• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

StoryLearning

StoryLearning

Learn A Language Through Stories

how to write in japanese

How To Write In Japanese – A Beginner’s Guide

Olly Richards Headshot

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 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 Japanese, you might like to share it with them. Now, let’s get stuck in…

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 Japanese learners because the 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).

hiragana katakana comparison chart

(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 ).

japanese kana development chart

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 sh ōkei moji), which look like the objects they represent:

the origin of kanji

(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 sh ā n (in the first tone).

yama kanji mountain

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. B ut 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 )

Summary Of How To Write In Japanese

So you’ve made it to the end!

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 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 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 .

writing on japanese

Language Courses

  • Language Blog
  • Testimonials
  • Meet Our Team
  • Media & Press

Download this article as a FREE PDF ?

learn swedish guide

What is your current level in Swedish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Swedish tips…

Where shall I send the tips and your PDF?

We will protect your data in accordance with our data policy.

What is your current level in Danish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Danish tips…

storylearning kit

NOT INTERESTED?

What can we do better? If I could make something to help you right now, w hat would it be?

Which language are you learning?

What is your current level in [language] ?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] [language] tips, PLUS your free StoryLearning Kit…

Where shall I send them?

Download this article as a FREE PDF?

writing on japanese

Great! Where shall I send my best online teaching tips and your PDF?

Download this article as a FREE PDF ? 

What is your current level in Arabic?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Arabic tips…

FREE StoryLearning Kit!

Join my email newsletter and get FREE access to your StoryLearning Kit — discover how to learn languages through the power of story!

Download a FREE Story in Japanese!

spanish storylearning pack

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Japanese and start learning Japanese quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

What is your current level in Japanese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Japanese StoryLearning® Pack …

Where shall I send your download link?

Download Your  FREE   Natural Japanese Grammar Pack

es_naturalgrammarpack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Japanese Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Japanese grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Japanese Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in Portuguese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in German?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural German Grammar Pack …

Train as an Online Language Teacher and Earn from Home

writing on japanese

The next cohort of my Certificate of Online Language Teaching will open soon. Join the waiting list, and we’ll notify you as soon as enrolment is open!

waiting list button

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Portuguese tips…

portuguese_ultimateguide_preview

What is your current level in Turkish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Turkish tips…

What is your current level in French?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the French Vocab Power Pack …

What is your current level in Italian?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Italian Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the German Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Japanese Vocab Power Pack …

Download Your  FREE Japanese Vocab Power Pack

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Japanese Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Japanese words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE German Vocab Power Pack

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get free access to my German Vocab Power Pack and learn essential German words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE Italian Vocab Power Pack

Italian Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Italian Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Italian words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE French Vocab Power Pack

French Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my French Vocab Power Pack and learn essential French words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Portuguese StoryLearning® Pack …

What is your current level in Russian?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Russian Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Russian StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Italian StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Italian Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the French StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural French Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in Spanish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Spanish Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Spanish Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Spanish StoryLearning® Pack …

Where  shall I send them?

What is your current level in Korean?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Korean tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Russian tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Japanese tips…

What is your current level in Chinese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Chinese tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Spanish tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Italian tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] French tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] German tips…

Download Your  FREE   Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack

Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Portuguese grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural Russian Grammar Pack

Natural Russian Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Russian Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Russian grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural German Grammar Pack

Natural German Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural German Grammar Pack and learn to internalise German grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural French Grammar Pack

Natural French Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural French Grammar Pack and learn to internalise French grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural Italian Grammar Pack

Natural Italian Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Italian Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Italian grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download a FREE Story in Portuguese!

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Brazilian Portuguese and start learning Portuguese quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in Russian!

russian storylearning pack

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Russian and start learning Russian quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in German!

german storylearning pack

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in German and start learning German quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the German StoryLearning® Pack …

Download a FREE Story in Italian!

italian storylearning pack

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Italian and start learning Italian quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in French!

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in French and start learning French quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in Spanish!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Spanish and start learning Spanish quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

FREE Download:

The rules of language learning.

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Rules of Language Learning and discover 25 “rules” to learn a new language quickly and naturally through stories.

What can we do  better ? If I could make something to help you right now, w hat would it be?

What is your current level in [language]?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level]  [language] tips…

Download Your  FREE Spanish Vocab Power Pack

writing on japanese

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Spanish Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Spanish words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE   Natural Spanish Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Spanish Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Spanish grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Free Step-By-Step Guide:

How to generate a full-time income from home with your English… even with ZERO previous teaching experience.

writing on japanese

What is your current level in Thai?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Thai tips…

What is your current level in Cantonese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Cantonese tips…

Steal My Method?

I’ve written some simple emails explaining the techniques I’ve used to learn 8 languages…

I want to be skipped!

I’m the lead capture, man!

Join 84,574 other language learners getting StoryLearning tips by email…

writing on japanese

“After I started to use your ideas, I learn better, for longer, with more passion. Thanks for the life-change!” – Dallas Nesbit

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] [language] tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level]   [language] tips…

Join 122,238 other language learners getting StoryLearning tips by email…

Find the perfect language course for you.

spanish uncovered spanish course

Looking for world-class training material to help you make a breakthrough in your language learning?

Click ‘start now’ and complete this short survey to find the perfect course for you!

Do you like the idea of learning through story?

Do you want…?

Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!

Looking for something? Use the search field below.

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

writing on japanese

Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. ?

author headshot

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!

writing on japanese

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

Welcome to Kakimashou

Practice writing Japanese on your screen. Let's write!

Learning to write in Japanese takes a lot of practice, but this website will take care of a lot of the legwork for you. You can stop wasting paper and looking up stroke-order diagrams and just focus on learning.

Begin Tutorial

Send Feedback

Support this Website

Dear Duolingo: Why does Japanese have three writing systems?

Dear Duolingo: Why does Japanese have three writing systems?

Welcome to another week of Dear Duolingo, an advice column just for language learners. Catch up on past installments here .

Duolingo character Junior carrying a backpack, where Japanese characters are "spilling" out. He's above a speech bubble that says Dear Duolingo

Our question this week:

Dear Duolingo, I very recently started learning Japanese and realized that they have three different alphabets: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Why do they have three instead of the usual one? What's the difference between them? Which one should I use for different situations? Thank you, Hiragonna Need Some Help

Thanks, Hiragonna Need Some Help! With so many different kinds of characters, it’s no wonder Japanese beginners find it challenging to keep track of which system is which. But don’t worry, I’ll cover a couple of tips and tricks for how to tell them apart so you know when to use them.

Long story short, hiragana and katakana both represent sounds, while kanji represent meanings. Before we dive deeper into other differences, let’s look at a brief history as to how we got to these three writing systems!

Where did the Japanese writing systems come from?

Long ago, Japanese didn’t have any writing system at all until kanji (Chinese characters) arrived from China (sometimes through Korea ) over a thousand years ago. Japanese government officials, scholars, and religious leaders simply started out learning and using Chinese to record information, but eventually wanted to be able to write down Japanese too. But one challenge of using only kanji to write Japanese is that kanji characters mainly represent meanings, so it wasn't straightforward how to make Chinese-specific kanji map onto a very different language with a very different grammar and sound system!

For example, Chinese verbs don't have different endings or tenses (like in English and Spanish), so the character for a Chinese verb is always pronounced the same and doesn't ever change based on tense. But Japanese verbs do have different forms! So what kanji character meaning could you use for a verb ending? 🤔

To solve this problem, a special set of kanji called manyougana were chosen to represent Japanese sounds. Now a word, like a Japanese verb, could be made of a combination of kanji meanings and manyougana for endings! Those manyougana characters were eventually simplified into hiragana and katakana. (Check out this video to watch that simplification process in action to create the characters あ a , い i ,う u , え e , and お o! )

What is each Japanese writing system used for?

Modern Japanese uses a mix of hiragana, katakana, and kanji, but they aren’t just thrown together randomly. (Phew, right? 😅) Each system has its own part to play and is important to learn in order to read Japanese and get your brain into “Japanese mode.”

When to use hiragana (ひらがな)

Hiragana represent sounds in Japanese. However, unlike an alphabet that represents individual letters, each hiragana usually represents a combination of a consonant and a vowel. For example, the character ひ represents the sounds “h” and "i” together as hi. Hiragana are used to write particles, adjectives and verb endings, and other parts of grammar. One way to tell hiragana apart from katakana and kanji is that hiragana tend to have a lot of round “bubbly” shapes.

Some common phrases like こんにちは ( konnichiwa, “hello”) and common adjectives like かわいい ( kawaii, “cute”) are also often written in hiragana.

Hiragana are also used as a guide to show how kanji are pronounced, especially if the kanji are rare or are parts of people’s names. You might see hiragana in parentheses next to the kanji, or the hiragana might be in a smaller size either above or below the kanji.

One of our new features in the Duolingo course allows you to turn on hiragana pronunciation guides in the settings . When you forget how to write a word in kanji, hiragana can come in handy as a substitute, too!

When to use katakana (カタカナ)

Like hiragana, katakana also represent sounds, but they’re not as common because their uses are much more specific. Katakana also tend to have a lot more straight lines and sharp angles compared to the bubbly hiragana.

Katakana have kind of a grab-bag of uses that are a little different from other words–a bit like using italics , bold , or ALL-CAPS in English when you want to make a word stand out.

Screenshot of the practice tab. At the top it says "Let's practice Katakana! Practice characters used for loanwords" and below it are buttons for "Tips" and "Learn the characters." Most of the screen is a 5 x 3 row of "tiles" of the different katakana characters and a Roman letter representing the sound they make. The tiles continue if you scroll down.

Katakana are mainly used for words borrowed from foreign languages, especially English, but many come from other languages, too, such as Portuguese, Dutch, German, and French. エレベーター ( erebeeta ) comes from the English “elevator,” while パン ( pan, “bread”) comes from the Portuguese pão.

Names of foreign people and places are also written in katakana. For example, the U.S. city of “Pittsburgh” is written as ピッツバーグ ( pittsubaagu ). A lot of titles of foreign books, movies, TV shows, and video games also tend to be converted into katakana instead of being translated into Japanese words.

But there are other common cases where katakana are used for words that aren’t strictly foreign:

  • Japanese slang. For example, マジ maji is similar to “for real” or the abbreviated “fr” in English.
  • Many Japanese company names. For example, one of Japan’s most recognizable car brands, Toyota, is written as トヨタ with katakana.
  • Names of less common plants and animals. For example, サメ ( same, “shark”) and キリン ( kirin, “giraffe”) are often written in katakana since the kanji associated with them are too complicated or rare to be included in school curricula. Imagine needing to write out ​​麒麟 every time for “giraffe”! 😳

When to use kanji (漢字)

Kanji are different from hiragana and katakana in that they mainly represent meaning rather than sounds. It’s kinda like how emojis can symbolize whole concepts! The easiest way to tell kanji apart from hiragana and katakana is that they tend to look a lot more complicated. Most of the basic meanings of words like nouns, adjectives, and verbs are written in kanji.

Screenshot of Falstaff the bear next to a sentence in kanji. The translated answer tiles read "How do you write this kanji."

Because kanji themselves don’t contain information about things like the tense of a verb, they’re often combined with hiragana to write out the full verb. Like in the example at the beginning of this blog post: 笑 いました ( wara imashita , “laughed”) combines the kanji 笑 for “laugh” with the hiragana ました ( mashita ), which tells you the verb happened in the past.

Where you'll see these Japanese writing systems on Duolingo

Right from the start, you'll see both hiragana and katakana in all your Japanese exercises on Duolingo. If it isn't turned on already, go to your app settings and enable romaji, a system that represents how Japanese is pronounced using the Roman alphabet. This will help you jump straight into learning basic Japanese words and phrases without knowing all the hiragana and katakana! There will be lots of time to work on those. 😅

Once you feel ready, you can head over to the hiragana and katakana tab to learn Japanese characters! Here, you'll find charts that list all the hiragana and katakana, and special lessons to both learn and practice them. The exercises in the tab help you make connections between the characters and the sounds they represent, with chances to write them out on your screen, too.

Since kanji mainly represent meanings rather than sounds, you'll be introduced to those after you've had a chance to absorb some hiragana and katakana. There's a lot of kanji to learn too, so we spread it out throughout the course and introduce many words in hiragana first. When a lesson has new kanji, you'll first see introductory exercises that focus specifically on the new kanji, right at the very beginning of the lesson (even before you use them in the usual exercises). We make sure to cover plenty of level-appropriate kanji in the lessons you’ll see… and stay tuned for exciting kanji updates to come! 😉

Tips for practicing the Japanese writing systems

Luckily, you're already getting plenty of practice just going through the exercises in your lessons. The more you see the three writing systems in vocabulary, sentences, and Stories, the more they’ll start sticking! Here are even more ways you can practice reading and writing in Japanese:

  • Practice in the hiragana and katakana tab. You'll have access to that tab even after you gild all the characters, and when you go back to the tab, you'll see increasingly challenging exercises.
  • Turn off romaji for an extra challenge! You can do this when you feel more comfortable about your hiragana and katakana skills.
  • Grab a pencil and paper and practice writing old-school. You can copy the hiragana and katakana charts, jot down new kanji that show up, or practice writing your name , as well as vocabulary and key phrases you come across in your lessons… anything goes, as long as you make sure to remember how to read them out loud! 😅
  • Jam to some of your favorite Japanese tunes, but make sure to pull up the Japanese lyrics on the side. A lot can be found on YouTube or are easily Google-able online. Can you follow along to see which words match the written lyrics, and what words get written in each writing system?
  • Get your snack on. Either by visiting your local Asian supermarket or ordering online (even just looking doesn’t hurt!), reading characters on Japanese snack packages can make for delicious practice!
  • Go on a Google Street View Adventure. Find a street in Japan to plop yourself down in and see how many characters you can recognize in billboards and store signs!
  • Turn on Japanese subtitles and revisit scenes you enjoyed the most in your favorite Japanese anime, drama, or movie on Netflix. You can follow along to see if you can match the subtitles to the dialogue.

It’s a journey that builds “character”!

Whether you’re learning Japanese to read manga , sing your favorite anime opening themes at karaoke , or order coffee at a cat cafe in Tokyo, every little bit of practice counts, and with a little patience, you’ll have learned the characters before you know it!

For easy reference, here are the basics about the three writing systems:

Until next time, またね!( Mata ne )!

For more answers to your language and learning questions, send us an email over at [email protected] !

Related Posts All Posts

What is the difference between "do" and "make" in english, your guide to the english alphabet.

  • 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

Kanshudo

The Kanshudo complete guide to writing Japanese

writing on japanese

Kanshudo's guide to writing Japanese

writing on japanese

  • First let's see what components 鬱 contains. It is pretty complicated! It has several: 缶, 林 (or 木 on either side), 冖, a complex piece 鬯 which in itself could be made up of other elements, and finally 彡.
  • So, let's start with rule 5 to help us figure out the order of components to draw: symmetry first (缶), then the 木 on either side, then another symmetrical component 冖, then the left side 鬯 and 彡. None of these are 'containing' components, so we can just draw each one by one. This is already looking more straightforward!
  • Let's take 缶. This is mostly straightforward: we start with rule 2 which shows us we start at the top left with our little diagonal stroke. Rule 1 then tells us to do the two horizontals, followed by the vertical. Now things get tricky: in fact the bottom of this component is only two strokes, a 'shelf' and another vertical.
  • Next we draw our two trees. Rule 1 tells that we do our horizontal first, followed by the vertical. Rule two tells us to do the left diagonal followed by the right diagonal.
  • Next we have 冖: there are actually two challenges here - we draw the left side vertical first, and then the horizontal and the right vertical as a combined element.
  • Next we go to 鬯. This is actually a radical (standard component) in Chinese, which uses a longer radical list than Japanese. However, in Japanese it is extremely uncommon. Stroke order is fairly standard, though, if you remember to apply rule 3 several times, as that shows you how to decide what orde to do the strokes in the brush.
  • And 彡 is a nice easy one to finish: rule 1 tells us we draw our strokes top to bottom, and each stroke starts at the top.

writing on japanese

  • There are many analyses of Chinese character strokes. One sensible reference point is the Unicode specification, which defines a 'block' of characters representing strokes. Currently 36 strokes are included, but if you examine the list you will see several which are extremely similar - for example, Unicode defines a separate character for a short diagonal stroke depending on whether it goes from left to right or right to left. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_(CJKV_character) .
  • For more on Japanese calligraphy, start with Wikipedia's article on the different scripts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive_script_(East_Asia) .
  • See here for an example of fonts that produce cursive Japanese.
  • One great tool is Mojizo , a system for recognizing cursive kanji from images. Kanshudo's own component builder ( how to guide ) is a way to find kanji quickly based on any components you recognize, and it includes our own AI tool for recognizing hand-drawn components.

writing on japanese

Japanese Writing for Beginners

Understanding Kanji, Hirgana and Katakana Scripts

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

Writing might be one of the most difficult, but also fun, parts of learning Japanese. The Japanese don't use an alphabet. Instead, there are three types of scripts in Japanese: kanji, hiragana and katakana. The combination of all three is used for writing.

Roughly speaking, kanji represents blocks of meaning (nouns, stems of adjectives and verbs). Kanji was brought over from China around 500 C.E. and thus are based on the style of written Chinese characters at that time. The pronunciation of kanji became a mixture of Japanese readings and Chinese readings. Some words are pronounced like the original Chinese reading.

