbol marks hiragana from certain consonant columns and changes their pronunciation. It turns the consonant into a "voiced" or "vibrating" sound, which just means your vocal cords vibrate when the sound is made. Let's take a closer look at each so that you know what I mean by that!

が （ GA ） ざ （ ZA ） だ （ DA ） ば （ BA ） ぱ （ PA ）

Luckily for you, there are only five rows of dakuten kana to learn, and all you have to learn is what the sound changes to (since you know the kana already). Let's go over each of those dakuten transformations.

Every kana in the か column can have dakuten. When this happens, the K sound becomes a G sound.

Because you know the か column already, all you really need to remember is that K → G. Think of it this way:

The <u>ca</u>r (か) runs into the <u>gua</u>rd (が) rail.

When something from the さ column gets dakuten, it changes to a Z sound, with the exception of し (which is already an exception, so this makes sense!). Although じ sounds more like "JI" than "ZI," keep in mind both spellings work when you type. The same goes for other combination hiragana that use じ — You can either use J or Z for typing characters like じゅ, for example.

All you have to remember is that S → Z, except in the case of し, which goes to じ. Exceptions will breed exceptions, so make sure you keep this in mind. To remember the S → Z part, though, consider the following mnemonic:

My <u>sa</u>w (さ) just <u>za</u>pped (ざ) me when I tried to use it. (imagine yourself trying to use a saw/さ and getting zapped/ざ).

Do you remember what the K-column converts to? Do you remember what the S-column converts to? What is the exception in the S-column? When you're able to answer all that, move on to the next dakuten set.

The T-column kana change to D sounds, except for the exceptions (which are ち and づ). Remember: Exception breeds exception!

Note: If you're typing, write "di."

Note: If you're typing, write "du."

Take a look at ぢ and づ again. Although they used to be pronounced differently (more like "dzi" and "dzu"), nowadays, ぢ and づ are pronounced exactly like じ and ず. However, in written form, they're still used for sounds that originated from ち and つ. So bear in mind that if you want to type ぢ and づ, you'll need to type "di" and "du" — not "zi" and "zu."

To remember that the た column changes to become the だ column, think of it this way:

Changing these kana to the dakuten versions is a bit like magic… "<u>TADA</u>!" (た & だ)

Do you remember what the K-column changes to? Do you remember what the S-column changes to? What about the T-column? Do you remember the three exceptions we've run into so far? If you can answer all of those questions it's time to move on to the last dakuten set, which is really two sets in one.

The H-column is a bit strange. It has two different kinds of symbols that can be applied to it. One is the regular dakuten — that "quotes" symbol you've seen so far. The other is called han-dakuten, a little circle like this → ゜. This han-dakuten makes phonetically voiceless sounds: unlike voiced sounds (dakuten sounds), your vocal cords don't vibrate when you make them. Han-dakuten only applies to H sounds and turn them into P sounds so it should be easy to remember, though.

は　→　ば (ba), ぱ (pa)

ひ　→　び (bi), ぴ (pi)

ふ　→　ぶ (bu), ぷ (pu)

へ　→　べ (be), ぺ (pe)

ほ　→　 ぼ (bo), ぽ (po)

You have to remember that the H-column goes to both a B and a P sound. What a pain. Think of it this way:

You're saying " <u>ha</u>haha (は) " at the <u>ba</u>r (ば) , because you've been drinking too much.

You say " <u>ha</u>haha (は) " so much at the bar that somebody <u>pu</u>nches (ぱ) you.

Imagine through that story with you being the one saying "hahaha" (i.e. you're laughing) a couple of times, trying to get the details as vivid as possible (especially the details that have to do with laughing, the bar, and getting punched).

To help you a little more, you can remember that the P-column is the one that uses the little circle. Why? Because that little circle is like a little fist that's about to punch you.

Before moving on, try to recall the mnemonics we used for the following (and remember what each converts to):

か　→ さ　→ た　→ は　→ は　→

When you're able to do and recall everything, it's time to practice and see how good you really are!

Dakuten Practice

This practice will mainly focus on dakuten but also include all the kana you've learned up until this point.

• Using Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz , select only the dakuten hiragana and drill those for 5-10 minutes until you feel somewhat comfortable.
• Now, add in all the other kana, mixed in with the dakuten kana.
• Using this worksheet , fill in all the blanks.

When you're all done with that you should know all the kana fairly well, some better than others. I imagine there will be a few nagging "difficult" kana for you (it will depend on each individual which kana these are), but over time as you use hiragana and read more everything will get easier and easier. The whole point of this guide is to help you to get you reading, making it so you can use various other resources to continue your Japanese study.

Combination Hiragana

There's only one more section to complete. You're not really learning much that's new here, but you are going to learn how to combine different types of kana together to make some new sounds. Mainly, we're going to focus on what small ゃ, ゅ, and ょ can do to kana from the い row (that includes き, し, じ, に, etc). In other words, what we are combining are these two elements:

Kana from the い (I) row. This also means kana that end with an I-sound when written in romaji, which are: き (k i ) - し (sh i ) - ち (ch i ) - に (n i ) - ひ (h i ) - み (m i ) - り (r i ) - ぎ (g i ) - じ (j i ) - ぢ (j i ) - び (b i ) - ぴ (p i ) Note the vowel い itself won't apply here!

