The Japanese language is well known for the sheer vastness of its writing system. Each of the thousands of characters have their own meaning and pronunciations. However, you’ll be relieved to know that the Japanese hiragana (ひらがな) alphabet is no more complex than the English alphabet—just a little larger.
This comprehensive guide will take you all the way from hiragana’s origins to its modern-day usage. Before you start, familiarizing yourself with the basics of Japanese pronunciation will go a long way toward helping you memorize this writing system.
Table of Contents
What is hiragana?
Hiragana is one of the three Japanese writing systems and one of the two Japanese phonetic alphabets. More likely than not, it’s the first writing system you’ll encounter when you learn Japanese because of how common it is in everyday Japanese. Before you start writing with the more complex Chinese characters (kanji, 漢字), you can write anything and everything using hiragana.
Origins of hiragana
Before the hiragana alphabet, there was a midway point between the kanji borrowed from the Chinese language and what would become the hiragana and katakana (カタカナ) alphabets.
The manyōgana (万葉仮名) system took specific Chinese characters and assigned them to sounds used in the Japanese language to create a writing system that more closely aligned to the existing language. You can see how some of the chosen kanji eventually evolved into hiragana!
| Manyougana | Hiragana | Romanization |
| 以 | い | i |
| 世 | せ | se |
| 仁 | に | ni |
| 女 | め | me |
| 与 | よ | yo |
Two characters used in the past are no longer part of the modern hiragana alphabet. The characters for we (ゑ) and wi (ゐ) have since been replaced by the similar sounds e (え) and i (い) in the modern Japanese language.
Japanese hiragana chart and characters
Modern Japanese has 46 hiragana characters. Although that’s almost double the number of letters in the English alphabet, the characters in the Japanese phonetic system maintain the same pronunciation in the majority of cases. This complete Japanese hiragana chart shows all 46 characters.
| Hiragana | Romanization | Pronunciation |
| あ | a | ah |
| い | i | ee |
| う | u | oo |
| え | e | eh |
| お | o | oh |
| か | ka | kah |
| き | ki | kee |
| く | ku | koo |
| け | ke | keh |
| こ | ko | koh |
| さ | sa | sah |
| し | shi | shee |
| す | su | soo |
| せ | se | seh |
| そ | so | soh |
| た | ta | tah |
| ち | chi | chee |
| つ | tsu | tsoo |
| て | te | teh |
| と | to | toh |
| な | na | nah |
| に | ni | nee |
| ぬ | nu | noo |
| ね | ne | neh |
| の | no | noh |
| は | ha | hah |
| ひ | hi | hee |
| ふ | fu | foo |
| へ | he | heh |
| ほ | ho | hoh |
| ま | ma | mah |
| み | mi | mee |
| む | mu | moo |
| め | me | meh |
| も | mo | moh |
| や | ya | yah |
| ゆ | yu | yoo |
| よ | yo | yoh |
| ら | ra | rah |
| り | ri | ree |
| る | ru | roo |
| れ | re | reh |
| ろ | ro | roh |
| わ | wa | wah |
| を | wo | oh |
| ん | n | n |
Which hiragana characters look the same?
Certain hiragana characters bear a striking resemblance to each other. Comparing them side by side, you can identify where they’re different.
| Japanese | Romanization |
| あ お む | a o mu |
| さ ち き | sa chi ki |
| た に | ta ni |
| い り こ | i ri ko |
| へ く | he ku |
| め ぬ | me nu |
| れ ね わ | re ne wa |
| る ろ そ | ru ro so |
Learning hiragana stroke order in Japanese is one way to combat similar-looking characters. This means to practice the exact order and direction each line of the letter is supposed to be written. The same is true even in English. For example, writing “b” and “p” or “i” and “j” correctly is essential to distinguishing them from each other.
What are the voiced sounds in hiragana?
In addition to the 46 hiragana characters, Japanese diacritical marks change how some of the characters sound. “Voiced sounds” in Japanese are marked by two short dashes in the upper right of a character that looks like a quotation mark (゛), while “half-voiced sounds” in Japanese are marked by a circle in the upper right (゜) of the h-row of characters.
| Hiragana | Romanization | Pronunciation |
| が | ga | gah |
| ぎ | gi | gee |
| ぐ | gu | goo |
| げ | ge | geh |
| ご | go | goh |
| ざ | za | zah |
| じ | ji | jee |
| ず | zu | zoo |
| ぜ | ze | zeh |
| ぞ | zo | zoh |
| だ | da | dah |
| ぢ | ji | jee |
| づ | zu | zoo |
| で | de | deh |
| ど | do | doh |
| ば | ba | bah |
| び | bi | bee |
| ぶ | bu | boo |
| べ | be | beh |
| ぼ | bo | boh |
| ぱ | pa | pah |
| ぴ | pi | pee |
| ぷ | pu | poo |
| ぺ | pe | peh |
| ぽ | po | poh |
What are the contracted sounds in hiragana?