For those more familiar with Japanese, you might realize that kanji characters do not sound like their modern-day Chinese counterparts. This is because kanji pronunciation is not based on modern-day Chinese language, but the ancient Chinese spoken around 500 C.E. 

In terms of pronouncing kanji, ththere are two different methods: on-reading and kun-reading. On-reading (On-yomi) is the Chinese reading of a kanji character. It is based on the sound of the kanji character as pronounced by the Chinese at the time the character was introduced, and also from the area it was imported. Kun-reading (Kun-yomi) is the native Japanese reading associated with the meaning of the word. For a clearer distinction and an explanation of how to decide between on-reading and kun-reading, read what is On-reading and Kun-reading?

Learning kanji can be intimidating as there are thousands of unique characters. Start building your vocabulary by learning the top 100 most common kanji characters used in Japanese newspapers. Being able to recognize frequently used characters in newspapers is a good introduction to practical words used every day. 

The other two scripts, hiragana and katakana, are both kana systems in Japanese. Kana system is a syllabic phonetic system similar to the alphabet. For both scripts, each character typically corresponds with one syllable. This is unlike kanji script, in which one character can be pronounced with more than one syllable. 

Hiragana characters are used to express the grammatical relationship between words. Thus, hiragana is used as sentence  particles  and to inflect adjectives and verbs. Hiragana is also used to convey native Japanese words that do not have a kanji counterpart, or it is used as a simplified version of a complex kanji character. In order to emphasize style and tone in literature, hiragana can take the place of kanji in order to convey a more casual tone. Additionally, hiragana is used as a pronunciation guide to kanji characters. This reading aid system is called furigana.

There are 46 characters in hiragana syllabary, consisting of 5 singular vowels, 40 consonant-vowel unions and 1 singular consonant.

The curvy script of hiragana comes from the cursive style of Chinese calligraphy popular at the time when hiragana was first introduced to Japan. At first, hiragana was looked down upon by educated elites in Japan who continued to used only kanji. Consequently, hiragana first became popular in Japan among women as women were not granted the high levels of education available to men. Because of this history, hiragana is also referred to as onnade, or "women's writing". 

For tips on how to properly write hiragana, follow these stroke-by-stroke guides . 

Like hiragana, katakana is a form of Japanese syllabary. Developed in 800 C.E. during the Heian period, katakana consists of 48 characters including 5 nucleus vowels, 42 core syllabograms and 1 coda consonant.

Katakana is used transliterate foreign names, the names of foreign places and loan words of foreign origin. While kanji are borrowed words from ancient Chinese, katakana is used to transliterate modern-day Chinese words. This Japanese script is also used for onomatopoeia, the technical scientific name of animals and plants. Like italics or boldface in Western languages, katakana is used to create emphasis in a sentence. 

In literature, katakana script can replace kanji or hiragana in order to emphasize a character's accent. For instance, if a foreigner or, like in manga, a robot is speaking in Japanese, their speech is often written in katakana.

Now that you know what katakana is used for, you can learn how to write katakana script with these numbered stroke guides .

General Tips

If you want to learn Japanese writing, start with hiragana and katakana. Once you are comfortable with those two scripts, then you can begin to learn kanji. Hiragana and katakana are simpler than kanji, and have only 46 characters each. It is possible to write an entire Japanese sentence in hiragana. Many children's books are written in hiragana only, and Japanese children start to read and write in hiragana before making an attempt to learn some of the two thousand kanji commonly used.

Like most Asian languages, Japanese can be written vertically or horizontally. Read more about when one should write vertically versus horizontally . 

  • When to Use On-Reading and Kun-Reading for Kanji
  • How to Write Love in Japanese Kanji
  • Japanese for Beginners
  • Should Japanese Writing Be Horizontal or Vertical?
  • 100 of the Most Common Kanji Characters
  • Japanese Lessons: Grammar, Vocabulary, Culture
  • 10 Animal Sounds in Japanese Words
  • A Hiragana Stroke Guide to あ、い、う、え、お (A, I, U, E, O)
  • Hiragana Lessons - Stroke Guide to な、に、ぬ、ね、の (Na, Ni, Nu, Ne, No)
  • Hiragana Lessons - Stroke Guide to は、ひ、ふ、へ、ほ (Ha, Hi, Fu, He, Ho)
  • All About Radicals in the Japanese Language
  • Be Able to Write か、き、く、け、こ With These Helpful Stroke-By-Stroke Guides
  • Making the Right Strokes for さ, し, す, せ, そ (Sa, Shi, Su, Se, So)
  • Japanese Greetings and Parting Phrases
  • Learn Japanese Animal Vocabulary
  • Trends in Japanese Baby Names

MosaLingua

How to Write in Japanese: A Look at the Fascinating Japanese Writing System

The hardest part about learning Japanese has to be mastering the Japanese writing system and learning how to write. Its writing system, although very rich, is incredibly different from the Latin alphabet you’re used to. In this article, we’ll be looking at how Japan adopted its 3 Japanese writing systems – kanji, hiragana, and katakana – as well as explaining when to use each of them. Discover the history of these scripts, and find out how to write in Japanese the way the Japanese do.

Stacks and rows of colorful sake barrels with Japanese writing on them. Text reads: The Japanese writing system, explained. MosaLingua.

A Look at the Japanese Writing System: Evolution and Present-Day Use

Japanese has three main writing systems, kanji, hiragana, and katakana . To learn how to write in Japanese, let’s take a look at all three of them individually and then how to use all three in daily life.

Table of contents

From chinese hanzi to japanese kanji, what is hiragana, what is katakana, when do we use each japanese writing system, bonus video: our teacher explains the japanese writing systems.

Chinese characters engraved on a red painted wooden pole.

However, the two languages are completely different from one another: Chinese is a  Sino-Tibetan language , while Japanese belongs to the Japonic language family.

😎 Fun fact: Japan isn’t the only country to have borrowed the Chinese writing system. The Vietnamese language has chữ nôm and Korean has Hanja . (Although this system has pretty much fallen out of use in the former and is marginalized in the latter.)

Long ago, in an archipelago far away…

Originally, Japanese didn’t have a writing system of its own. It was solely a spoken language until the 5th century.

China, on the other hand, had had one for around a millennium! It goes without saying that their writing system eventually spread to the Japanese archipelago via goods with characters on them. Of course, the Japanese didn’t know how to read them, apart from the few who could understand Chinese!

During the 5th century, diplomatic relations formed between China and Korea, and scribes were tasked with establishing written correspondence in Chinese. And that’s when the Japanese started wondering how they could use these foreign characters to transcribe their own language.

…a Japanese writing system is gradually established

At that time, some Japanese people started using Han characters, but doing so for their phonetic properties only, without taking into account their meaning. This is now called man’yōgana ( 万葉仮名 ). It’s as if we were using Chinese characters to write in English.

These first Japanese characters are the first form of kana (i.e. modified Han characters used to write in Japanese) but are no longer used.

Start improving your Japanese today

how-to-write-in-japanese-a-look-at-the-fascinating-japanese-writing-system-mosalingua

Good news: we can help! More good news: you can get started for free! With your free trial , you can test drive the most effective way to learn Japanese for the next 15 days !

Vocabulary flashcards, videos with subtitles, audiobooks, articles adapted to your level—with MosaLingua Premium (Web & Mobile) , you’ll have access to all this and more. Get started right now. It’s free—and risk-free—to try!

Try MosaLingua Premium today

The Emergence of Kana

Hiragana and katakana , on the other hand, are kana that are still used today. And they, along with kanji, are the Japanese characters we all know so well.

All kana are syllabaries , which means that, apart from the “final n” ( ん / ン ) which is a bit particular, every symbol marks an entire syllable, not an isolated sound, as is the case with the English alphabet. They each have 46 syllables and represent the same 46 sounds.

This is what distinguishes them from kanji, which represent whole words or concepts rather than phonetic sounds.

The hiragana syllabary is mostly used to write simple words such as pronouns, prepositions, particles, and basic nouns.  Lots of Japanese children’s books are also written in hiragana, since these are the first characters kids learn.

Hiragana derives from a cursive script—Chinese calligraphy. This explains why katakana characters (above), have sharp edges, while hiragana (below) are more rounded.

A table showing all 46 basic Japanese hiragana characters and their English transcription. Text reads Japanese writing: Hiragana. MosaLingua.

For centuries, the hiragana ( 平仮名 ) kana system was the prerogative of higher-class women who were less educated than men. Men continued using kanji and katakana, while women used hiragana .

A rich body of literature was developed, written by women in hiragana, including works like Genji Monogatari ( 源氏物語, The Tale of Gengi ) starting in the 11th century. This gave hiragana its nickname, onna-moji (女文字), which literally means “women’s characters.”

Little by little, people started accepting hiragana, and today anyone can use it, no matter their gender. People began using kanji and katakana for official writing and hiragana for everyday writing .

As part of a reform to simplify Japanese writing in 1900, each syllable now only corresponds to one possible hiragana character. Prior to this, most people had a very hard time learning how to write in Japanese.

The now obsolete hiragana characters that were eliminated during the reform are now called hentaigana ( 変体仮名 ) and are only ever used for very traditional or antiquated writing.

The katakana syllabary is mainly used to transcribe foreign words in Japanese, such as loan words or foreign names.

A table showing all 46 basic Japanese katakana characters and their English transcription. Text reads Japanese writing: Katakana. MosaLingua.

Tradition attributes the creation of katakana to Kūkai, a Buddhist monk who lived in the 9th century.

What we know for sure is that katakana ( 片仮名 ) was first a compilation of symbols, not characters, developed so that people could read Buddhist texts. But as more and more people saw how useful they were for everyday Japanese writing, katakana began to blend together with kanji.

One Language, Three Writing Systems

How many writing systems does Japanese have?

Currently, writing in Japanese includes mixing three main systems: kanji, katakana, and hiragana .

There are also two other secondary writing systems: r ōmaji ( ローマ字 ), which is the Latin alphabet, as well as a rabia-sūji ( アラビア数字 ), which are the Arabic numbers we use.

And it’s common to see some sentences that use all three systems (or more)! For example:

9月にスぺインに行きます。 In September, I am going to Spain.

In this sentence, we can see kanji (月 and 行), katakana (スぺイン, Spain), an Arabic numeral, and the rest is in hiragana.

Let’s look at the typical uses for each of the Japanese writing systems:

  • Kanji: Japanese kanji is the central writing system in Japan. We use kanji for names, verb roots, and adjectives.
  • Hiragana: hiragana is used for grammar purposes, verb and adjective endings, prefixes and suffixes, etc. Some very common words are also written in hiragana rather than kanji. For example, you’re more likely to see どこ ( doko , “where”) than 何処 (which means and sounds the same but is kanji).
  • Katakana: we mainly use katakana for transcribing foreign words (apart from the many borrowed words from Chinese and Korean). That means we end up with words like パン ( pan , “bread”), which comes from the Portuguese  pão, and ナイフ ( naifu , “knife”), which is easy for us to remember because it comes from English. Japanese people also use katakana to describe onomatopoeia, scientific words for animals, or to make messages more easily legible on billboards.
  • Rōmaji: the Latin alphabet is simply used to transcribe Japanese names in a way foreigners are more likely to understand. This system also comes in handy for acronyms, such as is the case for NHK (Nihon Hosō Kyōkai), Japan’s national public broadcasting organization .
  • Arabic numbers: there are kanji characters for writing numbers (一, 二, 三, 四, etc.). However, Arabic numerals are widely used for specific purposes, such as writing dates. For example: 2016年12月9日 (December 9th, 2016).

Sarah, our Japanese teacher here at MosaLingua, also made a quick video to explain the basics of the main Japanese writing systems: rōmaji, kanji, katakana, and hiragana. Watch it to learn more about writing in Japanese. She recorded it in English, but there are subtitles in 6 languages if you need them. Just click the gear button ⚙️ at the bottom right to toggle them on.

Did you enjoy this video? Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more free language-learning content!

This article is just a quick overview of what the 3 Japanese writing systems are like and where they originated from. We wrote it because we think it’s an interesting and beautiful way of mixing scripts into one unique writing system!

I hope you liked this article… Maybe it has even made you want to study this language! If you are looking for resources for learning this language, check out:

  • Our Complete Guide to Japanese Learning Resources
  • The MosaLingua Learn Japanese app
  • How to Learn Japanese Fast : 7 Tips from Sarah, Our Japanese Teacher [VIDEO]
  • Why Learn Japanese? 10 Reasons to Start Today

Related posts:

Image of a giraffe with tongue sticking out. Text reads "IPA Symbols: The Key to Pronunciation Superpowers."

Did you like this article?

Thanks in advance for rating this article, it will encourage the author to write more

One click won't cost you anything, but it would mean a lot to us:

Pierre is a foreign-language teacher and the creator of the French website Le Monde des Langues . His goal: provide you with tried-and-true methods to help you reach your goals, no matter your background or previous experience with language. He speaks: French, English, German, Finnish, Italian, and Japanese.

writing on japanese

Betül

  • , March 13, 2023

The Japanese Writing: #1 Easy Introduction For Beginners

Japanese Writing System

Last updated on February 7th, 2024 at 05:05 am

Are you thinking about learning Japanese? You’ve come to the right place. First things first, you have to get familiar with the Japanese writing system since the Japanese alphabet is pretty different from the Latin alphabet.

If you’ve researched the Japanese writing system before, then you might have come across different types of Japanese writing. If you’re confused, don’t worry! We’re here to introduce you to the Japanese language through the writing system in a more detailed and concise way!

The Basics Of The Japanese Writing System

Today, the modern Japanese writing system consists of two elements: kanji and kana. Kanji basically refers to the Chinese characters that were adapted into Japanese, while kana is divided into hiragana and katakana.

Japanese is applicable to both vertical writing (縦書き – tategaki) and horizontal writing (横書き – yokogaki). However, keep in mind that vertical writing is mostly used in traditional Japanese writing, while horizontal writing is used in modern Japanese writing.

History Of Japanese Writing

Japanese Alphabet

Japanese consists of two alphabets known as hiragana and katakana, but they are actually just two different versions of the same sound. This is because the Japanese alphabet consists of kana syllabaries, and every syllable you see has a different phonetic value.

It is very easy to distinguish hiragana, katakana, and kanji from each other. Hiragana has a curvy script, katakana has a jagged script, and kanji is the one that looks the most complicated since they are actually Chinese characters.

Hiragana Alphabet

あ-A か-Ka さ-Sa た-Ta な-Na は-Ha ま-Ma や-Ya ら-Ra わ-Wa

い-I き-Ki し-Shi ち-Chi に-Ni ひ-Hi み-Mi り-Ri

う-U く-Ku す-Su つ-Tsu ぬ-Nu ふ-Fu む-Mu ゆ-Yu る-Ru

え-E け-Ke せ-Se て-Te ね-Ne へ-He め-Me れ-Re

お-O こ-Ko そ-So と-To の-No ほ-Ho も-Mo よ-Yo ろ-Ro を-Wo

Katakana Alphabet

ア-A カ-Ka サ-Sa タ-Ta ナ-Na ハ-Ha マ-Ma ヤ-Ya ラ-Ra ワ-Wa

イ-I キ-Ki シ-Shi チ-Chi ニ-Ni ヒ-Hi ミ-Mi リ-Ri

ウ-U ク-Ku ス-Su ツ-Tsu ヌ-Nu フ-Fu ム-Mu ユ-Yu ル-Ru

エ-E ケ-Ke セ-Se テ-Te ネ-Ne ヘ-He メ-Me レ-Re

オ-O コ-Ko ソ-So ト-To ノ-No ホ-Ho モ-Mo ヨ-Yo ロ-Ro

Where To Use Kanji, Hiragana, And Katakana?

Hiragana is mostly used for grammatical elements, such as verb endings and particles. You can also switch to hiragana if you don’t know how to write the word in kanji. In Japan, children’s books are usually written in hiragana since they don’t know how to read and write kanji yet.

Katakana is used for foreign words that are loaned from other languages. For example, you can see that katakana is commonly used in manga to indicate that the character is not Japanese and, therefore, has an accent .

Although there are plenty of words that can be written in just Hiragana, Kanji is used for general words. For instance, Japanese verbs , nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

You can also try the Ling app and write the alphabet by tracing your finger on your phone’s screen. That’s just one of the amazing features you can find on the Ling app . You can try the app today by downloading it from the App Store or Play Store .

Japanese Writing Punctuation

Japanese Punctuation

The Japanese period (.) and comma (,) are used for the same purposes as in the English language.

The question mark (?) is not used in traditional and formal texts, but it can be used in informal and casual texts. It is also used in transcriptions of dialogues because, otherwise, it might not be clear whether a statement is a question or not.

The exclamation mark (!) is only used in casual and informal texts.

Quotation marks in Japanese are different than what we’re used to. They are symbolized as 「 … 」, or 『 … 』.

Japanese Writing Where to Begin

History Of The Japanese Writing System In A Nutshell

Until kanji was introduced in the 5th century by the Chinese, Japan didn’t have a writing system. But, once the Japanese took the kanji characters from the Chinese language, they were able to match them to the same word in Japanese.

After the adaptation of Chinese characters, kanji started to be used everywhere to write Japanese. In 650 CE, a new writing system known as 万葉仮名 (manyō gana) was invented that used Chinese characters for their sounds to represent Japanese meanings. Interestingly, Kana was mostly used by women who were not allowed to get higher education during those times.