The small ゃ - ゅ - ょ The small versions of や (ya) - ゆ (yu) - よ (yo). Look closely to see how they're almost half the size of the regular kana: やゃ ゆゅ よょ

Now you know what to combine, here's how to combine them. What's important in this process is you drop the I-sound that comes from the い-row kana. For example:

き + ゃ → KIYA → KYA

じ + ょ → JIYO → JYO

See how the "i" gets dropped and it just becomes one syllable of sound? Here's a list of them all:

きゃ、きゅ、きょ　→　KYA, KYU, KYO

ぎゃ、ぎゅ、ぎょ　→　GYA, GYU, GYO

しゃ、しゅ、しょ　→　SHA, SHU, SHO

じゃ、じゅ、じょ　→　JYA, JYU, JYO (or JA, JU, JO)

ちゃ、ちゅ、ちょ　→　CHA, CHU, CHO

ぢゃ、ぢゅ、ぢょ　→　DYA, DYU, DYO (you'll never see these, pretty much ever)

にゃ、にゅ、にょ　→　NYA, NYU, NYO

ひゃ、ひゅ、ひょ　→　HYA, HYU, HYO

びゃ、びゅ、びょ　→　BYA, BYU, BYO

ぴゃ、ぴゅ、ぴょ　→　PYA, PYU, PYO

みゃ、みゅ、みょ　→　MYA, MYU, MYO

りゃ、りゅ、りょ　→　RYA, RYU, RYO

Combination Hiragana Practice

With this knowledge it's time to practice. I've made a worksheet that covers these combination kana. Go through it and fill in all the blanks.

When you're done, you should be able to read almost everything that hiragana throws at you. Everything except one little thing…

Small Tsu (っ)

The small tsu is a weird little thing but we'll make sense of it. This kana doesn't have a sound. Instead, it adds a quick little pause before a consonant sound in a word. The easiest way to think of it is to call it a "double consonant." That is because the consonant after a small っ is written twice when writing in romaji. Let's take a look at how the following hiragana converts to romaji.

したい → shitai

しったい → shit_tai

かっこ → kak_ko

いった　→　it_ta

See how that worked? したい is just plain "shitai" without the small っ. But when you add it in, it becomes shittai . The small っ that comes before the "ta" causes the consonant to double, making it "shit_tai." Make sure you understand how that works with kako/kakko too.

In terms of pronunciation, did you hear that small pause where the small っ exists? Let's take a look at another example:

いっしょ → ish_sho

You will hear both of the consonants as separate sounds. One that ends the first part of the word, and one that starts the second half (with the small っ) showing you where that half point is.

For a while it will probably be difficult to distinguish a small っ and a large つ, especially in handwriting. After you get more experience and read a lot more you'll be able to make this distinction quite easily.

Additional Practice

Although you could probably go out into the real world and practice hiragana on your own, I thought I'd provide for you some ways to practice your newfound skills. I wouldn't recommend doing everything here all at once but instead spread it out over the course of a couple weeks. Spacing your practice is very important if you want to get better at something more quickly. Doing all this at one time won't be all that effective. Luckily you can always start working on other parts of Japanese in the meantime while you continue to practice hiragana.

We made a couple more worksheets for you to download/copy/print out. They're a little different from before though. This time they're real sentences and we're not keeping track of what kana we're using, so it's a bit more like real life. You'll still want to put the romaji above the kana and read each kana out loud. Don't worry too much about meaning, that's not what we're learning right now and it will definitely be way above your ability level.

• Hiragana Practice #1
• Hiragana Practice #2

When you finish those, I bet you'll be feeling pretty special, like some kind of hiragana master. If you don't, there's always more ways to practice.

Apps & Other Programs

There are plenty of apps and resources out there to help you drill as well. Some of them you've seen already because of this guide, others you have not.

• Tofugu's Learn Hiragana Quiz
• Anki (you'll need to download a hiragana deck)
• Dr. Moku's Hiragana Mnemonics (in case our mnemonics aren't doing it for you)

I'm sure there are plenty of other resources out there as well, but this should be good enough to get you to that level where you can start using the hiragana with other resources.

"Real Life" Practice

Of course, if you'd like to practice more there are plenty of "real life" ways to practice hiragana. Just go to any Japanese website and read all the hiragana that you can find. If anything it will teach you to differentiate between kanji, katakana, and hiragana, which is a nice skill to have. Try the NHK NEWS WEB EASY , or any of these graded readers .

Moving On Practice

After learning hiragana to a moderately slow level, you don't have to keep drilling it until it's fast. In fact, you can just move on to something else. Hiragana will keep popping up just about everywhere, so by learning something new you're actually reviewing the hiragana at the same time!

Hiragana is only the start of things to come. You have so much more to do and hiragana will help you to get there. Although the answer to the question "what's next" is going to be somewhat vague / dependent on the individual, here are some suggestions to move you along your way.

I do highly recommend that you get started on kanji right away. A lot of people think they should wait until they have a higher level of Japanese but that is usually a terrible idea. Being good at kanji speeds up just about every other facet of learning the Japanese language, from grammar to reading to speaking to listening. If you're weak at kanji you'll be weaker at everything else. Many people think kanji is difficult, but we made WaniKani to show that it's not as hard as people think.