Contracted sounds in hiragana involve writing a small “y” sound character in the bottom right of a consonant-vowel pair that ends in an “i” sound. Combining the two characters results in a new syllable. When writing them, be careful that the ya (や), yu (ゆ), or yo (よ) is not full size.
| ya | yu | yo | |
| ki | きゃ kya | きゅ kyu | きょ kyo |
| gi | ぎゃ gya | ぎゅ gyu | ぎょ gyo |
| shi | しゃ sha | しゅ shu | しょ sho |
| ji | じゃ ja | じゅ ju | じょ jo |
| chi | ちゃ cha | ちゅ chu | ちょ cho |
| ni | にゃ nya | にゅ nyu | にょ nyo |
| hi | ひゃ hya | ひゅ hyu | ひょ hyo |
| bi | びゃ bya | びゅ byu | びょ byo |
| pi | ぴゃ pya | ぴゅ pyu | ぴょ pyo |
| mi | みゃ mya | みゅ myu | みょ myo |
| ri | りゃ rya | りゅ ryu | りょ ryo |
How to use hiragana
Hiragana is used in three primary ways:
- Forming full Japanese words and grammatical components like Japanese particles
- Combining with kanji to create words, which you’ll see often in Japanese verbs
- Becoming reading aids written above kanji
Some Japanese words are written in hiragana instead of kanji as a matter of convenience. The two words for “this” (kono and kore) can be written as 此の and 此れ, respectively, but they’re most frequently written in hiragana only as この and これ. Certain grammatical components that help you understand Japanese word order, such as particles, are also primarily written in hiragana.
What is okurigana?
If a word is composed of both kanji and hiragana, then those hiragana are called okurigana. You’ll see this often in Japanese adjectives and verbs or other words based on them. See how the hiragana come before, after, and in the middle of these words:
- Wakarimashita（分かりました）= understood
- Utsukushii (美しい) = beautiful
- Oyasumi（お休み）= day off
- Mochikaeri（持ち帰り）= takeout food
What is furigana?
Furigana are small hiragana letters written above kanji to explain the pronunciation in an easy-to-understand way. In other words, they exist to aid people in reading Japanese. Most kanji have multiple readings, so offering the pronunciation written in hiragana allows anyone—regardless of kanji knowledge—to read them. This is especially useful for obscure words and names!
3 easy ways to memorize hiragana
No matter what method you use, the easiest path to memorizing hiragana is to practice daily—even for 10 minutes between classes or on a break at work. Pace yourself, learning a handful of letters at a time and slowly adding characters once you feel confident with the ones you’ve been practicing. With consistent practice, you’ll have the alphabet memorized within a matter of weeks or days!
Here are a few ways you can use hiragana daily:
- Use hiragana flashcards. You can make them yourself or use any of the existing decks found in many reputable places online.
- Take advantage of mnemonic devices. What do the characters look like? Does to (と) look like it has a broken to-enail? Can you see the crest of a tsu-nami in tsu (つ)? Free resources such as the Hiragana Memory Hint app from The Japan Foundation have mnemonic devices ready for you.
- Engage in immersion learning. Just use it! Instead of writing “sushi” on your grocery list, try writing すし instead. Label things in your home. When you use hiragana every day, you will absorb it naturally.
How to type in hiragana
Typing in hiragana requires changing a few settings on your device to add new language functionality. Although the details of adding Japanese to your computer or phone will be slightly different depending on what device you have, the general principle for how to type in hiragana is the same. By default, the keyboards will be in your native format (such as QWERTY) rather than a hiragana keyboard. However, knowing the romanization—or romaji (ローマ字)—of each character is essential regardless of the keyboard style.
When typing on a computer keyboard, type out the sounds of the hiragana as you would write them normally. For example, typing “su” will automatically result in す. The Japanese language generally doesn’t use spaces, so the space bar has another use: converting those hiragana into other characters, like katakana or kanji. If you want the characters to remain hiragana, just hit the enter key.
For typing in hiragana on a mobile device, you’ll need to make sure your keyboard is in the Japanese language setting. Once it is, typing is fairly straightforward. Like typing on a computer keyboard, you type the romanization of the character you want, but mobile keyboards have the advantage of autocorrect suggestions. You can either select the end result you want from the suggested options, or you can tap the enter key to keep what you’ve typed as it is.
Learn hiragana with the Rosetta Stone app
Everyone has different ways of learning that work best for them. While one person may excel at learning hiragana by writing the characters by hand over and over, another person prefers to drill flashcards.
No matter what works for you, the Rosetta Stone app is the place to go for practicing your new knowledge. You have the choice to freely switch between romanization and Japanese writing systems, so you can immerse yourself in Japanese with native audio while integrating hiragana at your own pace.
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