There is another type of kanji known as national characters (国字 – kokuji) . These kanji characters are used to indicate native Japanese words, so they are not known to Chinese speakers.

Japanese Writing Alphabet

Where To Begin Writing In Japanese?

Writing Japanese is not easy, but practice makes perfect!

As a beginner, make sure to learn hiragana and katakana. After you’re comfortable with those, you can start studying kanji. In order to learn the stroke order of any kanji, you can get help from various Japanese learning apps , and don’t forget to practice with an actual pencil and paper. When learning characters, muscle memory is very important.

Another tip when learning kanji is to study kanji characters with context.

What To Do After Learning The Japanese Writing System

If you’re a beginner learning Japanese, understand that the alphabet, pronunciation, and grammar rules can be overwhelming, but never give up! If you want to know even more ways to learn Japanese , there are plenty of online resources out there!

Learn Japanese With The Ling App!

If you are interested in learning Japanese or any of the other 60+ foreign languages offered in the app, then you will absolutely love Ling ! In short, the Ling app is a language learning app designed to help all learners as they venture out on their language learning journeys.

From mini-games to comprehensive lessons to quick quizzes, you can find everything you need in the app to master all 4 language skills.

Don’t wait any longer, be sure to download the Ling app now to start learning languages in a more effective and fun way!

Betül

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

flag-th

People also read

Basic Turkish Words

20+ Basic Turkish Words: Easy To Learn For Beginners

hobbies in Turkish - Ling

30 Popular Hobbies In Turkish Vocabulary

Turkish food vocabulary - Ling

50+ Easy Turkish Food Vocabulary You Need To Know

Accommodation In Turkish - Ling

15 Easy Phrases For Accommodation In Turkish

Turkish proverbs - Ling

10 Powerful Turkish Proverbs You Need To Hear

Turkish Slang Words

20 Weird Turkish Slang Words Every Native Speaker Uses

What makes learning with ling special, interactive exercises.

Improve your pronunciation by starting a conversation with our app’s interactive chatbot

Engaging activities

Practice your skills with mini-games and track your progress with fun quizzes

Mix of languages

Choose from over 60 languages, both big and small, and listen to audio from native speakers

Proven results

Backed by linguistic research, our learning methods can help you achieve fluency in record time

Southeast Asia

East europe.

© 2024 Simya Solutions Ltd.

Learn Japanese

Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

Category: The Writing System

Chapter overview, the scripts.

Japanese consists of two scripts (referred to as kana ) called Hiragana and Katakana , which are two versions of the same set of sounds in the language. Hiragana and Katakana consist of a little less than 50 “letters”, which are actually simplified Chinese characters adopted to form a phonetic script.

Chinese characters, called Kanji in Japanese, are also heavily used in the Japanese writing. Most of the words in the Japanese written language are written in Kanji (nouns, verbs, adjectives). There exists over 40,000 Kanji where about 2,000 represent over 95% of characters actually used in written text. There are no spaces in Japanese so Kanji is necessary in distinguishing between separate words within a sentence. Kanji is also useful for discriminating between homophones, which occurs quite often given the limited number of distinct sounds in Japanese.

Hiragana is used mainly for grammatical purposes. We will see this as we learn about particles. Words with extremely difficult or rare Kanji, colloquial expressions, and onomatopoeias are also written in Hiragana. It’s also often used for beginning Japanese students and children in place of Kanji they don’t know.

While Katakana represents the same sounds as Hiragana, it is mainly used to represent newer words imported from western countries (since there are no Kanji associated with words based on the roman alphabet). The next three sections will cover Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

As you will find out in the next section, every character in Hiragana (and the Katakana equivalent) corresponds to a [vowel] or [consonant + vowel] syllable sound with the single exception of the 「ん」 and 「ン」 characters (more on this later). This system of letter for each syllable sound makes pronunciation absolutely clear with no ambiguities. However, the simplicity of this system does not mean that pronunciation in Japanese is simple. In fact, the rigid structure of the fixed syllable sound in Japanese creates the challenge of learning proper intonation.

Intonation of high and low pitches is a crucial aspect of the spoken language. For example, homophones can have different pitches of low and high tones resulting in a slightly different sound despite sharing the same pronunciation. The biggest obstacle for obtaining proper and natural sounding speech is incorrect intonation. Many students often speak without paying attention to the correct enunciation of pitches making speech sound unnatural (the classic foreigner’s accent). It is not practical to memorize or attempt to logically create rules for pitches, especially since it can change depending on the context or the dialect. The only practical approach is to get the general sense of pitches by mimicking native Japanese speakers with careful listening and practice.

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text.

Here is a table of Hiragana and similar-sounding English consonant-vowel pronunciations. It is read up to down and right to left, which is how most Japanese books are written. In Japanese, writing the strokes in the correct order and direction is important, especially for Kanji. Because handwritten letters look slightly different from typed letters (just like how ‘a’ looks totally different when typed), you will want to use a resource that uses handwritten style fonts to show you how to write the characters (see below for links). I must also stress the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound. Since every word in Japanese is composed of these sounds, learning an incorrect pronunciation for a letter can severely damage the very foundation on which your pronunciation lies.

* = no longer used

You can listen to the pronunciation for each character by clicking on it in chart. If your browser doesn’t support audio, you can also download them at http://www.guidetojapanese.org/audio/basic_sounds.zip . There are also other free resources with audio samples.

Hiragana is not too tough to master or teach and as a result, there are a variety of web sites and free programs that are already available on the web. I also suggest recording yourself and comparing the sounds to make sure you’re getting it right.

When practicing writing Hiragana by hand, the important thing to remember is that the stroke order and direction of the strokes matter . There, I underlined, italicized, bolded, and highlighted it to boot. Trust me, you’ll eventually find out why when you read other people’s hasty notes that are nothing more than chicken scrawls. The only thing that will help you is that everybody writes in the same order and so the “flow” of the characters is fairly consistent. I strongly recommend that you pay close attention to stroke order from the beginning starting with Hiragana to avoid falling into bad habits. While there are many tools online that aim to help you learn Hiragana, the best way to learn how to write it is the old fashioned way: a piece of paper and pen/pencil. Below are handy PDFs for Hiragana writing practice.

  • Hiragana trace sheets
  • japanese-lesson.com

※ As an aside, an old Japanese poem called 「いろは」 was often used as the base for ordering of Hiragana until recent times. The poem contains every single Hiragana character except for 「ん」 which probably did not exist at the time it was written. You can check out this poem for yourself in this wikipedia article . As the article mentions, this order is still sometimes used in ordering lists so you may want to spend some time checking it out.

  • Except for 「し」、「ち」、「つ」、and 「ん」、you can get a sense of how each letter is pronounced by matching the consonant on the top row to the vowel. For example, 「き」 would become / ki / and 「ゆ」 would become / yu / and so on.
  • As you can see, not all sounds match the way our consonant system works. As written in the table, 「ち」 is pronounced “chi” and 「つ」 is pronounced “tsu”.
  • The / r / or / l / sound in Japanese is quite different from any sound in English. It involves more of a roll and a clip by hitting the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Pay careful attention to that whole column.
  • Pay careful attention to the difference between / tsu / and / su /.
  • The 「ん」 character is a special character because it is rarely used by itself and does not have a vowel sound. It is attached to another character to add a / n / sound. For example, 「かん」 becomes ‘kan’ instead of ‘ka’, 「まん」 becomes ‘man’ instead of ‘ma’, and so on and so forth.

The Muddied Sounds

Once you memorize all the characters in Hiragana, there are still some additional sounds left to be learned. There are five more consonant sounds that are written by either affixing two tiny lines similar to a double quotation mark called dakuten (濁点) or a tiny circle called handakuten (半濁点). This essentially creates a “muddy” or less clipped version of the consonant (technically called a voiced consonant or 「濁り」, which literally means to become muddy).

All the voiced consonant sounds are shown in the table below.

  • Notice that 「ぢ」 sounds essentially identical to 「じ」 and both are pronounced as / ji /, while 「づ」 is pronounced like / dzu /.

The Small 「や」、「ゆ」、and 「よ」

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.

  • The above table is the same as before. Match the top consonants to the vowel sound on the right. Ex: きゃ = kya.
  • Also note that since 「じ」 is pronounced / ji /, all the small 「や」、「ゆ」、「よ」 sounds are also based off of that, namely: / jya / jyu / jyo /.
  • The same thing also applies to 「ち」 which becomes / cha / chu / cho / and 「し」 which becomes / sha / shu / sho /. (Though arguably, you can still think of it as / sya / syu / syo /.)

The Small 「つ」

A small 「つ」 is inserted between two characters to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. For example, if you inserted a small 「つ」 between 「び」 and 「く」 to make 「びっく」, the / k / consonant sound is carried back to the end of the first character to produce “bikku”. Similarly, 「はっぱ」 becomes “happa”, 「ろっく」 becomes “rokku” and so on and so forth.

  • A small 「つ」 is used to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. Ex: 「がっき」 = “ga k ki”.
  • The addition of another consonant almost always creates the characteristic clipping sound. But make sure you’re clipping with the right consonant (the consonant of the second character).

The Long Vowel Sound

Whew! You’re almost done. In this last portion, we will go over the long vowel sound which is simply extending the duration of a vowel sound. You can extend the vowel sound of a character by adding either 「あ」、「い」、or 「う」 depending on the vowel in accordance to the following chart.

For example, if you wanted to create an extended vowel sound from 「か」, you would add 「あ」 to create 「かあ」. Other examples would include: 「き → きい」, 「く → くう」, 「け → けい」, 「こ → こう」, 「さ → さあ」 and so on. The reasoning for this is quite simple. Try saying 「か」 and 「あ」 separately. Then say them in succession as fast as you can. You’ll notice that soon enough, it sounds like you’re dragging out the / ka / for a longer duration than just saying / ka / by itself. When pronouncing long vowel sounds, try to remember that they are really two sounds merged together.

It’s important to make sure you hold the vowel sound long enough because you can be saying things like “here” (ここ) instead of “high school” (こうこう) or “middle-aged lady” (おばさん) instead of “grandmother” (おばあさん) if you don’t stretch it out correctly!

There are rare exceptions where an / e / vowel sound is extended by adding 「え」 or an / o / vowel sound is extended by 「お」. Some examples of this include 「おねえさん」、「おおい」、and 「おおきい」. Pay careful attention to these exceptions but don’t worry, there aren’t too many of them.

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

As mentioned before, Katakana is mainly used for words imported from foreign languages. It can also be used to emphasize certain words similar to the function of italics . For a more complete list of usages, refer to the Wikipedia entry on katakana .

Katakana represents the same set of phonetic sounds as Hiragana except all the characters are different. Since foreign words must fit into this limited set of [consonants+vowel] sounds, they undergo many radical changes resulting in instances where English speakers can’t understand words that are supposed to be derived from English! As a result, the use of Katakana is extremely difficult for English speakers because they expect English words to sound like… well… English. Instead, it is better to completely forget the original English word, and treat the word as an entirely separate Japanese word, otherwise you can run into the habit of saying English words with English pronunciations (whereupon a Japanese person may or may not understand what you are saying).

* = obsolete or rarely used

Katakana is significantly tougher to master compared to Hiragana because it is only used for certain words and you don’t get nearly as much practice as you do with Hiragana. To learn the proper stroke order (and yes, you need to), here is a link to practice sheets for Katakana.

  • Katakana trace sheets

Also, since Japanese doesn’t have any spaces, sometimes the symbol 「・」 is used to show the spaces like 「ロック・アンド・ロール」 for “rock and roll”. Using the symbol is completely optional so sometimes nothing will be used at all.

  • All the sounds are identical to what they were for Hiragana.
  • As we will learn later, 「を」 is only ever used as a particle and all particles are in Hiragana. Therefore, you will almost never need to use 「ヲ」 and it can be safely ignored. (Unless you are reading very old telegrams or something.)
  • The four characters 「シ」、「ン」、「ツ」、and 「ソ」 are fiendishly similar to each other. Basically, the difference is that the first two are more “horizontal” than the second two. The little lines are slanted more horizontally and the long line is drawn in a curve from bottom to top. The second two have almost vertical little lines and the long line doesn’t curve as much as it is drawn from top to bottom. It is almost like a slash while the former is more like an arc. These characters are hard to sort out and require some patience and practice.
  • The characters 「ノ」、「メ」、and 「ヌ」 are also something to pay careful attention to, as well as, 「フ」、「ワ」、 and 「ウ」. Yes, they all look very similar. No, I can’t do anything about it.
  • Sometimes 「・」 is used to denote what would be spaces in English.

Long vowels have been radically simplified in Katakana. Instead of having to muck around thinking about vowel sounds, all long vowel sounds are denoted by a simple dash like so: ー.

  • All long vowel sounds in Katakana are denoted by a dash. For example, “cute” would be written in Katakana like so: 「キュート」.

The Small 「ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ」

Due to the limitations of the sound set in Hiragana, some new combinations have been devised over the years to account for sounds that were not originally in Japanese. Most notable is the lack of the / ti / di / and / tu / du / sounds (because of the / chi / tsu / sounds), and the lack of the / f / consonant sound except for 「ふ」. The / sh / j / ch / consonants are also missing for the / e / vowel sound. The decision to resolve these deficiencies was to add small versions of the five vowel sounds. This has also been done for the / w / consonant sound to replace the obsolete characters. In addition, the convention of using the little double slashes on the 「ウ」 vowel (ヴ) with the small 「ア、イ、エ、オ」 to designate the / v / consonant has also been established but it’s not often used probably due to the fact that Japanese people still have difficulty pronouncing / v /. For instance, while you may guess that “volume” would be pronounced with a / v / sound, the Japanese have opted for the easier to pronounce “bolume” (ボリューム). In the same way, vodka is written as “wokka” (ウォッカ) and not 「ヴォッカ」. You can write “violin” as either 「バイオリン」 or 「ヴァイオリン」. It really doesn’t matter however because almost all Japanese people will pronounce it with a / b / sound anyway. The following table shows the added sounds that were lacking with a highlight. Other sounds that already existed are reused as appropriate.

  • Notice that there is no / wu / sound. For example, the Katakana for “woman” is written as “u-man” (ウーマン).
  • While the / tu / sound (as in “too”) can technically be produced given the rules as 「トゥ」, foreign words that have become popular before these sounds were available simply used / tsu / to make do. For instance, “tool” is still 「ツール」 and “tour” is similarly still 「ツアー」.
  • Back in the old days, without these new sounds, there was no choice but to just take characters off the regular table without regard for actual pronunciation. On old buildings, you may still see 「ビル ヂ ング」 instead of the modern spelling 「ビル ディ ング」.

Some examples of words in Katakana

Translating English words into Japanese is a knack that requires quite a bit of practice and luck. To give you a sense of how English words become “Japanified”, here are a few examples of words in Katakana. Sometimes the words in Katakana may not even be correct English or have a different meaning from the English word it’s supposed to represent. Of course, not all Katakana words are derived from English.

Katakana Practice Exercises

Fill in the katakana chart.

Here is the katakana chart you can use to help test your memory. 「ヲ」 has been removed since you’ll probably never need it.

Katakana Writing Practice

Here, we will practice writing some words in Katakana. Plus, you’ll get a little taste of what foreign words sound like in Japanese.

Katakana Writing Exercise 1

Sample: ta | be | mo | no = タベモノ

More Katakana Writing Practice

This Katakana writing exercise includes all the irregular sounds that don’t exist in Hiragana.

Katakana Writing Exercise 2

Sample: bi- | chi = ビーチ

Changing English words to katakana

Just for fun, let’s try figuring out the katakana for some English words. I’ve listed some common patterns below but they are only guidelines and may not apply for some words.

As you know, since Japanese sounds almost always consist of consonant-vowel pairs, any English words that deviate from this pattern will cause problems. Here are some trends you may have noticed.

If you’ve seen the move “Lost in Translation”, you know that / l / and / r / are indistinguishable.

(1) Ready -> レ ディ (2) Lady -> レ ディ

If you have more than one vowel in a row or a vowel sound that ends in / r /, it usually becomes a long vowel sound.

(1)  Tar get -> ター ゲット (2)  Shoo t -> シュー ト

Abrupt cut-off sounds usually denoted by a / t / or / c / employ the small 「ッ」.

(1) Ca t ch -> キャ ッ チ (2) Ca c he -> キャ ッ シュ

Any word that ends in a consonant sound requires another vowel to complete the consonant-vowel pattern. (Except for “n” and “m” for which we have 「ン」) For “t” and “d”, it’s usually “o”. For everything else, it’s usually “u”.

(1) Goo d -> グッ ド (2) To p -> トッ プ (3) Jac k -> ジャッ ク

English to Katakana Exercise

Sample: Europe = ヨーロッパ

What is Kanji?

In Japanese, nouns and stems of adjectives and verbs are almost all written in Chinese characters called Kanji . Adverbs are also fairly frequently written in Kanji as well. This means that you will need to learn Chinese characters to be able to read most of the words in the language. (Children’s books or any other material where the audience is not expected to know a lot of Kanji is an exception to this.) Not all words are always written in Kanji however. For example, while the verb “to do” technically has a Kanji associated with it, it is always written in Hiragana.