At the same time as kanji it's worth learning katakana. Katakana won't come up nearly as much especially at a really early stage of Japanese, but it's not rare enough to ignore. If you liked this guide to hiragana, check out our guide for learning katakana . It's just as stellar.

Along with kanji or after you have a foundation in kanji, it's time to learn some Japanese grammar. There are many resources to help you to do this. There are sites like Tae Kim's Guide To Japanese as well as textbooks ( we like the Genki series ). We also have a collection of our own grammar references on this Tofugu website as well.

I hope this guide helped you to learn hiragana effectively and quickly! Keep working hard and you'll continue to get better and better. With hiragana you have the tools to start your Japanese studies no matter what resource or textbook you end up choosing, so try a lot of things and see what works for you. Feel free to check out some of our reviews on Japanese resources !

P.S. We're working on adding videos to this guide, so check back occasionally if you're having trouble with pronunciation (because videos will help a lot with that!).

A system that transliterates Japanese into English letters.  ↩

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Transition Words and Phrases for Japanese Essays  

  June 9, 2020

By   Alexis Papa

Are you having a hard time connecting between your ideas in your Japanese essay? In this article, we have listed useful transition words and phrases that you can use to help you let your ideas flow and have an organized essay.

Japanese Phrases for Giving Examples and Emphasis

For example,

がいこく、たとえばちゅうごくへいったことがありますか。 Gaikoku, tatoeba Chuugoku e itta koto ga arimasu ka?

Have you been abroad, for instance China?

たぶんちゅうごくへいったことがあります。 Tabun Chuugoku e itta koto ga arimasu.

I have probably been to China.

Japanese Essay Phrases: General Explaining

しけんにごうかくするのために、まじめにべんきょうしなきゃ。 Shiken ni goukaku suru no tame ni, majime ni benkyou shinakya.

In order to pass the exam, I must study.

あしたあめがふるそう。だから、かさをもってきて。 Ashita ame ga furu sou. Dakara, kasa wo motte kite.

It seems that it will rain tomorrow. So, bring an umbrella.

Showing Sequence

まず、あたらしいさくぶんのがいせつをしようとおもう。 Mazu, atarashii sakubun no gaisetsu wo shiyou to omou.

First, I am going to do an outline of my new essay.

つぎに、さくぶんをかきはじめます。 Tsugi ni, sakubun wo kaki hajimemasu.

Then, I will begin writing my essay.

Adding Supporting Statements

かれはブレーキをかけ、そしてくるまはとまった。 Kare wa bureki wo kake, soshite kuruma wa tomatta.

He put on the brakes and then the car stopped.

いえはかなりにみえたし、しかもねだんがてごろだった。 Ie wa kanari ni mieta shi, shikamo nedan ga tegoro datta.

The house looked good; moreover,the (selling) price was right.

Demonstrating Contrast 

にほんごはむずかしいですが、おもしろいです。 Nihongo wa muzukashii desu ga, omoshiroi desu.

Although Japanese language is difficult, it is enjoyable.

にほんごはむずかしいです。でも、おもしろいです。 Nihongo wa muzukashii desu. Demo, omoshiroi desu.

Japanese language is difficult. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable.

にほんごはむずかしいです。しかし、おもしろいです。 Nihondo wa muzukashii desu. Shikashi, omoshiroi desu.

Japanese language is difficult. However, it is enjoyable.

にほんごはむずかしいですけれど、おもしろいです。 Nihongo wa muzakashii desu keredo, omoshiroi desu.

Japanese Essay Phrases for Summarizing

われわれはこのはなしはじつわだというけつろんにたっした。 Wareware wa kono hanashi wa jitsuwa da to iu ketsuron ni tasshita.

We have come to a conclusion that this is a true story.

Now that you have learned these Japanese transitional words and phrases, we hope that your Japanese essay writing has become easier. Leave a comment and write examples of sentences using these Japanese essay phrases!

Alexis Papa

Alexis is a Japanese language and culture enthusiast from the Philippines. She is a Japanese Studies graduate, and has worked as an ESL and Japanese instructor at a local language school. She enjoys her free time reading books and watching series.

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Home » Articles » How to Write in Japanese — A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Writing

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. ?

written by Caitlin Sacasas

Language: Japanese

Reading time: 13 minutes

Published: Apr 2, 2021

Updated: Oct 18, 2021

How to Write in Japanese — A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Writing

Does the Japanese writing system intimidate you?

For most people, this seems like the hardest part of learning Japanese. How to write in Japanese is a bit more complex than some other languages. But there are ways to make it easier so you can master it!

Here at Fluent in 3 Months , we encourage actually speaking over intensive studying, reading, and listening. But writing is an active form of learning too, and crucial for Japanese. Japanese culture is deeply ingrained in its writing systems. If you can’t read or write it, you’ll struggle as you go along in your studies.

Some of the best Japanese textbooks expect you to master these writing systems… fast . For instance, the popular college textbook Genki , published by the Japan Times, expects you to master the basics in as little as a week. After that, they start to phase out the romanized versions of the word.

It’s also easy to mispronounce words when they’re romanized into English instead of the original writing system. If you have any experience learning how to write in Korean , then you know that romanization can vary and the way it reads isn’t often how it’s spoken.

Despite having three writing systems, there are benefits to it. Kanji, the “most difficult,” actually makes memorizing vocabulary easier!

So, learning to write in Japanese will go a long way in your language studies and help you to speak Japanese fast .

Why Does Japanese Have Three Writing Systems? A Brief Explainer

Japanese has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The first two are collectively called kana and are the basics of writing in Japanese.

Writing Kana

If you think about English, we have two writing systems — print and cursive. Both print and cursive write out the same letters, but they look “sharp” and “curvy.” The same is true for kana. Hiragana is “curvy” and katakana is “sharp,” but they both represent the same Japanese alphabet (which is actually called a syllabary). They both represent sounds, or syllables, rather than single letters (except for vowels and “n”, hiragana ん or katakana ン). Hiragana and katakana serve two different purposes.

Hiragana is the most common, and the first taught to Japanese children. If this is all you learn, you would be understood (although you’d come across child-like). Hiragana is used for grammar functions, like changing conjugation or marking the subject of a sentence. Because of this, hiragana helps break up a sentence when combined with kanji. It makes it easier to tell where a word begins and ends, especially since Japanese doesn’t use spaces. It’s also used for furigana, which are small hiragana written next to kanji to help with the reading. You see furigana often in manga , Japanese comics, for younger audiences who haven’t yet learned to read all the kanji. (Or learners like us!)

Katakana serves to mark foreign words. When words from other languages are imported into Japanese, they’re often written in Japanese as close as possible to the original word. (Like how you can romanize Japanese into English, called romaji). For example, パン ( pan ) comes from Spanish, and means “bread.” Or from English, “smartphone” is スマートフォン ( suma-tofon ) or shortened, slang form スマホ ( sumaho ). Katakana can also be used to stylistically write a Japanese name, to write your own foreign name in Japanese, or to add emphasis to a word when writing.

Writing Kanji

Then there’s kanji. Kanji was imported from Chinese, and each character means a word, instead of a syllable or letter. 犬, read inu , means “dog.” And 食, read ta or shoku , means “food” or “to eat.” They combine with hiragana or other kanji to complete their meaning and define how you pronounce them.

So if you wanted to say “I’m eating,” you would say 食べます ( tabemasu ), where -bemasu completes the verb and puts it in grammatical tense using hiragana. If you wanted to say “Japanese food,” it would be 日本食 ( nipponshoku ), where it’s connected to other kanji.

If you didn’t have these three forms, it would make reading Japanese very difficult. The sentences would run together and it would be confusing. Like in this famous Japanese tongue twister: にわにはにわにわとりがいる, or romanized niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru . But in kanji, it looks like 庭には二羽鶏がいる. The meaning? “There are chickens in the garden.” Thanks to the different writing systems, we know that the first niwa means garden, the second ni wa are the grammatical particles, the third niwa is to say there are at least two, and niwatori is “chickens.”

Japanese Pronunciation

Japanese has fewer sounds than English, and except for “r,” most of them are in the English language. So you should find most of the sounds easy to pick up!

Japanese has the same 5 vowels, but only 16 consonants. For the most part, all syllables consist of only a vowel, or a consonant plus a vowel. But there is the single “n,” and “sh,” “ts,” and “ch” sounds, as well as consonant + -ya/-yu/-yo sounds. I’ll explain this more in a minute.

Although Japanese has the same 5 vowel sounds, they only have one sound . Unlike English, there is no “long A” and “short A” sound. This makes it easy when reading kana because the sound never changes . So, once you learn how to write kana, you will always know how to pronounce it.

Here’s how the 5 vowels sound in Japanese:

• あ / ア: “ah” as in “latte”
• い / イ: “ee” as in “bee”
• う / ウ: “oo” as in “tooth”
• え / エ: “eh” as in “echo”
• お / オ: “oh” as in “open”

Even when combined with consonants, the sound of the vowel stays the same. Look at these examples:

• か / カ: “kah” as in “copy”
• ち / チ: “chi” as in “cheap”
• む / ム: “mu” as in “move”
• せ / セ: “se” as in “set”
• の / ノ: “no” as in “note”

Take a look at the entire syllabary chart:

Based on learning how to pronounce the vowels, can you pronounce the rest of the syllables? The hardest ones will be the R-row of sounds, “tsu,” “fu,” and “n.”

For “r” it sounds between an “r” and an “l” sound in English. Almost like the Spanish, actually. First, try saying “la, la, la.” Your tongue should push off of the back of your teeth to make this sound. Now say “rah, rah, rah.” Notice how your tongue pulls back to touch your back teeth. Now, say “dah, dah, dah.” That placement of your tongue to make the “d” sound is actually where you make the Japanese “r” sound. You gently push off of this spot on the roof of your mouth as you pull back your tongue like an English “r.”

“Tsu” blends together “t” and “s” in a way we don’t quite have in English. You push off the “t” sound, and should almost sound like the “s” is drawn out. The sound “fu” is so soft, and like a breath of air coming out. Think like a sigh, “phew.” It doesn’t sound like “who,” but a soft “f.” As for our lone consonant, “n” can sound like “n” or “m,” depending on the word.

Special Japanese Character Readings and How to Write Them

There are a few Japanese characters that combine with others to create more sounds. You’ll often see dakuten , which are double accent marks above the character on the right side ( ﾞ), and handakuten , which is a small circle on the right side ( ﾟ).