This guide begins using Kanji from the beginning to help you read “real” Japanese as quickly as possible. Therefore, we will go over some properties of Kanji and discuss some strategies of learning it quickly and efficiently. Mastering Kanji is not easy but it is by no means impossible. The biggest part of the battle is mastering the skills of learning Kanji and time . In short, memorizing Kanji past short-term memory must be done with a great deal of study and, most importantly, for a long time. And by this, I don’t mean studying five hours a day but rather reviewing how to write a Kanji once every several months until you are sure you have it down for good. This is another reason why this guide starts using Kanji right away. There is no reason to dump the huge job of learning Kanji at the advanced level. By studying Kanji along with new vocabulary from the beginning, the immense job of learning Kanji is divided into small manageable chunks and the extra time helps settle learned Kanji into permanent memory. In addition, this will help you learn new vocabulary, which will often have combinations of Kanji you already know. If you start learning Kanji later, this benefit will be wasted or reduced.

Learning Kanji

All the resources you need to begin learning Kanji are on the web for free. You can use dictionaries online such as Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC or jisho.org . They both have great Kanji dictionaries and stroke order diagrams for most Kanji. Especially for those who are just starting to learn, you will want to repeatedly write out each Kanji to memorize the stroke order. Another important skill is learning how to balance the character so that certain parts are not too big or small. So make sure to copy the characters as close to the original as possible. Eventually, you will naturally develop a sense of the stroke order for certain types of characters allowing you to bypass the drilling stage. All the Kanji used in this guide can be easily looked up by copying and pasting to an online dictionary.

Reading Kanji

Almost every character has two different readings called 音読み (おんよみ) and 訓読み(くんよみ). 音読み is the original Chinese reading while 訓読み is the Japanese reading. Kanji that appear in a compound or 熟語 is usually read with 音読み while one Kanji by itself is usually read with 訓読み. For example, 「力」(ちから) is read with the 訓読み while the same character in a compound word such as 「能力」 is read with the 音読み (which is 「りょく」 in this case).

Certain characters (especially the most common ones) can have more than one 音読み or 訓読み. For example, in the word 「怪力」, 「力」 is read here as 「りき」 and not 「りょく」. Certain compound words also have special readings that have nothing to do with the readings of the individual characters. These readings must be individually memorized. Thankfully, these readings are few and far in between.

訓読み is also used in adjectives and verbs in addition to the stand-alone characters. These words often have a string of kana (called okurigana) that come attached to the word. This is so that the reading of the Chinese character stays the same even when the word is conjugated to different forms. For example, the past form of the verb 「食べる」 is 「食べた」. Even though the verb has changed, the reading for 「食」 remain untouched. (Imagine how difficult things could get if readings for Kanji changed with conjugation or even worse, if the Kanji itself changed.) Okurigana also serves to distinguish between intransitive and transitive verbs (more on this later).

Another concept that is difficult to grasp at first is that the actual readings of Kanji can change slightly in a compound word to make the word easier to say. The more common transformations include the / h / sounds changing to either / b / or / p / sounds or 「つ」 becoming 「っ」. Examples include: 「一本」、「徹底」、and 「格好」.

Yet another fun aspect of Kanji you’ll run into are words that practically mean the same thing and use the same reading but have different Kanji to make just a slight difference in meaning. For example 「聞く」(きく) means to listen and so does 「聴く」(きく). The only difference is that 「聴く」 means to pay more attention to what you’re listening to. For example, listening to music almost always prefers 「聴く」 over 「聞く」. 「聞く」 can also mean ‘to ask’, as well as, “to hear” but 「訊く」(きく) can only mean “to ask”. Yet another example is the common practice of writing 「見る」 as 「観る」 when it applies to watching a show such as a movie. Yet another interesting example is 「書く」(かく) which means “to write” while 描く (かく) means “to draw”. However, when you’re depicting an abstract image such as a scene in a book, the reading of the same word 「描く」 becomes 「えがく」. There’s also the case where the meaning and Kanji stays the same but can have multiple readings such as 「今日」 which can be either 「きょう」、「こんじつ」, or 「こんにち」. In this case, it doesn’t really matter which reading you choose except that some are preferred over others in certain situations.

Finally, there is one special character 々 that is really not a character. It simply indicates that the previous character is repeated. For example, 「時時」、「様様」、「色色」、「一一」 can and usually are written as 「時々」、「様々」、「色々」、「一々」.

In addition to these “features” of Kanji, you will see a whole slew of delightful perks and surprises Kanji has for you as you advance in Japanese. You can decide for yourself if that statement is sarcasm or not. However, don’t be scared into thinking that Japanese is incredibly hard. Most of the words in the language usually only have one Kanji associated with it and a majority of Kanji do not have more than two types of readings.

Some people may think that the system of using separate, discrete symbols instead of a sensible alphabet is overly complicated. In fact, it might not have been a good idea to adopt Chinese into Japanese since both languages are fundamentally different in many ways. But the purpose of this guide is not to debate how the language should work but to explain why you must learn Kanji in order to learn Japanese. And by this, I mean more than just saying, “That’s how it’s done so get over it!”.

You may wonder why Japanese didn’t switch from Chinese to romaji to do away with having to memorize so many characters. In fact, Korea adopted their own alphabet for Korean to greatly simplify their written language with great success. So why shouldn’t it work for Japanese? I think anyone who has learned Japanese for a while can easily see why it won’t work. At any one time, when you convert typed Hiragana into Kanji, you are presented with almost always at least two choices (two homophones) and sometimes even up to ten. (Try typing “kikan”). The limited number of set sounds in Japanese makes it hard to avoid homophones. Compare this to the Korean alphabet which has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Any of the consonants can be matched to any of the vowels giving 140 sounds. In addition, a third and sometimes even fourth consonant can be attached to create a single letter. This gives over 1960 sounds that can be created theoretically. (The number of sounds that are actually used is actually much less but it’s still much larger than Japanese.)

Since you want to read at a much faster rate than you talk, you need some visual cues to instantly tell you what each word is. You can use the shape of words in English to blaze through text because most words have different shapes. Try this little exercise: Hi, enve thgouh all teh wrods aer seplled icorrenctly, can you sltil udsternand me?” Korean does this too because it has enough characters to make words with distinct and different shapes. However, because the visual cues are not distinct as Kanji, spaces needed to be added to remove ambiguities. (This presents another problem of when and where to set spaces.)

With Kanji, we don’t have to worry about spaces and much of the problem of homophones is mostly resolved. Without Kanji, even if spaces were to be added, the ambiguities and lack of visual cues would make Japanese text much more difficult to read.

Coto Academy

  • Intensive Japanese Courses
  • Lite Intensive Japanese Courses
  • Part-time Japanese Classes
  • Private Lessons
  • JLPT Prep Courses
  • Japanese Culture Experience Course
  • Online Japanese Lessons
  • JLPT Online Instruction & Exercise – 6 Month Course
  • Self-Study Courses
  • About Coto Japanese Academy
  • Iidabashi Japanese Language School
  • Shibuya Japanese Language School
  • Yokohama Japanese Language School
  • Minato Japanese Language School
  • Our Teaching Philosophy
  • Student Visa Support
  • Corporate Solutions
  • Japanese Blog
  • All articles

Avatar photo

Japanese Writing System: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana Explained

writing on japanese

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 chart

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

katakana chart

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.

Test your Japanese level!

writing on japanese

Related Articles

writing on japanese

Japan for Two: Romance, Adventure, and a Dash of Cuteness

Avatar photo

writing on japanese

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

Screenshot showing example printable kana worksheets from JapanesePod101

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

Image showing 3 different kinds of blank Japanese graph paper to practise writing kana and kanji. The pages are shown as a flatlay on a pink background.

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

Screenshot from the website Kakikata Print Maker, showing some of the many types of Japanese writing worksheets you can generate and print for free.

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:

Screenshot showing example N5 level kanji worksheet from kanji.sh

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 

Screenshot showing some free Japanese writing worksheets from JapanesePod101

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:

Screenshot from the Skritter app to learn Japanese hiragana and katakana

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.

Screenshot of Ringotan app to practise writing Japanese characters

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.

Screenshot of Scripts app showing a demonstration of how to write the hiragana character あ (a)

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

Screenshoot of LangCorrect homepage, a website where language learners can keep a journal online

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.

Screenshot of the homepage of language exchange app HelloTalk

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!

Kuretake DAW100-7 Calligraphy Set, Water Writing, Hard Brush, Use Water, Can Be Written Many Times, Beautiful Characters, Practice Set

Printable Japanese journals with writing prompts (paid) 

Promotional image titled '215 Japanese writing prompts' and showing 2 example Japanese writing worksheets.

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.

Genkouyoushi Practice Book: Japanese Kanji Practice Paper - Notebook for Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana - Large 8.5" x 11" - 121 Pages

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!}

writing on japanese

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.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

I accept the Privacy Policy

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Learn Japanese

I want to learn Japanese!

If you follow the instructions in this over the top, step-by-step guide, you will reach your goal of Japanese fluency.

However, this journey is going to take a lot of effort and hard work on your part. Anyone who tells you learning a language is going to be easy is either misinformed or trying to sell you something. And eventually, after the honeymoon phase of learning wears off, progress feels slower. You burn out. Sh*t hits the fan. If you've ever tried learning something new, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Instead, you need to do things the hard way (i.e. the correct way) right from the start.

Just because we're doing it right doesn't mean it has to be inefficient.

This method for learning Japanese starts at the very beginning. I assume you have zero knowledge of the Japanese language and guide you through each step. I'll cover reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And we explain what you should use, when, and why.

This should be everything you need to progress, that way you don't use all of that fresh enthusiasm you're feeling on planning how to learn, and instead spend it on actual learning.

Make like those famous shoes and just do it.

Learning to read hiragana

Our goal is to reach Japanese fluency as directly as possible. Unlike a teacher or a textbook, we have the freedom to be ruthless in the path we take to get there.

There are no tests or quizzes to take. You don't have to move at the speed of the slowest learner in your group. All you need to do is follow each step, do the work, and progress.

Just keep in mind that because of this, some steps may seem counterintuitive. They may even seem slow compared to other methods, but everything has been carefully selected to get you to the finish line faster and more efficiently. We'll talk more about that later.

A bit of housekeeping first: This is a living document, meaning it will be updated from time to time. Check back, subscribe to our email list , or follow us on Twitter to know when these updates happen. And, if you already have experience with Japanese, I still recommend you give it a read. There's a good chance you'll find something important to help you on your own Japanese language journey.

Table of Contents

Learn to read hiragana, basic japanese pronunciation, learning to type hiragana in japanese, understanding the concept of "kanji", beginning kanji & stockpiling kanji knowledge, learn to read katakana, learning to type katakana, learning to type kanji, 1. collecting vocabulary, 2. processing, 3. adding the words to your srs, beginning japanese grammar, a beginner's japanese textbook / program, answering your japanese language questions, order of learning, fact checking / cross referencing, do the work, sometimes, you'll just get stuck, optional: finding a japanese language tutor, suggested books and resources, intermediate level japanese, zero knowledge of japanese.

Welcome to learning Japanese! This section is for the true beginner. You know little-to-no Japanese. Maybe a "konnichiwa" here and a "baka" there. These first steps you take are especially important because they're going to set a foundation you can build off of.

The more deliberate your steps, the easier everything that follows will be.

Carefully completing this section is going to be necessary if you want to avoid the thing that takes down most learners: the intermediate wall. Instead, take your time on these foundational steps. What feels slow now is actually speed later on.

Estimated Time: 1 day to 1 week

Learning to read hiragana

Hiragana is Japan's version of the alphabet. It is one of three Japanese writing systems you need to learn to be able to read. The other two are katakana and kanji, but hiragana is where everything starts.

The ability to read hiragana is going to be a prerequisite for most beginner Japanese textbooks and resources. It's the first thing you learn in a traditional classroom. Surprisingly, I agree with everyone else. This is a good place to start.

Most Japanese classrooms spend an entire month learning how to read and write hiragana. That's too long! Instead of writing out each hiragana character over and over to memorize them, use the guide below and you may be reading hiragana later tonight. It uses mnemonics and worksheets that are designed to help you learn and be able to recall hiragana faster than you thought possible.

Do it: Learn How to Read Hiragana

It's important to note that this guide is going to teach you how to read hiragana and not how to write it. This has a purpose! While it is important to learn how to hand write Japanese eventually, right now it will slow you down immensely with very little payoff. Typing covers 99% of modern day writing so you will learn how to type hiragana (and katakana and kanji) instead.

This, in combination with mnemonics and worksheets, will allow you to learn how to read hiragana in a day or two instead of a month.

Remember: You're not in a class. You don't have to move at the speed of the slowest 10%. There is no speed limit .

In order to complete this section and move on, you need to get to the point where you can read all of the hiragana. Even if you're slow, as long as you can recall each character, as well as the contractions, without cheating, that's enough. You're about to get plenty of practice and your reading speed will naturally increase over time as you move on.

Note: Read "Japanese Pronunciation, Part 1" (below) before you start learning hiragana.

Estimated Time: n/a

Learning to read hiragana

Good pronunciation starts with hiragana. While hiragana alone won't teach you everything, it is the key to understanding how and why Japanese words sound the way they do. It will also help you get the foundation you need for a native-sounding accent. At the very least, hiragana will get you 80% of the way there.

For the remaining 20%, we wrote a guide covering the basics of Japanese pronunciation. Before you begin learning how to read hiragana, you should read up to the "Japanese Sounds and Your Mouth" section.

Once you've finished learning how to read hiragana, go though that section again, but this time read about "Important Differences" as well. This section will cover all of the sounds that don't exist in English, giving you a head start. Make sure you can pronounce all of the hiragana characters correctly before moving on.

Read: Basic Japanese Pronunciation Guide

With pronunciation, it's best to put the time and work in now, at the beginning. Don't ignore it because it's hard. When things get more difficult, it's very important that you've spent time speaking and hearing these sounds so that you can learn about all the differences and exceptions headed your way.

Okay, now go ahead and get back to learning how to read hiragana . Get to the point where you can read and recall everything, then move on to the next section.

Estimated Time: 1-2 days (or less) Prerequisite: Able to read hiragana

Learning to read hiragana

Now that you can read and pronounce hiragana (remember, slowly is okay!) it's time to learn how to type it on your computer or smartphone.

First, you need to install a Japanese keyboard. Luckily, you don't have to buy a special piece of hardware or computer to do this thanks to a type of software called an IME (input method editor). You can add an IME onto almost any kind of computer, phone, or operating system. Just follow the instructions in this guide to add them to your devices:

Read: How to Install a Japanese Keyboard

After you’re done installing, it’s time to learn how to actually type. Use the following guide, and only focus on the hiragana portion (since that’s all you know how to read right now):

Read: How to Type in Japanese

Assuming you are able to read hiragana, typing in hiragana is surprisingly straightforward. Once you feel confident in your typing abilities, including trickier things like contractions, small tsu, and dakuten, move on to the next section. It's time to talk about the elephant in every Japanese learner's room: kanji.

Learning to read hiragana

In our Japanese learning method, you're going to learn to read kanji characters very early. As soon as you can read and type hiragana it's time to start tackling kanji.

Here is our reasoning:

The most difficult thing about learning Japanese is kanji. At least, that's what people say. But trying to save it or brush it off until later isn't going to help you learn Japanese. Almost everything uses kanji, making it one of the most important aspects of learning this language. Your learning quality of life will drop drastically if you choose to ignore it.

A lot of a beginner’s time when using a textbook is spent looking up kanji and vocabulary. This takes your focus away from the grammar you're trying to learn and makes progression slow and frustrating. Learning (some) kanji and vocabulary first makes learning grammar a lot faster and, more importantly, easier. Think of it this way: you're losing a little time now to save a ton of time later.

Kanji leads to vocabulary, vocabulary aids communication, and grammar is like the glue that holds vocabulary together. Without vocabulary there's nothing for the grammar glue to stick to and everything gets messy. It makes grammar abstract and difficult to learn, when it doesn't have to be.

Like hiragana, we have a way for you to learn kanji that's way more effective than the traditional methodology (rote memorization). Thanks to that, it won't be as difficult as everyone says. It may even *gasp* be a pleasure to learn! Maybe.

This kanji-vocabulary-first route will get you to the point where you can use Japanese quickly. It feels slow at first, but soon you will rocket past your fellow Japanese learning compatriots. You'll also be able to get over that "intermediate wall" easier and quicker than if you were to use a traditional method. This lowers your chances of burnout and giving up all together.

If you're on board with this philosophy, you need to start at the very beginning: understanding what kanji is and how it's used. For that, we have another guide for you to read:

Read: On’yomi vs. Kun’yomi: What’s the Difference?

Once you understand how Japanese kanji readings work, you’ll be ready to learn some actual kanji.

Estimated Time: 1-3 months

Learning to read hiragana

Important note about this section: You should start to learn katakana (the next section) at the same time as this step. "Beginning Kanji & Stockpiling Kanji Knowledge" will take 1-3 months. In fact, you can complete all of the steps up to "The Beginner of Japanese" while you work on this one!

Okay, so it's time to actually learn kanji. Let's define what "learn kanji" means before you get started. That way you know what is expected of you.

When I say "learn kanji" I mean learn the kanji’s most important (English) meaning(s), and their most important (Japanese) reading(s). As you know from reading about on'yomi and kun'yomi, some kanji have a lot of readings. And, unfortunately, English meanings are just translations and can't always match the Japanese meaning one-to-one. That means there can be many correct English meanings for a single kanji that you'll need to deal with. We'll narrow those down so you only learn the most important meanings and readings first—the ones used 80-90% of the time. The remaining meanings and readings will come via vocabulary and other practice.