Here’s how dakuten affect the characters:

And handakuten are only used with the H-row characters, changing it from “h” to “p.” So か ( ka ) becomes が ( ga ), and ひ ( hi ) becomes either び ( bi ) or ぴ ( pi ).

A sokuon adds a small っ between two characters to double the consonant that follows it and make a “stop” in the word. In the saying いらっしゃいませ ( irasshaimase , “Welcome!”), the “rahs-shai” has a slight glottal pause where the “tsu” emphasizes the double “s.”

One of the special readings that tend to be mispronounced are the yoon characters. These characters add a small “y” row character to the other rows to blend the sounds together. These look like ちゃ ( cha ), きょ ( kyo ), and しゅ ( shu ). They’re added to the “i” column of kana characters.

An example of a common mispronunciation is “Tokyo.” It’s often said “Toh-key-yo,” but it’s actually only two syllables: “Toh-kyo.” The k and y are blended; there is no “ee” sound in the middle.

How to Read, Write, and Pronounce Kanji Characters

Here’s where things get tricky. Kanji, since it represents a whole word or idea, and combines with hiragana… It almost always has more than one way to read and pronounce it. And when it comes to writing them, they have a lot more to them.

Let’s start by breaking down the kanji a bit, shall we?

Most kanji consist of radicals, the basic elements or building blocks. For instance, 日 (“sun” or “day”) is a radical. So is 言 (“words” or “to say”) and 心 (“heart”). So when we see the kanji 曜, we see that “day” has been squished in this complex kanji. This kanji means “day of the week.” It’s in every weekday’s name: 月曜日 ( getsuyoubi , “Monday”), 火曜日 ( kayoubi , “Tuesday”), 水曜日 ( suiyoubi , “Wednesday”), etc.

When the kanji for “words” is mixed into another kanji, it usually has something to do with conversation or language. 日本語 ( nihongo ) is the word for “Japanese” and the final kanji 語 includes 言. And as for 心, it’s often in kanji related to expressing emotions and feelings, like 怒る ( okoru , “angry”) and 思う ( omou , “to think”).

In this way, some kanji make a lot of sense when we break them down like this. A good example is 妹 ( imouto ), the kanji for “little sister.” It’s made up of two radicals: 女, “woman,” and 未, “not yet.” She’s “not yet a woman,” because she’s your kid sister.

So why learn radicals? Because radicals make it easier to memorize, read, and write the kanji. By learning radicals, you can break the kanji down using mnemonics (like “not yet a woman” to remember imouto ). If you know each “part,” you’ll remember how to write it. 妹 has 7 strokes to it, but only 2 radicals. So instead of memorizing tons of tiny lines, memorize the parts.

As for pronouncing them, this is largely a memorization game. But here’s a pro-tip. Each kanji has “common” readings — often only one or two. Memorize how to read the kanji with common words that use them, and you’ll know how to read that kanji more often than not.

Japanese Writing: Stroke Order

So, I mentioned stroke order with kanji. But what is that? Stroke order is the proper sequence you use to write Japanese characters.

The rule of stroke order is you go from top to bottom, left to right.

This can still be confusing with some complex kanji, but again, radicals play a part here. You would break down each radical top left-most stroke to bottom right stroke, then move on to the next radical. A helpful resource is Jisho.org , which shows you how to properly write all the characters. Check out how to write the kanji for “kanji” as a perfect example of breaking down radicals.

When it comes to kana, stroke order still matters. Even though they’re simpler, proper stroke order makes your characters easier to read. And some characters rely on stroke order to tell them apart. Take シ and ツ:

[Shi and Tsu example]

If you didn’t use proper stroke order, these two katakana characters would look the same!

How to Memorize Japanese Kanji and Kana

When it comes to Japanese writing, practice makes perfect. Practice writing your sentences down in Japanese, every day. Practice filling in the kana syllabary chart for hiragana and katakana, until there are no blank boxes and you’ve got them all right.

Create mnemonics for both kanji and kana. Heisig’s method is one of the best ways to memorize how to write kanji with mnemonics. Using spaced repetition helps too, like Anki. Then you’re regularly seeing each character, and you can input your mnemonics into the note of the card so you have it as a reminder.

Another great way to practice is to write out words you already know. If you know mizu means “water,” then learn the kanji 水 and write it with the kanji every time from here on out. If you know the phrase おはようございます means “good morning,” practice writing in in kana every morning. That phrase alone gives you practice with 9 characters and two with dakuten! And try looking up loan words to practice katakana.

Tools to Help You with Japanese Writing

There are some fantastic resources out there to help you practice writing in Japanese. Here are a few to help you learn it fast:

• JapanesePod101 : Yes, JapanesePod101 is a podcast. But they often feature YouTube videos and have helpful PDFs that teach you kanji and kana! Plus, you’ll pick up all kinds of helpful cultural insights and grammar tips.
• LingQ : LingQ is chock full of reading material in Japanese, giving you plenty of exposure to kana, new kanji, and words. It uses spaced repetition to help you review.
• Skritter : Skritter is one of the best apps for Japanese writing. You can practice writing kanji on the app, and review them periodically so you don’t forget. It’s an incredible resource to keep up with your Japanese writing practice on the go.
• Scripts : From the creator of Drops, this app was designed specifically for learning languages with a different script from your own.

How to Type in Japanese

It’s actually quite simple to type in Japanese! On a PC, you can go to “Language Settings” and click “Add a preferred language.” Download Japanese — 日本語 — and make sure to move it below English. (Otherwise, it will change your laptop’s language to Japanese… Which can be an effective study tool , though!)

To start typing in Japanese, you would press the Windows key + space. Your keyboard will now be set to Japanese! You can type the romanized script, and it will show you the suggestions for kanji and kana. To easily change back and forth between Japanese and English, use the alt key + “~” key.

For Mac, you can go to “System Preferences”, then “Keyboard” and then click the “+” button to add and set Japanese. To toggle between languages, use the command key and space bar.

For mobile devices, it’s very similar. You’ll go to your settings, then language and input settings. Add the Japanese keyboard, and then you’ll be able to toggle back and forth when your typing from the keyboard!

Japanese Writing Isn’t Scary!

Japanese writing isn’t that bad. It does take practice, but it’s fun to write! It’s a beautiful script. So, don’t believe the old ideology that “three different writing systems will take thousands of hours to learn!” A different writing system shouldn’t scare you off. Each writing system has a purpose and makes sense once you start learning. They build on each other, so learning it gets easier as you go. Realistically, you could read a Japanese newspaper after only about two months of consistent studying and practice with kanji!

Caitlin Sacasas

Content Writer, Fluent in 3 Months

Caitlin is a copywriter, content strategist, and language learner. Besides languages, her passions are fitness, books, and Star Wars. Connect with her: Twitter | LinkedIn

Speaks: English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish

Have a 15-minute conversation in your new language after 90 days

The Japanese Alphabet

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Hiragana - ひらがな

The first step to learning the Japanese language is to learn the alphabet. Or, at least, to learn the sounds that exist in the language.

There are absolutely no "tones" in Japanese like in many other Asian languages, and there are only 2 exceptions within the alphabet which will be explained later. The Japanese alphabet does not contain letters but, instead, contains characters and, technically, they are not an alphabet but a character set. The characters in the chart below are called Hiragana. Hiragana is the main alphabet or character set for Japanese.

Japanese also consists of two other character sets - Kanji (Chinese characters), which we will get into later, and another alphabet/character set, Katakana , which is mainly used for foreign words. Katakana will be covered in Lesson 2.

Don't wait to move on until you have all Hiragana characters memorized - learn them as you continue to go through the other lessons.

There are 5 vowels in Japanese.

• (a), pronounced "ahh"
• (i), pronounced like "e" in "eat"
• (u), pronounced like "oo" in "soon"
• (e), pronounced like "e" in "elk",
• (o), pronounced "oh".

All Hiragana characters end with one of these vowels, with the exception of (n). The only "consonant" that does not resemble that of English is the Japanese "r". It is slightly "rolled" as if it were a combination of a "d", "r", and "l".

Combinations

Here is a Printable Hiragana Chart (PDF - get Adobe Acrobat Reader ).

Exceptions:

• The Hiragana は (ha) is pronounced "wa" when it immediately follows the topic of the sentence. This character is usually only pronounced "ha" when it is part of a word.
• The Hiragana へ (he) is pronounced "e" when it immediately follows a place or direction. Both of these are very simple to detect.

In the classic Japanese language the "h" sound was pronounced like "w", "h", and "f" all put together. The sound for the "ha", "hi", "fu", "he", "ho" evolved one way and the particles, which sounded closer to "wa" and "we", went a different route. They finally ended up taking sounds slightly different then the hiragana was normally pronounced which were also sounds already found in the Japanese language so these two exceptions are often very confusing to outsiders.

Note: You probably noticed in the chart above that there are 2 characters pronounced "zu" and 2 characters pronounced "ji". The characters づ (zu) and ぢ (ji) are very rarely used. づ (zu) only occurs when there is a つ (tsu) in front of it like in つづく (tsuzuku - to continue) or when a Kanji (Chinese character) that has a reading which starts with つ (tsu) is paired at the end with another character changing the つ (tsu) to a づ (zu). The same applies for the Hiragana ぢ (ji). Since they are used so rarely I wouldn't worry about them too much. I will let you know whenever we come upon a word in which they are used.

Some people wonder why "yi", "ye", "wi", "wu", and "we" are missing. There aren't characters for "yi", "ye", or "wu". There is a ゐ (wi) and a ゑ (we) but these were deemed obsolete in 1946 and were replaced by い (i) and え (e) respectively.

For more detailed help on the subject of Kana (Hiragana and Katakana), we always recommend this Japanese course .

Furigana (振り仮名): A guide to reading hints in Japanese.

The longer you study something, the easier it is to forget things you learned when you first started studying. You can look at this in terms of loosing the “beginners mind” as you progress (that reminds me of a good book on Zen Buddhism here ). As a learner, this isn’t a big deal since if you stay fixed on every little detail that you have learned you’ll have trouble moving forward. But as a teacher, being unable to put yourself in the shoes of a beginner makes it harder to understand their challenges, and harder to teach them effectively.

The other day I was thinking about something when it suddenly dawned on me that I haven’t written a focused article on Japanese furigana , a particularly important part of the language for beginner and intermediate students. So I’d like to do that here.