As you learn kanji you will also learn vocabulary that use those kanji. Not only will this help solidify those kanji concepts in your mind, but it will also be where you learn the remaining kanji readings. Plus, as you know, this vocabulary will be used to give you something to glue together with grammar later.

By the end of this guide, your goal is to know around 2,000 of the most important kanji as well as 6-7000 vocabulary words that use them. With this groundwork you should be able to read almost anything—or at least have the tools to easily decipher the rest on your own.

Your goal should be to learn 20-30 kanji and ~100 vocabulary words that use those kanji (and only those kanji) each week. If that seems like a lot, don't worry: there is a method for memorization that will speed things up considerably. Please read up on the Radicals Mnemonic Method. As a bonus, you will learn some important foundational knowledge about how kanji works in here as well.

Read: Learn kanji with the radicals mnemonic method

In this guide you will learn how to narrow down kanji meanings and readings to the most important ones. You will learn how to use radicals and mnemonics and how to create an effective routine.

You should be able to use these techniques to create a weekly study plan on your own for free, as long as you put in the work. But, if you would like all of the above (and then some) in one, complete package, we recommend the kanji learning program, WaniKani .

We'll be referencing it going forward, but just know that creating your own content and schedule is totally fine and doable. You'll just need to make sure you maintain your pace to keep up. Or, for some of you, make sure you slow down so you don't burn out!

Once you begin learning vocabulary in WaniKani (or your own system) read the Basic Japanese Pronunciation Guide from the Pronouncing Vocabulary section all the way through to the end. You will learn about long and short vowel sounds, double consonants, dropping sounds (all common stumbling blocks for beginners), and more. You will also learn about pitch accent. Although it may be difficult now, just knowing pitch accent exists and how it works in Japanese will give you a leg up.

Okay! Make sure you get started now. Do the work, don't just plan to do it! Sitting down and starting is the hardest part.

Estimated Time: 2 days to 2 weeks Prerequisite: Able to read hiragana

Learning how to read katakana

Learning katakana is about the same as learning hiragana, with a few Shyamalanian twists. We have yet another mnemonic-based guide for you, and chances are you'll be able to read katakana within the next few days if you're willing to put in the work.

You should get to the point where you can read all of the katakana, however slowly, by the time you start unlocking vocabulary in WaniKani (or by the time you start vocabulary in your own kanji method). Although katakana words won't show up a lot right from the start, there are enough to make it worthwhile. It's also a good way to spend your extra time while the number of kanji you're learning is still quite low.

Do it: Learn to Read Katakana

Note: Katakana tends to give learners more trouble than hiragana. This is because it seems to be used less than hiragana and kanji, especially at the beginning stages. Later on, katakana will appear more frequently, but for now simply being able to read katakana is enough. There will be plenty of opportunities to get better at it—just know that reading katakana may not come as quickly as it did with hiragana. And that's okay. Hiragana and kanji are just more useful right now, so spend your limited time and energy there.

Once you can read each katakana character—no matter how slowly—move on to the next section about typing katakana.

Estimated Time: 1-2 hours Prerequisites: Able to type hiragana, able to read katakana

Learning how to type katakana with your keyboard

Katakana is similar to hiragana in many ways, and thanks to this, learning how to type it should be fairly easy. There are a few differences to figure out, but you will be able to apply your hiragana knowledge to it and progress quickly. Jump to the katakana section of our typing guide and get started.

Read: How to Type Katakana

Note: Make sure you keep working on your kanji! If you’re using WaniKani, just do your reviews as they become available. It's important to make this a habit. Because WaniKani is a spaced repetition system there must be spaces between reviews. Longer and longer ones, in fact (though it will depend on how well you're doing). Do your reviews on time and you’ll get through this initial "slow" phase in a week or two. That's a drop in the bucket compared to your entire Japanese-learning career, so try to be patient. The waiting time is critical to testing your ability to recall information.

Estimated Time: 1-2 hours Prerequisite: Able to read 20-30 kanji

Learning how to type kanji on your keyboard

Before starting this step, make sure you can read a handful of kanji. Twenty or thirty will do just fine. If you're using WaniKani, this is when you start unlocking vocabulary or are around level 2.

Okay, are you done?

Typing in kanji is a little more complicated than typing in hiragana or katakana, but it still follows similar rules. Learn how to type in kanji using the kanji section of our guide then read to the end. There are some additional tips and tricks in there (punctuation, symbols, etc.) that may come in handy.

Read: How to type kanji

Now you know how to type everything there is to type in Japanese (that is, unless you count kaomoji )! If you can type in English, typing in Japanese is surprisingly easy. With practice, you'll be able to type it as naturally as you type in your native language.

To continue using this typing knowledge, you'll need to know more kanji and vocabulary. Once you get there though, you'll be ready for "The Beginner of Japanese" section!

Before moving on, you should reach level 10 on WaniKani (or around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words using your own method).

This is an important time in terms of pronunciation too. Make sure you consciously mimic the vocabulary audio. Think about pitch accent as you do it. This work will prepare you for sentences later.

With this kanji knowledge (and good pronunciation, to boot!), grammar is going to come quickly to you. You won't be spending your grammar study time looking up every other word. Instead, you'll be able to focus solely on grammar, and you'll know the contents of 80% of every sentence you see for the first time. When you say these sentences out loud, you won't be tripping over your tongue because you'll already be intimately familiar with Japanese sounds and pronunciation. The time you put into kanji, vocabulary, and pronunciation will begin to pay off.

Put your head down, trust in this, and do the work each day.

Go on, get to it, and come back here when you're done.

The Beginner of Japanese

Being a beginner of anything is great. Everything is new, everything feels like real, tangible progress, and even if you're bad at something, you can't really tell because you don't know enough yet anyway.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

At this point, you have a strong base of kanji and vocabulary. If you are using WaniKani , you should be at level 10 or above. If you are doing kanji on your own, or using another resource, you should know the most common meaning and reading of around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words. If you are using a resource that only teaches you the meaning of a kanji (and not how to read it), that doesn't count . You need to be able to do the whole thing, not just the easiest 20%.

With this assumption about your knowledge in place, we're going to go through some options for how you can learn Japanese grammar. This includes using a textbook as well as creating your own grammar program from scratch. We offer some of our own material as well. Most likely, you'll end up doing a hybrid of the above. No matter what you choose, your foundation of kanji, vocabulary, and pronunciation will make everything much easier. Without it, even the best Japanese textbook will be a frustrating experience.

Using a Spaced Repetition System For Vocabulary

Estimated Time: 2-4 hours + ongoing

Increasing your kanji knowledge

You will learn a lot of vocabulary purely from your kanji studies. As long as you have a good kanji system in place, you shouldn't worry too much. However, you will definitely need to learn all of the words that do not use kanji too. In the beginning, this will largely be grammatical things, and words that don't use kanji, from your textbook. Later it will be vocabulary you pick up from signs, manga, and other real life sources.

It's time to learn how and when to introduce vocabulary words from outside your kanji studies into your study routine. The most important thing is to have a good system in place.

You need to be able to record and store these words so that you can study them later. You also need a good system to handle and process these words. It's a waste if you record them once and never look at them again.

At your currently level, most of the new words you encounter will probably be hiragana or katakana-only words. Once you start reading more and more Japanese, the number of new words you encounter will increase, so being able to keep track and add these to your routine becomes even more important. For now though, your goal is to develop a habit of collecting, processing, and studying vocabulary that is unfamiliar to you. This should become second nature.

Most likely, you will find most of the vocabulary that you want to learn in your Japanese textbook (we'll cover that really soon!). As I mentioned earlier, these might be words that don't have kanji, or maybe they're words that you didn't learn in WaniKani. There are a lot of words out there and no one resource will teach you all of them.

Once you've found some words that you want to learn you need to collect them. How you do this doesn't matter as much as actually doing it. Put them in a spreadsheet, a tool like Evernote or OneNote, or just write them down on a piece of paper. Make sure wherever you put these new words is easily accessible and make a trigger for yourself that essentially says " if I see a vocabulary word I want to learn, then I add it to my list."

There are plenty of list-apps and pieces of paper out there, so it's going to be difficult for me to say what you should use. I'm partial to Evernote and have my own processes built up there. And Airtable is a great spreadsheet app for people who don't think in math. But maybe you like physical pocket-sized notebooks, to-do lists, your smartphone camera (with a special folder for future processing), or something else.

Whatever you use, make sure it's easy for you . Figure out what makes sense and make it work. If this step doesn't happen, everything else will fall apart.

The next step is processing. I'd recommend you create a habit where every day, week, or month (it depends on how much new vocabulary you want to introduce to your routine) you go through this list and put them into your SRS of choice. What is an SRS? I'm glad you asked.

If you've been using WaniKani, you've been using a "Spaced Repetition System" (a.k.a. SRS) this whole time! But you'll want to use something else for the vocabulary you find out in the wild. For this, we wrote a guide. In it you'll learn how to collect vocabulary and add them to your SRS.

Read: Spaced Repetition and Japanese: The Definitive Guide

One additional piece of reading I'd recommend is this article on Keyword Mnemonics. For the non-kanji vocabulary you want to learn this is a surprisingly simple (and effective) mnemonic method which will allow you to learn more vocabulary in one sitting, and be able to recall it for longer.

Read: Keyword Mnemonic Method for Learning Japanese Vocabulary

As I said earlier, you won't be working with a ton of vocabulary at the start. For now, let your kanji studies give you most of your vocabulary. Then, when stray street vocabulary does start coming up, send it through the vocabulary process you've built.

Make this a habit.

Habit generally means 3-6 weeks of doing something regularly. And you should start now, because in six weeks you'll be needing to utilize this habit a lot more.

Estimated Time: It's a mystery

Learning how to pronounce Japanese vocabulary

It’s (finally!) time to start learning grammar. If you followed this guide to the letter, you’re probably 2-4+ months into your Japanese studies. If it's more than that, don't worry about it. We all go at our own speeds and the important thing is that you kept moving forward. You should know around 300 kanji and 1,000 Japanese vocabulary words, and your pronunciation should be getting better, or at least you're being conscious about improving it. Now it’s time to kick Japanese grammar's butt.

Let's start by internalizing a philosophy. Carry this with you for the rest of your life:

When learning something new, you should already know 80% of it.

This means that each new thing you learn should be a 20% (or smaller) incremental step. A +1 from where you are, rather than a +20 or +100.

Most people go into a textbook with zero knowledge and wind up spending a large chunk of their time looking up words they don't know. How much of a sentence is vocabulary? Depending on the length, it's easy to answer "more than 80%."

So when you're learning grammar with a textbook, coming into it with prior vocabulary knowledge brings you to that 80%. Leaving you just the grammar, which you can then point your laser-like focus towards. Instead of constantly flipping to the index to look up a word or kanji and deal with context switching when you finally get back to the lesson, all you have to worry about is learning the grammar and nothing else.

That's the +1 we're talking about.

Let's assume for a moment that your Japanese vocabulary knowledge doesn't get you to 80% (or more). If that's the case, there are a few possible reasons:

You don't know enough vocabulary: If you don't know a lot of the words in a sentence before studying with it, then you don't understand 80% of the sentence before you start. In this case, go back to your kanji/vocabulary studies for a while and reconsider the level of the resource you're using. Another solution would be to pull the vocabulary from the resource, study them with your SRS method, and then come back once you've learned them.

You don't know enough grammar: Imagine you're looking at a sentence that contains three separate grammar points. If you're being taught one of the three, but you don't know the other two, you're dipping way below that ideal 80%.

The sentence is very short: If a phrase only has three parts (ex. "[vocabulary] + [particle] + [vocabulary]"), and you don't know one of them, you're going to be at 66%. In cases like this, you can make an exception. Knowing 66% of a three piece phrase, or 75% of a four piece phrase is acceptable. This will be very common in the beginning.

That's the philosophy we're working off of going forward, so double-check that you have that base of kanji and vocab before continuing with this guide. Your failure rate increases dramatically if this foundation is weak!

A student wondering what Japanese textbook they should use

It's time to take our philosophy and apply it to a beginner textbook. All the things that would have normally tripped you up (the things teachers and textbooks have a tough time explaining, due to the curse of knowledge ) should now be less difficult to deal with. And with kanji and vocabulary already in your tool belt, learning grammar should be much more interesting. You won't be spending 90% of your time and energy on looking up kanji and vocabulary you don't know. Instead, you'll just be doing it.

With this base knowledge, choosing a specific textbook or program to follow becomes less important, but there are still many "good" textbooks and many "bad" textbooks out there. Most will teach you the same content one way or another, so pick one that you feel fits your learning style.

To help you with this choice, we wrote a guide:

Read: The Best Japanese Textbooks for Beginners

Whatever you end up choosing, get started right away. It's so easy for people to get trapped in a "preparation loop" where they spend all of their time planning and getting ready, only to stop before any actual work gets done.

At this point you will focus on working through your textbook of choice. Try to progress through the entire thing from beginning to end. Doing this will create a strong foundation of Japanese inside of you, something you can use to base other knowledge off of.

Once all of the basic, foundational grammar is in place you'll be able to really accelerate and work toward fluency.

It will take around 2-6 months to get through most beginner Japanese textbooks. Though, this does depend on how much time you have to spend on your studies and what grammar method you choose. You can even go through a couple different textbooks at the same time, if you want. What one textbook doesn't teach well, another probably does. That being said, if you don't feel like you understand a concept, or you want to know more, there's plenty of ways to get your questions answered. I recommend not skipping questions—instead, follow your curiosity! Learning is supposed to be fun, though school may have "taught" you otherwise.

Read the next section as you start your textbook studies. You'll eventually run into something you don't know that your textbook doesn't explain. You might as well be ready for it.

Answering questions about Japanese

As you're going through your textbook, you're going to run into things you don't understand. Or, you'll find you don't know 80% anymore. It's not necessarily a failure of your textbook, it's just that many of them were designed for teachers to use in a classroom. They expect someone to be there to answer questions for you. Or, there just isn't enough paper in the world to cover everything.

Not to worry. When you run into something you don't understand you can look it up. No matter what kind of question you're asking or answer you're searching for, we wrote up a guide that will tell you how to find anything Japanese language related:

Read: How to Answer your Japanese Language Questions

Note: You should continue to use WaniKani (or whatever kanji learning method you chose) as you continue on. You should keep going until you finish, and/or you reach the end of this guide. It is important to keep your kanji-vocabulary knowledge ahead of your grammar knowledge at all times. If you don't, that 80% ratio will tick down until your studies no longer feel sustainable or fun.

Alternative: Learning Japanese Grammar On Your Own

A student studying Japanese grammar online

By gathering all that kanji and vocabulary knowledge you’re making it possible to learn grammar on your own. Learning grammar is easy comparatively. That being said, if you decide not to use a Japanese textbook as your main resource, there are some things you'll want to consider:

This is a topic we'll be writing a big guide on. But, it's quite complicated so I haven't gotten around to it yet. We'll fill in this section with that guide in the near future, but for now don't use my slowness as an excuse. Just get started. If you do, ordering will, for the most part, naturally fall into place if you follow the "know 80% of all new things" philosophy.

Don't just trust any ol' thing you read on the internet. The same goes for textbooks and teachers, too. When you learn a new piece of Japanese grammar, make sure to read explanations from multiple sources. Some will be complicated with hard linguistic language while others will be overly simplified. And a few here and there will be just right! Making a habit out of using multiple explanations and resources for one thing will feel like it's slowing you down at first, but it's much faster overall. We'll list some really good reference books at the end of the Beginning Japanese section, so make sure to take a look.

If you're studying Japanese grammar on your own, it's even more important to do the work . It's not hard to study and use what you've learned. It's hard to sit down and start . Even more so than a class or textbook, you'll need to make sure you actually sit down and make progress. Measurable progress, preferably, though you'll have to figure out just how to measure it.

With a textbook, you can just say, "I could answer all the questions," or, "I made it through twelve pages this week." Doing grammar on your own makes it harder to see and feel yourself moving forward. You are, but it's a bit hidden.

If this is happening a lot—and no amount of research gets you through it—you might want to consider finding a professional to help. Speaking of professionals…

A Japanese teacher and her student

This may be the time to consider finding a Japanese language tutor, especially if you feel like you're not able to answer your questions about Japanese on your own. With a foundation of kanji and vocabulary already in place, you will be able to focus on the things that a tutor can help you with the most: speaking, listening, and answering questions.

Keep in mind that focusing on kanji and vocabulary with a tutor tends to be a poor use of this time. Most teachers don't have any idea how to teach kanji (it's just, "go learn these kanji and vocab by next week") and many tutors try to promote rote memorization because that's how they learned as a child.

When using a tutor it's important to focus on things only a tutor will be able to help you with. Those include their ability to speak, think, and explain nuances that haven't been written about or studied (yet).

You're not required to get a tutor or a teacher at this point, but if you were really looking forward to this part, now is the appropriate time to do it. Everything from here on out won't rely on your having access to a teacher, tutor, or native speaker, so you can still progress without needing to complete this step.

A student reading Japanese reference books

As you're moving along, there's always going to be more to learn. Don't be afraid to stop moving forward to indulge your curiosity. These "slowdowns" will speed you up as you strengthen past knowledge and make connections between them.

For times like this, reference books are quite good. If you're only going to buy one, I'd recommend the "Basic" book from the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series . It is the best Japanese language reference book out there, in my opinion.

Other than that, look through the "Reference Books" section of our Beginner Japanese Textbooks, Reference Books, and Dictionaries article. There are quite a few good ones!