Furigana––often written in kanji as 振り仮名, but also in hiragana as ふりがな, or in katakana as フリガナ––are reading hints that tell you about the pronunciation of a word or phrase in Japanese. Furigana is sometimes called “ruby” (ルビー), a term that derives from the size of a font once used in printed type.

For Japanese text that runs horizontally, the furigana is often above the word of phrase, though it can be below. For text that runs vertically, the furigana is generally on the left or the right. Unfortunately, representing furigana in the digital world can be tricky, and I don’t know of a good way to encode any of that type of layout in a way that is compatible across many different platforms and programs. (For a related article on how to remove furigana from a portion of text, see this .)

Because of the formatting issues, and how dealing with images can be cumbersome, in this post I will be simply putting furigana in brackets to the right of the word. For example:

• 僕は亀 [かめ] が好きです。

The part in bold above is the furigana, and tells us the kanji 亀 is read かめ (kame). If we happen to know かめ means “turtle”, that’s great, but if not we can still look up かめ easily in any dictionary.

This covers the most basic use of furigana, but there are some other inns and outs that I’d like to talk about.

First of all, when you have a verb, the furigana generally just covers the stem (left part) of the verb. The right part doesn’t require furigana since it is already in hiragana. (By the way, the right part of a verb is called 送り仮名, “okurigana”).

• マネージャは怠 [おこた] ってる.

While by far the most common use of furigana is to describe how to read a single kanji or a compound of kanji characters, you can even find furigana used for katakana in children’s books. The reason is that the children may have only learned hiragana at that point in their education. For example,

• うしはモウ [もう] といいました。

Kids books generally have furigana all over the place. In fact, often every kanji in a book targeting younger children will have furigana on it. This is good for students who are still struggling to learn the basic Joyo (standard) kanji.

Speaking of children’s books, one thing you will see in textbooks targeting a certain grade level is they will replace kanji the student doesn’t know with hiragana instead of using furigana. For example,

• せん生 は、はいといいました。

Personally, I find this a bit annoying and feel that both せんせい or 先生 are easier to understand, but I acknowledge the reasoning behind it.

Furigana can also be used to explain not just the pronunciation, but also the meaning of a word or phrase. One example is to explain the meaning of a foreign word, as in:

• トラップ [わな] をかける。

I remember seeing an example like the above on a Japanese Pokemon card very long ago, but I might be mixing things up. It might have actually been like this:

• わな [トラップ] をかける。

Here’s another example explaining a word from another language that the average Japanese person may not know:

• ボンジュール  [こんにちは] !

There are also less common ways to use furigana that you are bound to find if you do enough reading, like using kanji in the furigana––something I did in the image for this post for effect––or taking a single word and breaking it out into a whole long phrase in the furigana. You can sometimes even find romaji used in the furigana, or the word the furigana is describing. Authors can sometimes use furigana in creative ways, putting it where it doesn’t technically belong, for example:

• おい、そこの君 [ばか] ！

Here, while 君 would typically be read きみ, the author chose to use ばか (idiot) instead, possibly to emphasize the condescending tone of the speaker towards the other person. While I haven’t seen this exact example before, I have seen similar usage once in a while.

One important thing to know about furigana is that generally the “small” fonts are not properly represented. This might be because furigana is already generally small, and making it even smaller would hurt readability, or perhaps it is due to limitations in printing or operating systems. Regardless, this means you will often see things represented like this:

• 劣化 [れつか] ウラン

Here, the reading for 劣化 is actually れっか (rekka), but because of the limitation I just mentioned it may look like れつか. Fortunately, the small “tsu” is often represented in hiragana at the end of verbs (買った), or in the middle of other words (突っ込む), so this doesn’t happen too often.

Ultimately, the usage of furigana is up to the author, editor, and publisher. Adding furigana to a word can give a certain nuance to the text; putting furigana for words that high schoolers should know in an adult-targeted book would be a bit unusual. On the other hand, a story with an abundance of difficult kanji without readings can frustrate or alienate the reader. One area you are more likely to see furigana is first and last names, because names can contain unusual kanji and there can be various readings for one kanji or set of kanji. But usually furigana is only used for the first instance of a word, not for subsequence instances. (This gives you incentive to remember the furigana when you first come across it, to avoid having to come back to that page in the future.)

Despite how hard the content creators try, it’s impossible to get things perfect because every reader has different strengths and weaknesses with respect to kanji. I’ve read several books where I was surprised that “obvious” kanji had furigana, and (what I felt was) rare kanji did not.

If you look at older Japanese texts, for example those on Aozora Bunko that can be over 100+ years old, you’ll find even more inconsistent usage. I’ve seen stories with very difficult kanji (those not listed in several dictionaries) lacking even a single piece of furigana, and stories where practically every word has furigana on it.

Regarding the origin of the word “furigana”, the “kana” (仮名) part means katakana and furigana, and the “furi” part comes from the verb 振る (furu), which has a few meanings including “to shake”, ” to allot”, or “to sprinkle”. You can use also this verb to talk about furigana being written next to something. For example,

• その言葉には振り仮名が ふって あるでしょう？
• That word has furigana on it, right?