Read: The Best Japanese Reference Books & Dictionaries

Note: With any skill, it's important that you focus on the things you're worst at. "Raise the floor, not the ceiling," so to speak. If you do that, you'll find everything else gets elevated, and you'll be less frustrated overall. You'll have more data to reference in your brain as more unknown ideas and concepts pop up. For example, if you're bad at verbs, pick up The Handbook of Japanese Verbs and just read through it. It might take you an afternoon, but every verb you see from that day on won't be a detriment to your progress. Instead, it will positively affect all other aspects of your Japanese.

Raise the floor, because no matter how high your ceiling, you'll still be down on the ground.

The "intermediate" level of Japanese is by far the worst. Most of the people who ultimately give up on learning do it here (assuming they made it past the first few weeks).

Available resources begin to dry up, in both number and quality, and learners get stuck or plateau. Without guidance, it can feel like progressing is an impossible task.

This is the intermediate wall.

The thing that makes the intermediate level the hardest, though, is what got you here: your competence.

The beginner section was your unconscious incompetence stage. That is, you didn't realize you were incompetent, so you never felt discouraged, overly embarrassed, or stupid. But now you know a thing or two, and it's just enough to know you're not actually amazing at this thing called the Japanese language. It hurts and it's because you are now consciously incompetent, which is no fun at all.

Thankfully, a lot of the pain most learners feel at this stage comes from poor learning or teaching methods from the beginner stages. Things that you, hopefully, avoided. And although everyone will experience conscious incompetence to some degree, some people can get through it quickly and some get trapped here for years. Most, unfortunately, can't make it through at all and give up.

Be the type of person that gets through this stage quickly.

The other side of this wall is extremely fun and rewarding, so don't give up and don't let your conscious incompetence get you down.

Here's how you do it:

Recognize this stage exists and know that you're supposed to feel these uncomfortable feelings. This helps a surprising amount. You don't have to feel dumb because you know that everyone goes through this exact same situation. It's all a part of the process and if other people made it out, you can too.

You've already been preparing for this moment. This guide has prepped you to get through this fairly quickly. You're at an advantage! Most people wallow in the conscious incompetence stage for a long time because they lack two things: kanji and vocabulary. But by this point, you know more kanji and vocabulary than any intermediate level Japanese language student ought to. This is why you spent so much time on WaniKani (or one of its alternatives). It slows you down in the beginning so that you can blast through this wall.

With all that in mind, it’s time to start on some intermediate material. Make sure you are good on 100% of the previous sections before moving on. This is, by far, the most difficult portion of your Japanese education. You must have a good foundation to jump off of. When you're ready, you can start browsing our Japanese articles and Grammar pages . Good luck! 💪🏻

Japanese Keyboard - 日本語のキーボード

Click or type it... copy it... and paste it... done.

Select All Copy Undo Redo Clear All Save Text - + Send Email Tweet in Japanese Google in Japanese Google Translate

Kanji to Romaji converter

This Japanese Keyboard enables you to easily type Japanese online without installing Japanese keyboard . You can use your computer keyboard or mouse to type Japanese letters (Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana) with this online keyboard.

Pressing Esc on the Japanese keyboard layout will toggle the mouse input between virtual QWERTY keyboard and virtual Japanese keyboard. The key will also turn on/off your keyboard input conversion. Pressing Esc on your keyboard has the same function.

Click or press the Space key to switch Hiragana to Katakana input, Katakana to Kanji input, and Kanji to Hiragana input. You can only type space in QWERTY mode.

In Kanji mode, as you type the Chinese or Japanese reading of a character in English, suggested Kanji characters will be displayed on the number key row. Use ◂ and ▸ keys to view the prev/next suggestions. The Space key can be used to select the first suggestion.

Press Shift or either Ctrl + Alt or AltGr for additional Japanese letters that are not visible on the keyboard.

Instructions for using the Romaji input

Press s a k a to get さか and s a k k a to get さっか. To type みんな, press m i n n a . Pressing n ' a produces んあ and pressing n y a produces にゃ.

For mobile phones and tablets, touch and hold inside the text area to copy the text. You can then paste the text in any app such as Facebook, Twitter, email, or search app.

  • Shoko Mugikura
  • Mar 6, 2012

Japanese Writing, A Beautifully Complex System

  • 10 min read
  • Inspiration , Typography , Web Design , Graphic Design
  • Share on Twitter ,  LinkedIn

About The Author

Shoko Mugikura is a Japanese designer based in Berlin. Alongside working on book design projects, she is running the type design studio Just Another Foundry … More about Shoko ↬

Email Newsletter

Weekly tips on front-end & UX . Trusted by 200,000+ folks.

As a Japanese person living in Europe, I’m sometimes asked: “Japanese is a difficult language, isn’t it?” Those asking are often surprised when my answer is a simple: “No, actually, it’s not.”

While it is true (at least to many Westerners) that Japanese is an exotic language, when compared to learning other European languages, it may seem harder because it has no relation to their own language. But from my own experiences of learning English and German (and also from seeing some European friends learning Japanese), I can say with confidence that learning spoken Japanese is, in fact, not so difficult. The grammar is in many ways simpler than most European languages. Take for example the fact that we don’t have cases, grammatical genders, nor articles. However, Japanese writing and reading is… well, not so simple.

While discussing typography we most often focus on English language problems, which is only natural considering that the majority of design material is written in English. However, a lot can be gleaned from looking at how other languages are used as part of communication and design — it helps to lend context and a different point of view.

Further Reading on SmashingMag:

  • Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World
  • Interview With Type Designer Akira Kobayashi 
  • How To Be A Samurai Designer
  • Brush Lettering: It Only Gets Better After Practice

Japanese Writing Scripts

Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three basic scripts: Kanji — which are Chinese ideographic symbols — as well as Hiragana and Katakana — two phonetic alphabets (syllables). There are a few thousand Kanji characters, while Hiragana and Katakana have 46 each. Although there is a basic rule for when to use which script, there are many exceptions, and what’s worse is that words written in Kanji have often multiple pronunciations, depending on the context or conjunction. This is hard enough for native speaker to get right every time, so I almost feel sorry for those non-natives who are learning to read and write Japanese.

Some say that the “tragedy” started when Japan decided to “import” the Chinese writing system, inscribing it into their own language in the 3rd century.

Since Japanese is as different from Chinese as it is to any other language, simply using the Chinese writing system was not sufficient, and a more appropriate way of writing Japanese was sought out. Some Chinese characters began to be used not for their meaning, but purely for their phonetic value. So by the 9th century, Hiragana and Katakana scripts were derived from simplified Chinese characters that were used to write Japanese phonetically.

The story doesn’t end there. As if using three scripts isn’t enough, we write in both horizontal and vertical orientation.

Horizontal? Vertical? The Unique Case Of Japanese Typography

“Vertical or horizontal?” — when setting a piece of text in Japanese, this is a question that Japanese designers constantly need to ask themselves. Being able to use both vertical and horizontal writing orientations is something so normal for us native Japanese speakers that most of us won’t even stop to wonder why this is possible, or even when and how it was first introduced.

In general, these two writing orientations have a clear usage: vertical for something “Japanese”, “traditional”, “novels and other humanistic writings”; horizontal for “contemporary”, “business documents”, “scientific & foreign language related writings” and so on. When a main text is set horizontally, the binding is on the left-hand side, and pages progress to the right, like books in Latin scripts. Traditional books in vertical setting are the other way around, with the binding at the right hand side, and pages progressing to the left. So when you handle a Japanese book, don’t confuse the front with the back!

Where the efficient use of space is important — namely newspapers and magazines — both orientations are often combined. Although it may appear a bit chaotic, or even random to foreign eyes, these two directions are usually used in a systematic way as a means to indicate different text elements on a page. For instance, a main text is often set in a vertical setting, but headings and captions may be set in a horizontal setting.

In a way, it’s comparable to “typographic variants” which are found in Latin typography — in Latin script text one may use bold, italic, or a different font to differentiate things such as pull quotes from the main text, whereas in Japanese we can do this by using a different orientation. Publications which accommodate non-linear or complex text (as opposed to linear text, such as novels) seem to benefit in particular from having these two orientations, which allow the layout to be highly flexible, and also to create strong visual impact.

The extreme cases of “space-efficiency-oriented typography” are informational-heavy pieces of text, such as diagrams and signage — also exploiting the two directional orientations. The Tokyo Metro map (Fig 10) is a good example of this — as you can see, both orientations are used accordingly, so that everything fits best within the limited space.

It’s true that in many cases they look quite chaotic and sometimes even aesthetically questionable to eyes that are used to “orderly” design. But it’s easy to appreciate the visual impact and energy they create — they remind you that effective, appealing informational design does not always have to look “neat and tidy”.

What’s Happening On Screen-Based Media?

Since the introduction of horizontal writing in the Japanese language, print-based media and signage have been employing both of these writing orientations effectively, and in ways that complement one another. But what’s been happening to screen-based media? With a few exceptions — such as word-processing machines made exclusively for the Japanese text output, or subtitles for film and TV screens, which tend to use either depending on the background image — horizontal orientation has been the dominant choice.

The prime example of this is the Web: horizontal orientation has been used almost exclusively. For the past 15 years, I have hardly come across a website that uses vertical setting. Mobile phone screens also use a horizontal orientation. I believe this may be due to the relations of hardware, operating systems and user interfaces that have become the norm, all of which have been designed to work with horizontal writing. It feels somewhat awkward to see vertical writing while all the other elements on the screen, such as the menu bar and UI elements, are horizontal.

Needless to say, the technical limitations (the support of a vertical setting by browsers is a fairly recent introduction) have largely contributed to this too. Perhaps underestimated, maybe the biggest factor for not using vertical setting for screen-based media could well be the mental association with horizontal orientation being used for something “modern” and “contemporary”.

Will Vertical Writing Orientation Die Out?

Will vertical writing orientation die out from screen-based media? Or can it make a comeback, when the technological environment allows us to use vertical settings more easily? Many e-book apps on smart phones and tablets have already started using vertical settings. With its intuitive way of navigating the screen along with the lack of external input devices (and apps being able to have more flexible/responsive layout), vertical writing seems to be incorporated much more comfortably.

I’ve spent some time reading these e-books — and pleasantly surprised at how easy they are to read. Apart from the fact that you need to scroll the screen horizontally, it’s just as comfortable as reading “normal” or horizontally set text. In fact, it’s even better for some types of publications like novels, or Manga. Our association towards this type of content when compared to the vertical setting is pretty strong; it would somehow feel “wrong” to see them set horizontally.

Amazon’s Kindle has yet to support the Japanese language, but apparently they’re on their way to doing so. If they seriously want to attract Japanese readers, it would be unthinkable for them not to support vertical setting.

The situation also seems to be slowly changing on the Web — some interesting attempts have been made in order to familiarize ourselves with Web pages that have vertical setting. One such example is Taketori , which works just like Google translate — you can type in the URL of a Web page you wish to see in vertical setting, and Taketori does it for you. There’s also a piece of software called Kagetaka, which can switch any Web text into a vertical orientation.

Personally, I’m not too sure how well vertical setting will be supported by the users of normal Web pages, unless the way we navigate Web pages is re-developed, or a new type of browser with more innovative UI appears. Even though I complained earlier about the difficulty of the Japanese writing system, I do appreciate its diversity and flexibility, while making use of its three scripts and two orientations allows us to express subtle nuances of content — and we have been benefiting from that for decades.

I thought it would be a shame if we lose these methods of textual articulation in an age of screen-based media. But what has been happening for the last couple of years on touch-screen mobile devices (as well as the Web) can reassure us that both writing orientations may happily co-exist and collaborate on screen in the future, just as they have done off-screen for the last hundred years.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Smashing Newsletter

Tips on front-end & UX, delivered weekly in your inbox. Just the things you can actually use.

Front-End & UX Workshops, Online

With practical takeaways, live sessions, video recordings and a friendly Q&A.

TypeScript in 50 Lessons

Everything TypeScript, with code walkthroughs and examples. And other printed books.

A Complete Guide to the Three Writing Systems in Japanese

writing on japanese

Are you ready to start your Japanese journey but the writing systems seem daunting and a little scary? Well look no further, I am here to help explain the basics of the Japanese writing systems and break down the differences between them. With a little help, you will be well on your way to learning how to read and write in Japanese!

writing on japanese

Introduction to the Three Writing Systems

Effective ways to memorize kana and kanji.

Japanese has three distinct scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In normal Japanese writing, you will see all of these jumbled together in a sentence, but each of them has a unique role in the language, so let’s learn about them separately. 

Hiragana, the first script typically taught to learners, consists of 46 characters, each representing a syllable. It has a soft and cursive appearance. For instance, the word こんにちは “konnichiwa” meaning “hello” is written entirely in hiragana. Additionally, hiragana is used for verb conjugations, particles, and other essential elements of Japanese sentences, allowing learners to form coherent sentences and comprehend basic expressions.

Katakana, similar in structure to hiragana, also comprises 46 characters, but its appearance is angular and sharp. Katakana is primarily used for foreign words, names, and loanwords from other languages. For example, コーヒー “koohii” is the katakana word for “coffee.” Katakana usually means that the word is of foreign origin, making it easier for Japanese speakers to recognize and pronounce these words.

Kanji, the most intricate script, is derived from Chinese characters and consists of thousands of characters. Each Kanji represents a concept, word, or idea. For instance, the kanji 今 means “now” or the kanji 日 means “day.” We can also combine certain kanji to make more complex words, like 今日 which makes the word “today.” Kanji is commonly used for nouns, adjectives, verbs, and other essential elements of Japanese text. Kanji might seem overwhelming at first, but don’t worry, they aren’t that complicated and there are plenty of strategies that can help you learn them effectively!

Together, these three scripts are used to create full Japanese sentences. For instance, a Japanese sentence might look like this: 

今日はコーヒーを飲みました。

“Kyou ha koohii wo nomimashita”

Today I drank coffee.

Hiragana is made up of 46 main symbols. Each of these represents a syllable. For example, the hiragana ね is pronounced “ne” and こ is pronounced “ko.” We can put these together to make the word ねこ or “neko” meaning cat. Hiragana is used for some words, but it can also be used for grammatical parts of speech like particles or at the end of verbs to conjugate them. Most importantly, hiragana is the foundation of Japanese, so when you are learning kanji, the pronunciation for them can be spelled out with hiragana, which makes it a great stepping stone to learning kanji. So once you learn these symbols thoroughly, you can always fall back on using them if you don’t remember the kanji for a certain word. 

You can tell hiragana apart from katakana because it is more rounded and curved. 

Similar in structure to hiragana, katakana is another essential script in the Japanese writing system. Comprising 46 characters as well, katakana, however, serves a different purpose. It is mostly used for foreign words, names, and loanwords from other languages. For instance, the word ミルク is pronounced “miruku” and means “milk.” 

The best part about katakana is that when you get used to Japanese pronunciation, you can sound out most of these words with no need to translate them because most words come from English! So “table” in Japanese is simply テーブル “teeburu,” or “lemon” is レモン is “remon.” Essentially these are just English words pronounced with a Japanese accent. 

Katakana can also be used to emphasize words, or the foreign word can come from a language other than English, so this isn’t always the case. But for the most part, katakana will be the easiest script for you to learn in Japanese. You can tell the difference between hiragana and katakana because katakana is more angular with sharp angles. 

Arguably the most intricate and fascinating writing system, kanji, consists of thousands of characters. Don’t let this intimate you though! You only need to know about 1000 to function in Japanese life, and there are a ton of helpful ways to learn them to make it easy. 

The kanji are derived from Chinese characters, and each kanji represents a concept, word, or idea. For example, the kanji 外 is pronounced がい “gai” and means “outside.” The kanji 国 is pronounced こく “koku” and means “country.” You can use each of these kanji on its own, but together they make 外国 or がいこく which means “foreign country.” 

This is really the beauty of Japanese; you can actually see the meanings of words with the images that kanji create. One of my favorites is 花火 (はなび or “hanabi”) which comprises the kanji for “flower” and “fire,” and together they make the word “fireworks.” Isn’t kanji beautiful!?

Kanji is commonly used for nouns, adjectives, verbs, and other essential elements of Japanese text, and mastering it provides insight into the depth of Japanese literature and history.

As learners start on their journey to master the Japanese writing systems, memorization techniques are key. Hiragana and katakana together are simply called the “kana,” and for these, the best way to memorize them is through writing and flashcards. Language apps online can really help you with correct pronunciation and memorizing each symbol. But don’t rule out good old-fashioned pen and paper as well. Science has proven over and over that writing helps cement concepts in your brain! The good news is that the kana each only has 46 base symbols, so it should only take you a few days to a few weeks to get a good grasp of them all. Once you have your flashcards down, try testing yourself by reading Japanese words and seeing how fast you can pronounce each kana. 

Conquering kanji requires patience and dedication. You might feel like it’s impossible to learn so many, but starting out with a few dozen simple ones that are used every day will help you get the hang of how they work. Once you know a few dozen and their meanings and how to read them, there are a few tips that can help you expand your kanji knowledge. 

Firstly, learning the radicals, which are the smaller parts that make up the kanji, can really help with meanings. For instance the radical 亻means “person” and when it shows up in a kanji, you can usually assume that the meaning will have to do with people. For example, the word “body” is 体. Learning these radicals can really give you a leg up on meanings when it comes to learning new kanji.

Another great way to help you learn the kanji is through SRS or spaced-repetition systems. This is just a fancy way to use flashcards that are backed by science to help you remember more effectively. The app Anki is one of the best SRS to use for flashcards and comes with a ton of great decks to help you learn the kanji characters. 

Lastly, learning the stroke order for kanji can help you write them and tell the difference between characters that might look similar. Each kanji has a specific order you write the strokes in. Once you know this, you will be able to more easily recognize the characters, and be able to write them yourself, which will aid in memorization. 

The three writing systems, hiragana, katakana, and kanji, form the bedrock of the Japanese language, providing learners with an exciting journey into the heart of Japanese culture and communication. As you start your quest to master these scripts, embrace the beauty of each system, and remember that consistent practice and perseverance are the keys to unlocking reading and writing in Japanese!

writing on japanese

Kanpai-japan.com logo

How to write and say Japan in Japanese

This post will answer simple but common questions:

  • how do you write 'Japan' in Japanese?
  • how do you pronounce it?
  • and what does it mean?

Japanese language uses 'kanji' (characters) which, for most of them, represent ideas. Kanjis for 'Japan' are 日本 .

The first one, 日, means 'sun' while the second one, 本, means 'origin' (and also 'book', but not in this case).

In Japanese, 日本 therefore means 'origin of sun' , which explains why we refer to Japan as the land of the rising sun.

日本 is pronounced ' nihon ' or sometimes ' nippon ', which is the old pronunciation.

  • Flights and Airports
  • Accommodation
  • Transportation
  • Internet & Phones
  • Budget and money
  • Japanese Food
  • Visit with Kids
  • Seasons: spring / summer / autumn / winter
  • Weather forecast
  • Time in Japan
  • Holidays & Festivals
  • Natural Disasters
  • Customs and Duties
  • Works and Closures
  • February 23 -- Emperor of Japan Naruhito's birthday (holiday)
  • February 23 -- Mount Fuji Day (holiday)
  • March 3 -- Hina Matsuri: little girls' festival in Japan
  • March 14 -- White Day in Japan
  • March 21 -- Spring start in Japan (sakura cherry blossom season)
  • April 1 -- Beginning of the fiscal year in Japan
  • Tokyo : Shinjuku , Shibuya , Harajuku , Asakusa , Akihabara , Odaiba , Ikebukuro , Ueno , Roppongi , Chiyoda , Ryogoku ...
  • Around Tokyo: Kamakura , Nikko , Hakone , Mount Fuji , Mount Takao , Yokohama ...
  • Kansai: Kyoto , Nara , Osaka , Mount Koya , Himeji , Kobe , Kinosaki , Kumano Kodo , Ise ...
  • Japanese Alps: Kanazawa , Matsumoto , Takayama , Shirakawa-go , Nakasendo ...
  • West: Hiroshima , Miyajima , Shikoku , Onomichi , Naoshima , Izumo , Kurashiki , Matsue ...
  • South: Kyushu , Okinawa , Yakushima ...
  • North: Hokkaido , Tohoku ...

writing on japanese

  • Temples and Shrines
  • Gardens and Parks
  • Hiking and Trekking
  • Observation Decks
  • Public Baths (Onsen and Sento)
  • Festivals (Matsuri)
  • Amusement Parks
  • Visit on a Budget / Luxury

writing on japanese

Keikaku is a travel agency specialist of Japan and providing different kind of services:

  • Japan Rail Pass
  • English speaking Guides
  • Pocket Wi-fi
  • Japan Nightlife
  • Working in Japan
  • Religion and Spirituality
  • Arts and History
  • Movies / Animated Movies
  • Japanese Music
  • Studio Ghibli
  • Photos / Videos
  • Weird Japan
  • Translations
  • Kana & Kanji
  • Japanese Swear Words
  • Honorific Suffixes (san, kun, chan...)
  • Introducing yourself
  • Thank you / Apologize
  • Count / Say Your Age
  • Say the Date / Tell the Time
  • Happy birthday
  • Enjoy Your Meal
  • Writing your name

writing on japanese

Kanas are the much-needed basic characters of written Japanese language. Memorize them at a fast pace with our method.

writing on japanese

Ask any kind of question and share your knowledge about Japan in Kanpai’s community space, our Q&A section Kotaete.

writing on japanese

Isshoni means "together" in Japanese: share your trip details (dates, places you would like to visit) and find companions to travel in Japan.

writing on japanese

Create your Kanpai account to manage your profile and view your participation history (questions, answers).

Wyzant Logo

How to Type Katakana

Katakana is the second of three “alphabets” in Japanese. In modern Japanese, katakana is mostly used to indicate when a word is derived from a foreign language. (Such words are called “loanwords” or “gairaigo” .) It can also be used for emphasis or sound effects. 

English speakers learning Japanese will often find it easier to remember loanwords ; this is only natural since loanwords often resemble English! Since you’ll presumably be using many loanwords, it’s important to learn how to write them in katakana.

Katakana characters look like this:

How to install a katakana keyboard

To start typing words in katakana, you’ll first need a Japanese keyboard on your device. If you don’t yet have a Japanese keyboard installed, I recommend checking out our article on how to type hiragana .

If you do have a Japanese keyboard installed, you are actually already enabled to type words in katakana! Even while hiragana is set as the default output, you are able to convert words you type into katakana ー this is in fact the most common way people write words in katakana. We will cover how to do this in detail later.

Converting words is a skill you’ll need in order to type in kanji as well, so it’s good to first master it with katakana. Since a katakana keyboard is not strictly necessary, smartphones typically don’t even give you that as an option.

Nevertheless, you might still like to have a separate katakana keyboard on your computer while you’re still adjusting to typing, or to cause you less trouble when typing certain words (especially names). In that case, here is how to get a katakana keyboard.

When you initially install a Japanese keyboard on a Mac, you navigate from System preferences -> Keyboard -> Input sources. If “Japanese – Romaji” is already installed on your device, it will be listed as a language. 

To add a katakana keyboard, click “Japanese – Romaji.” You will be shown a list of options. Under “Input modes,” check the box next to “Katakana.” With that, you have a separate katakana keyboard on your device!

writing on japanese

source: https://redcocoon.org/cab/mysoft.html

To access your katakana keyboard, you’ll click the language icon on your menu bar at the top of the screen. It may look like a flag or an あ hiragana . You’ll be given a list of options, including “ア Katakana.” 

writing on japanese

With that, your katakana keyboard is ready!

If you install a Japanese keyboard on PC, it will automatically install a katakana keyboard option. To access it, first look for the language icon. If it currently looks like “ENG,” left-click and set it to Japanese. 

writing on japanese

If it currently looks like a capital “A” or the hiragana “あ,” right-click. You’ll be given a list of possible options. Click “Full-width Katakana.”

writing on japanese

With that, your keyboard is now set to automatically output katakana!

Converting words from hiragana to katakana

While it is possible to set some keyboards to automatically convert your romaji to katakana, it typically isn’t preferred. This is because natural Japanese has a mix of hiragana, katakana, and kanji , so you’d have to frequently switch your keyboard back and forth.

The more common way people type katakana words is to type the word in hiragana, and afterwards convert it to katakana .

Smartphones and computers go about this a slightly different way. Next we’ll go over the steps for each type of device.

On smartphone (iPhone and Android)

If you’re comfortable with using the autocorrect function, converting words from hiragana to katakana is largely like relying on that, but on a larger scale. For example, try typing in the hiragana “あ.” You’ll notice that you’ll automatically be given some word suggestions that start with あ:

writing on japanese

This includes kanji words! 

To see more possible options, click the button that looks like “…” located to the right of the suggestions:

writing on japanese

There were even more suggestions than are shown here that could be found by scrolling down. Also, if you look carefully at the suggestions, you’ll notice that one of them is in katakana!

Now if I complete my word, I’ll be given more specific suggestions based on my input:

writing on japanese

Even though my input is still in hiragana, all the suggestions are now in katakana. This is because the romaji “amerika” must in some way be related to the word “America,” which is a foreign word from the Japanese perspective.

You’ll also notice that my input is underlined. The suggestions are given based on what’s underlined. Thus, you must be careful of misspelling and “broken” words! 

Your word is “broken” if your intended word is no longer fully underlined. This can happen by clicking off or hitting “OK” in the middle. It’s common to make this kind of mistake and have to retype in order to get your desired suggestion.

Here’s a demonstration of how “breaking” the word leads to flawed suggestions; only り and か are underlined, so the suggestions are being given based on that:

writing on japanese

If you have spelled your word correctly and have been given the suggestion you want, however, all you need to do is click your desired word! Your hiragana will then be converted to that katakana (or kanji) word. (If it’s a less common word or name, you may have to click the “…” button to find the right option.)

writing on japanese

After you’ve chosen your desired word, you may be given common follow-up words or even emojis. Once you’re satisfied, you can simply continue typing as you wish, until you get to the next word you want to convert. Then the steps repeat. 

On computer (Mac and PC)

If your computer is set to output Japanese hiragana, start typing your word. You’ll automatically be given suggestions in a scroll-down menu. For example, I started out by just typing in “a,” which gave me a hiragana “あ”:

writing on japanese

Within that list of suggestions, I was already given the option to convert to the ア katakana! You might even be able to find your word by clicking on the arrows at the bottom of the menu. However, it’s generally more efficient to type more of the word and then convert it, so I’ll continue.

I want to type the word “アメリカ,” so I’ll put in the romaji “amerika.” My desired word shows up in the suggestion list:

writing on japanese

If your desired word is not given as a suggestion, there’s three possible options. The first is that it’s not a common word (or in the case of names, not a word in the dictionary). The second is that you may have spelled your word incorrectly. The third is that you may have “broken” your word. 

A word is “broken” when the characters you want to convert are not all underlined. It’s a common issue many beginners face when typing Japanese, especially on a computer. A word can become broken by: clicking elsewhere on the page, going to a new tab, pressing enter or the spacebar, etc. 

The suggestions that come up in the menu are based on the underlined selection. So even if your word is spelled correctly, if it’s not fully underlined, you’ll have to type it again. Here is an example of a “broken word,” which results in a menu that doesn’t have my desired option.

writing on japanese

Since only り and か are underlined, the suggestions are being given based on that.

If you’re having issues when trying to convert words, always check whether your word is fully underlined. If that’s not the issue, then double-check the spelling. The last option is that the word is too uncommon to appear. In that case, you may have to convert characters piecemeal rather than all at once.

When I type “amerika” correctly and the hiragana “あめりか” is fully underlined, I get the correct suggestion. I can either click my desired selection or I can press the spacebar. The spacebar is a useful shortcut that can also expand your menu of possible options.

writing on japanese

With that, my hiragana has been converted to katakana!

Romaji/qwerty inputs for katakana

If you’ve checked out our article on how to type hiragana , you’ll already be familiar with romaji and how it relates to typing in Japanese. “Romaji” are “Roman characters”, which are the characters used in English and many other languages (a, b, c, etc.).

As with hiragana, the correct romaji is largely intuitive. If your keyboard is set up to automatically output katakana, typing the romaji will automatically give you the katakana. If you’re converting, you’ll need to make sure your romaji input/spelling is accurate before you can convert to katakana. The same romaji can be used for any device.

  • As with hiragana, シ, チ, ツ, and フ can be typed multiple ways. 
  • For ン, it’s important to type “n” twice (nn), especially if the next character is a vowel. Otherwise the romaji will be converted into one of the “N set”. (ナ 二 ヌ ネ ノ)

Katakana with dakuten/”tenten”

When using romaji, dakuten (otherwise colloquially referred to as “tenten”) will automatically be added if you’ve typed the correct input. Again the required inputs for katakana are largely intuitive with the sounds of the characters.

  • ジ has multiple ways to type it. “Ji” better fits the pronunciation, but since it’s part of the “Z set”, “zi” will also result in ジ.
  • ヂ sounds like “ji”, but typing “ji” will result in ジ. This is because ジ is the more common of the two. Since ヂ is part of the “D set”, you’ll use “di.”
  • ヅ sounds more like “dzu”, but the correct input is “du” because it’s part of the “D set.”

Typing small characters: contractions and “the small tsu”

Small characters are necessary when writing words with contractions or sokuon, often referred to as “the small tsu”. Such words include チョコレート (chocolate) and クッキー (cookie).

The most consistent way to type small characters is to type a lowercase “x” or “l” before you type the character you desire to make smaller. For example, if you want to type a small ャ, you can type “xya.” 

This method is especially useful when typing katakana, as it has more possible combinations than hiragana. Later in the article, there is a separate list of special combinations only used in katakana.

You can also type the combination of letters that will automatically convert to your desired contraction. This applies to both regular contractions and dakuten contractions:

To get the small tsu (ッ), you can type “xtsu” or “xtu,” but it’s more standard to type it within the context of a word. To do so, instead of typing tsu, you’ll type the romaji letter following its location twice.

Take the word クリック for example. The character following ッ is ク, which would be written with the romaji “ku.” The correct romaji would then be “kku.” 

If your keyboard is set to only output katakana, then typing “kku” would automatically give you ック. If not, then you’ll have to type the whole word “kurikku,” then convert it to katakana.  

Elongated vowels

Elongated vowels are important for accurate pronunciation and spelling in Japanese.

In katakana, elongated vowels are indicated by a long dash (ー). To type this dash, simply hit your dash key while using a Japanese keyboard. Thus, to write the word “cake” in Japanese, use the input “ke-ki.” The correct katakana will be “ケーキ.”

The way elongated vowels are indicated depends on the textbook, app, or dictionary you use. Google translate puts a bar over the vowel (which looks like “ō”, ” ī”, etc.) If you look at the Japanese result for “cake,” you’ll see that the katakana is correct, and the romaji given is “Kēki”:

writing on japanese

Other resources, such as the takoboto phone app, will show the breakdown of romaji with the dash. (The website version does not show romaji for katakana words.)

writing on japanese

Since dashes are largely unique to katakana, you may notice that once you type a dash within a word, the pop-up word suggestions will become katakana words. This makes typing more efficient!

Unique sounds to katakana 

The standard Japanese phonology is more limited than many other languages. Sounds like “fa” (such as in “sofa”) and “che” (in “check”) can’t be made with the usual combinations. Since the purpose of katakana is to emulate foreign words, more combinations were made possible with katakana in order to do so.

Hiragana combinations are limited to using the small ya, yu, or yo. Katakana combinations allow you to use the vowel sounds directly, so you’ll see small ァ, ィ, ゥ, ェ, ォ. 

To reiterate, any time you’d like to make a character small, you can type a lowercase “x” or “l” before you type the character you desire to make smaller. For instance, if you want to type a small ア, you can type “xa”.

There are also specific romaji combinations to result in your desired sound. Here are the combinations unique to katakana:

Unique “Ch” sound: 

  • チェ sounds like “cheh”; type “che” (Example: “chekku” ➞ チェック = check)

Unique “D” sounds: 

  • ディ sounds like “dee”; type “dhi” (Example: “dhizuni-” ➞ ディズニー = Disney)
  • ドゥ sounds like “duu”; type “dwu”

Unique “F” sounds: 

  • ファ sounds like “fah”; type “fa” (Example: “sofa” ➞ ソファ = sofa)
  • フィ sounds like “fee”; type “fi”
  • フェ sounds like “feh”; type “fe”
  • フォ sounds like “foh”; type “fo”

Unique “J” sound: 

  • ジェ sounds like “jeh”; type “je”

Unique “Q” sounds (uncommon):

  • クァ sounds like “kwah”; type “kwa”
  • クォ sounds like “kwoh”; type “kuxo”

Unique “Sh” sound: 

  • シェ sounds like “sheh”; type “she” (Example: “shea” ➞ シェア = share)

Unique “T” sounds:

  • ティ sounds like “tee”; type “thi” (Example: “aisuthi-” ➞ アイスティー = iced tea)
  • トゥ sounds like “tuu”; type “twu”

Unique “Ts” sounds (uncommon):

  • ツァ sounds like “tsah”; type “tsa”
  • ツィ sounds like “tsee”; type “tsi”
  • ツェ sounds like “tseh”; type “tse”
  • ツォ sounds like “tsoh”; type “tso”

Unique “V” sounds (“B” sounds are commonly used instead):

  • ヴァ sounds like “vah”; type “va”
  • ヴィ sounds like “vee”; type “vi”
  • ヴ sounds like “vuu”; type “vu”
  • ヴェ sounds like “veh”; type “ve”
  • ヴォ sounds like “voh”; type “vo”

Unique “W” sounds:

  • ウィ sounds like “wee”; type “wi”
  • ウェ sounds like “weh”; type “we” (Example: “webusaito” ➞ ウェブサイト = website)
  • ウォ sounds like “woh”; type “uxo” (Example: “uxo-ta-” ➞ ウォーター = water)

Unique “Y” sound: 

  • イェ sounds like “yeh”; type “ye”

These combinations could be crucial for writing your name in Japanese. For example, my name has a “dee” sound in it, so I use the katana “ディ” to represent that. Thus I write my name like this: リディア.

Since your name is probably not a word in the dictionary, the word suggestions may not give you the right result even if you type the romaji correctly. In that case, it will take time for your device to recognize your name ー but once it does, it will automatically suggest it to you.

Unique punctuation to katakana 

Katakana has one unique punctuation mark:・. This mark basically acts as a space between foreign words.

It’s most commonly used when writing the names of people. This is because otherwise it may be difficult for Japanese people to know when a foreigner’s first name ends and their last name begins:

source: ja.wikipedia.org

Other than that, spaces are not common in Japanese writing . While Japanese children’s books may use more spaces to help new readers, more advanced Japanese includes practically no spaces, so Japanese adults are used to it.