(For details on the “~te aru” form, see this article )

Fortunately, most beginning or intermediate students of Japanese will only need to know how to read furigana, which is pretty straightforward. Although choosing when to use furigana (and what furigana to use) can be pretty tricky, you won’t need it when writing emails, chatting, or even for many documents. You’ll primarily need it when working on printed media, where kanji lookup can be difficult. For content like internet pages, not only is furigana hard to represent neatly, but words are also easy to look up via cut and paste.

If you do need to make a document with cleanly-formatted furigana, one application that has basic furigana support is Microsoft Word. Simply select the text you want to add furigana to and click on the “Phonetic Guide” icon, near the font size setting on the top left. That is what I used to create the featured image for this post with.

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5 thoughts on “ Furigana (振り仮名): A guide to reading hints in Japanese. ”

I have always been confused how text is supposed to be read when the furigana doesn’t match. So you’re saying that the text in big font is what is actually said (or should be said, when reading out loud) and the furigana only gives a hidden or alternative meaning?

When reading out loud, I would say most of the time you would use the furigana text (if present). But in the rare cases where it is totally different, I think the most important thing is to understand the meaning of both words (furigana and the main word). As for what you would read aloud, that depends on the context. For example, rarely I have seen English words as furigana, and in cases like that I doubt many Japanese people would be able to pronounce the word correctly, so it might be best to pronounce the main word.

But in summary, I think furigana is used for two reasons: telling the reader how to pronounce a word (also related to what the meaning is), but also to provide extra information that might give the reader more of an idea what the author thought when using that word.

Yes, I’m specifically talking about cases where the furigana doesn’t match at all, like your 君[ばか] example. I see this from time to time in manga. Sometimes the furigana has the exact opposite meaning, sometimes it’s just a different word with the same meaning. Like for example この人[お兄さん].

In cases like that, you can just think of the furigana as an annotation, basically a way to let the reader know some additional information. I don’t think manga are generally read aloud, but if they were, regardless of which word you pick you cannot capture the entire nuance, so this is more for the reader than for a potential voice actor.

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購読者会員サイト Club Alphaへ

Essay 2024.9.6

Nancy Pelosi, the velvet fist ナンシー・ペロシの真の強さ

７月を振り返ると、私はアメリカのジョー・バイデン大統領の年齢にまつわる論争について書く準備が万端だった。バイデン大統領は、81歳であるにもかかわらず、再選に向けて立候補したいという意向を明らかにしていた。主要な民主党員の多くが彼に断念するように懇願したが、その考えを彼は拒否した。その後、７月20日にバイデン大統領はナンシー・ペロシ氏から電話を受けた。翌日、バイデン大統領は撤退した。今日のアメリカの政治で最もパワフルな女性であるペロシ氏自身は84歳だ。

ペロシというのは誰もが知る名前で、政界での数十年間に尊敬もされ、非難もされている。彼女は政治家の家庭で育ち、重要なのは票を数えることだということを早くに学んだ。５児の母であり、彼女は1987年にアメリカ連邦議会の議員に選出された。彼女は下院議長になった初の女性であり、議長に２回選ばれた。民主党における彼女の影響力は巨大である；４インチのヒールを履いたタフな戦士としての彼女の評判は伝説となっている。

効率的に資金を集め、恐れることなく話す人物として、彼女は静かに、両方の政党の議員から票を勝ち取った。2003年にジョージ・W・ブッシュ大統領にイラク侵攻を止めさせようとした彼女の試みは成功しなかったが、大量破壊兵器がなかったという事実は、彼女が正しかったということを証明した。バラク・オバマ大統領時代には、「オバマケア」（医療保険制度改革法）を可決させることで、数百万人のアメリカ人の医療制度を改善するための厳しい戦いに勝つ上で、彼女は重要な役割を果たした。

10年以上後に、彼女はインフラ包括法案と、気候変動や医療といった優先事項に関わる「インフレ抑制法案」を含む超党派の法制化を推進した。

ペロシ氏は、継続的にドナルド・トランプ氏を非難してきた。トランプ氏の当選後に彼と初めて会ったときに、ペロシ氏はトランプ氏に対抗した。彼は繰り返しの悪意のある侮辱的言動で仕返しをした。2020年の大統領選挙でトランプ氏が敗北したとき、彼はその選挙は盗まれたと主張した。彼の支持者たちが、2021年１月６日に国会議事堂を襲撃し、「ペロシ、ペロシ、我々はお前を攻撃しに行く！」と繰り返した。

彼女は下院議長として、彼女に反対する人からでさえもいつも票を勝ち取り、法案を可決させる人が誰もいなくてもまとまりを生み出すことができた。彼女は、党の重要事項に賛成票を得ることで、見込みがないとされるものを繰り返し救った。

彼女は連邦議会における女性の数を増やすことも助けた。1987年に、彼女は連邦議会のわずか26人の女性議員の１人だった。今年、女性議員の数は155人になっている。

バイデン大統領が撤退した主たる理由はナンシー・ペロシ氏ではないかと私は思っている。彼女はすぐに、新しい民主党の候補者としてカマラ・ハリス氏を支持した。そして、もしもハリス氏がトランプ氏を敗り、初の女性大統領になれば、ハリス氏は外柔内剛な在り方で自分の国のために戦う女性を手本にするだろう。

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