However, it’s perfectly acceptable to write a ・mark between words if it assists you personally. For example, to write “hot coffee,” either “ホットコーヒー” or “ホット・コーヒー” is acceptable. Many English speakers like having that mark to indicate the break.

To write a “・” on your computer, simply type “/” while using a Japanese keyboard. 

To write it on your smartphone, look through the punctuation marks while using a Japanese keyboard. It may be on the second page:

writing on japanese

This thorough guide should hopefully have answered all your questions about the mechanics of typing in katakana! 

On a practical level, if you have interests that aren’t as popular in Japan or are more modern, you’ll certainly need to use katakana frequently. Since those are less familiar topics for Japanese speakers, they likely won’t appear in common Japanese resources like textbooks and formal classes.

If you have a niche topic you’d like to be able to discuss in Japanese, a great way to learn how to do so is to work with a tutor. Tutors have the flexibility to customize their lessons to your needs, and they’re available to answer any specific questions you may have.

  To find a tutor who would be a good match for you, check out Japanese experts on Wyzant.  

Lydia Thron

Lydia Thron is a private tutor with teaching experience in Japan and China. She’s been interested in Japan since childhood, and fulfilled her dream by living in Tokyo for four years. While there, she achieved N2 Japanese language proficiency. Request Tutoring from Lydia.

Latest Posts

writing on japanese

Why Do Kanji Have Multiple Readings?

writing on japanese

Does Wyzant Have Japanese Tutors?

Get to know us

In the News

Learn with us

Find a Tutor

Request a Tutor

Online Tutoring

Get Math Help

Learning Resources

Work with us

Careers at Wyzant

Apply to Tutor

Tutor Job Board

Download our free app

Let’s keep in touch

Feeling a little lost?

Start here or give us a call: (312) 646-6365

TUTORS BY SUBJECT

Algebra Tutors

Calculus Tutors

Chemistry Tutors

Computer tutors

Elementary Tutors

English Tutors

Geometry Tutors

Language Tutors

Math Tutors

Music Lessons

Physics Tutors

Reading Tutors

Science Tutors

Spanish Tutors

Statistics Tutors

Test Prep Tutors

Writing Tutors

TUTORS BY LOCATION

Atlanta Tutors

Boston Tutors

Brooklyn Tutors

Chicago Tutors

Dallas Tutors

Denver Tutors

Detroit Tutors

Houston Tutors

Los Angeles Tutors

Miami Tutors

New York City Tutors

Orange County Tutors

Philadelphia Tutors

Phoenix Tutors

San Francisco Tutors

Seattle Tutors

San Diego Tutors

Washington, DC Tutors

Making educational experiences better for everyone.

Comprehensive K-12 personalized learning

Rosetta Stone

Immersive learning for 25 languages

Fun educational games for kids

Vocabulary.com

Adaptive Learning for English vocabulary

Education.com

35,000 worksheets, games, and lesson plans

SpanishDict

Spanish-English dictionary, translator, and learning

The Complete Guide to Writing Dates in Japanese

Writing dates in Japanese is surprisingly easy! While there is a lot of memorization involved in being able to write the date, once you know your numbers and counters, it is a simple task to put everything together.

The date in Japanese is written in the order of Year + Month + Day , so let’s look into how to say the year, month, and day in Japanese.

Years in Japanese

The year is easy to write if you know how to write numbers into the thousands. Just write the year in numerical form then add the counter 年 ( ねん ) ( nen ) to the end!

2022 in Japanese is 2022年. It is written out as 二千二十二年 ( にせんにじゅうにねん ) and pronounced ni-sen ni-jū-ni nen .

In modern times, years are based on the Gregorian calendar rather than the Japanese calendar, which is based on the reigns of its emperors. Japan is currently in the 令和 ( れいわ ) ( reiwa ) era. The previous era was the 平成 ( へいせい ) ( heisei ) era. The Heisei era began in 1989 when Emperor Akihito ascended the throne. It lasted until his death in 2019, when his son Naruhito took his place and began the Reiwa era. To write the year in the format of the Japanese calendar, add the era before the year. For example, 2019 was the first year of the current era and would be written as 令和1年 ( れいわいちねん ) ( reiwa ichi nen ).

Related Words to Know:

What year: 何年 ( なんねん ) ( nan nen )

This year: 今年 ( ことし ) kotoshi )

Last year: 去年 ( きょねん ) ( kyonen )

Next year: 来年 ( らいねん ) ( rainen )

Every year: 毎年 ( まいとし ) ( maitoshi )

Months in Japanese

Months follow the same rule as years. In fact, if you know numbers 1-12 in Japanese, you’re already halfway there! The month in Japanese is simply the month’s number followed by 月 ( がつ ) ( gatsu ), the counter for months.

*四 is usually pronounced よん ( yon ) or よ ( yo ). For April, it is always pronounced し ( shi ). 七 can also be pronounced as なな ( nana ), but for July, it always uses the しち ( shichi ) pronunciation

What month is it?: 何月ですか? ( なんがつですか ) ( nan gatsu desu ka? )

This month: 今月 ( こんげつ ) ( kongetsu )

Last month: 先月 ( せんげつ ) ( sengetsu )

Next month: 来月 ( らいげつ ) ( raigetsu )

Every month: 毎月 ( まいつき ) ( maitsuki )

Days of the Month

Writing the days of the month is where it gets tricky. Days all end with the counter 日. While the majority of the time it is pronounced にち ( nichi ), a large chunk of the days pronounce it as か ( ka ).

As you can see, days 2 through 10 end with か ( ka ). Days above 10 end in にち ( nichi ), with exceptions being 14, 20, and 24. Also note that days 2 through 10 use their Kun'yomi readings, as opposed to their more common On'yomi readings. The 1st of the month is an outlier, so it is best to memorize it.

Days of the Week

Days of the week all end with 曜日 ( ようび ) ( yōbi ). In Japanese, each day of the week is represented by an element in nature as well as a celestial body.

Note that the kanji for the days of the week use their On'Yomi readings, rather than their more common Kun’Yomi readings.

writing on japanese

As mentioned, the date in Japanese is written in the order of Year + Month + Day. If you want to add a day of the week, the most common way is to add it to the end using parentheses. In this instance, the 曜日 is dropped and only the defining kanji is used.

Related Words to Know

What day of the week is it?: 今日は何曜日ですか? ( きょうはなにょうびですか ) ( Kyō wa nan yōbi desu ka? )

Today: 今日 ( きょう ) ( kyō )

Yesterday: 昨日 ( きのう ) ( kinō )

Tomorrow: 明日 ( あした ) ( ashita )

Every day: 毎日 ( まいにち ) ( mainichi )

Week: 週 ( しゅう ) ( shū )

This week: 今週 ( こんしゅう ) ( konshū )

Last week: 先週 ( せんしゅう ) ( senshū )

Next week: 来週 ( らいしゅう ) ( raishū )

Every week: 毎週 ( まいしゅう ) ( maishū )

Weekend: 週末 ( しゅうまつ ) ( shūmatsu )

Weekday: 平日 ( へいじつ ) ( heijitsu )

Let’s practice what we’ve learned with some important dates in Japan!

Remember: Year + Month + Day (weekday)

New Year’s Day (January 1st) is 2023年1月1日(日)

Coming of Age Day (January 9th) is 2023年1月9日(月)

Foundation Day (February 11th) is 2023年2月11日(土)

Emperor’s birthday (February 23rd) is 2023年2月23日(木)

Golden Week (April 29th to May 5th) is 2023年4月29日(土) から2023年5月5日(金)

*から ( kara ) means “from” and can link two dates together

Marine Day (July 17th) is 2023年7月17日(月)

Mountain Day (August 11th) is 2023年8月11日(金)

Respect for the Aged Day (September 18th) is 2023年9月18日(月)

Sports Day (October 9th) is 2023年10月9日(月)

Culture Day (November 3rd) is 2023年11月3日(金)

Labor Thanksgiving Day (November 23rd) is 2023年11月23日(木)

  • Subscribe Digital Print

The Japan Times

  • Noto earthquake
  • Middle East crisis
  • Latest News
  • Deep Dive Podcast

Today's print edition

Home Delivery

  • Crime & Legal
  • Science & Health
  • Social Issues
  • More sports
  • Food & Drink
  • Style & Design
  • TV & Streaming
  • Entertainment news

Take your first dive into Japanese literature from the comfort of your kitchen

Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto came onto the scene in 1987 with “Kitchin.” In it, her main character talks about the comfort she finds in her kitchen.

Banana Yoshimoto burst onto the Japanese literary scene in 1987 with her mega-hit novel, “キッチン” ( Kitchin , Kitchen). It was so explosively popular that literary critics actually started to think that Yoshimoto had launched Japan into a whole new era of literature. Megan Backus’ 1993 English translation was well-received, and a generation of English-language readers have gobbled up Yoshimoto’s novels in translation with the same voracious appetite of book lovers here in Japan.

Reading Japanese 小説 ( shōsetsu , novels) not only provides excellent vocabulary and grammar practice but it also throws a reader straight into the most poetic and profound depths of the country’s culture. So let’s take a look at how to read the opening sentences of “キッチン,” breaking down the more unusual and interesting aspects of the text along the way. (Note: The English provided after the text is not Backus’ translation. I used a literal translation to best follow Yoshimoto’s specific sentence structures as they appear in Japanese.)

Yoshimoto begins the tale: 私がこの世で一番好きな場所は台所だと思う ( Watashi ga konoyo de ichiban sukina basho wa daidokoro da to omou , The place that I like the most in this world is the kitchen). One interesting point right off the bat is that Mikage says 台所 ( daidokoro , kitchen) rather than the 和製英語 of the book title, キッチン. While the two terms are interchangeable, 台所 has a more traditional, stable association, while キッチン screams new, foreign and trendy. By using 台所, Mikage assures us she likes any old kitchen — not just the new and fancy ones.

The next passage reveals just how much she likes kitchens: どこのでも、どんなのでも、それが台所であれば食事を作る場所であれば私はつらくない ( Doko no demo, donna no demo, sore ga daidokoro de areba shokuji o tsukuru basho de areba watashi wa tsurakunai , No matter where, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen and you can make meals there, I don’t feel [emotionally] pained). つらい ( Tsurai ) means emotionally painful, difficult or cruel, and is used typically used when one is going through hard times. This line also begins to reveal the style Yoshimoto chooses for Mikage: With two symmetrical repetitions (of でも and であれば), Yoshimoto gives the sentence a lyrical, song-like ring to it.

The next line uses a 擬態語 ( gitaigo ), which is an onomatopoeic word that mimics an action, condition or manner. These words, like ぴかぴか ( pika-pika , sparkly and brand new) or しょんぼり ( shonbori , dejectedly/despondently) function similar to adverbs in English, except they lend a vivid sonic punch to the writing — ぴかぴか sounds like sparkles flashing on and off, and しょんぼり sounds like someone is slumping over.

The text goes: できれば機能的でよく使い込んであるといいと思う。乾いた清潔なふきんが何枚もあって白いタイルがぴかぴか輝く ( Dekireba kinō-teki de yoku tsukaikonde aru to ii to omou. Kawaita seiketsuna fukin ga nanmai mo atte shiroi tairu ga pikapika kagayaku , If possible, I think it’s good if it’s well worn-in. With plenty of dry, clean dish towels, and white tiles that sparkle). You can see that Yoshimoto adds more musicality with ぴかぴか輝く ( pika-pika kagayaku ), which has a punchy sort of beat to it with all of the “k” sounds.

Readers of Japanese will pick up on a few features of these first two paragraphs. Firstly and obviously, as seen by 私 ( watashi , I) and と思う ( to omou , I think), the text is written in a first-person voice, taking place inside of the protagonist’s mind. Secondly, Mikage is speaking casually to the reader, using sentence structures that you can easily imagine being said aloud. The lack of commas in the last sentence gives us all of Mikage’s thoughts about kitchens in an excited jumble, as if she can’t wait to tell us all about them.

writing on japanese

Skipping ahead a few paragraphs, Mikage reveals some darker thoughts in interesting Japanese: 本当に疲れ果てた時、私はよくうっとりと思う。「いつか死ぬ時がきたら、台所で息絶えたい。」 ( Hontō ni tsukarehateta toki, watashi wa yoku uttori to omou. Itsuka shinu toki ga kitara, daidokoro de ikitaetai , When I’m truly worn out, I often think vaguely. “When the time comes to die, I want to breath my last in a kitchen.”) Vocabulary-wise, うっとり ( uttori ) is another onomatopoeic word that means doing something in an absorbed or absent-minded manner. Then, 息絶える ( ikitaeru ) means to die or breath one’s last, as seen by the kanji 息 ( iki ) for breath and the verb 絶える ( taeru , to cease.)

What’s most important here, however, is the sentence structure. If you just look at the phrase, よくうっとりと思う, it doesn’t make sense on its own — “I often think vaguely” — think what? If Yoshimoto was to make a proper, grammatical sentence about it, she would arrange it like this: 本当に疲れ果てた時、台所で息絶えたい、とうっとり思う ( Hontō ni tsukarehateta toki, daidokoro de ikitaetai, to uttori omou , When I’m truly worn out, I think vaguely that I want to breathe my last in a kitchen). But instead, Yoshimoto splits up the thought into fragments, showing how Mikage is processing her feelings in real time.

This example shows just how important it is, when reading a novel, to not let confusing sentences or parts of a paragraph that you don’t understand slow you down. When there’s plenty of unknown vocabulary, even a slightly confusing sentence fragment like うっとりと思う can throw you off — but if you continue just a little further, the pieces come together. So Yoshimoto gives us a helpful lesson in patience here when reading 小説 in a foreign language.

“キッチン” has plenty of drama, poetry and a dash of romance and adventure, too — it’s well worth reading to the finish, in the original Japanese. Of course, Yoshimoto always brings the story back to the kitchen: 田辺家に拾われる前は、毎日台所で眠っていた... ( Tanabe-ke ni hirowareru mae wa, mainichi daidokoro de nemutte-ita... , Before the Tanabes picked me up, every day I was sleeping in the kitchen...).

Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto came onto the scene in 1987 with “Kitchin.” In it, her main character talks about the comfort she finds in her kitchen. | GETTY IMAGES

In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

  • Newsletters

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

  • Will Douglas Heaven archive page

In the biggest mass-market AI launch yet, Google is rolling out Gemini , its family of large language models, across almost all its products, from Android to the iOS Google app to Gmail to Docs and more. You can also now get your hands on Gemini Ultra, the most powerful version of the model, for the first time.  

With this launch, Google is sunsetting Bard , the company's answer to ChatGPT. Bard, which has been powered by a version of Gemini since December, will now be known as Gemini too.  

ChatGPT , released by Microsoft-backed OpenAI just 14 months ago, changed people’s expectations of what computers could do. Google, which has been racing to catch up ever since, unveiled its Gemini family of models in December. They are multimodal large language models that can interact with you via voice, image, and text. Google claimed that its own benchmarking showed that Gemini could outperform OpenAI's multimodal model, GPT-4, on a range of standard tests. But the margins were slim. 

By baking Gemini into its ubiquitous products, Google is hoping to make up lost ground. “Every launch is big, but this one is the biggest yet,” Sissie Hsiao, Google vice president and general manager of Google Assistant and Bard (now Gemini), said in a press conference yesterday. “We think this is one of the most profound ways that we’re going to advance our company’s mission.”

But some will have to wait longer than others to play with Google’s new toys. The company has announced rollouts in the US and East Asia but said nothing about when the Android and iOS apps will come to the UK or the rest of Europe. This may be because the company is waiting for the EU’s new AI Act to be set in stone, says Dragoș Tudorache, a Romanian politician and member of the European Parliament, who was a key negotiator on the law.

“We’re working with local regulators to make sure that we’re abiding by local regime requirements before we can expand,” Hsiao said. “Rest assured, we are absolutely working on it and I hope we’ll be able to announce expansion very, very soon.”

How can you get it? Gemini Pro, Google’s middle-tier model that has been available via Bard since December, will continue to be available for free on the web at gemini.google.com (rather than bard.google.com). But now there is a mobile app as well.

If you have an Android device, you can either download the Gemini app or opt in to an upgrade in Google Assistant. This will let you call up Gemini in the same way that you use Google Assistant: by pressing the power button, swiping from the corner of the screen, or saying “Hey, Google!” iOS users can download the Google app, which will now include Gemini.

Gemini will pop up as an overlay on your screen, where you can ask it questions or give it instructions about whatever’s on your phone at the time, such as summarizing an article or generating a caption for a photo.  

Finally, Google is launching a paid-for service called Gemini Advanced. This comes bundled in a subscription costing $19.99 a month that the company is calling the Google One Premium AI Plan. It combines the perks of the existing Google One Premium Plan, such as 2TB of extra storage, with access to Google's most powerful model, Gemini Ultra, for the first time. This will compete with OpenAI’s paid-for service, ChatGPT Plus, which buys you access to the more powerful GPT-4 (rather than the default GPT-3.5) for $20 a month.

At some point soon (Google didn't say exactly when) this subscription will also unlock Gemini across Google’s Workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, where it works as a smart assistant similar to the GPT-4-powered Copilot that Microsoft is trialing in Office 365.

When can you get it? The free Gemini app (powered by Gemini Pro) is available from today in English in the US. Starting next week, you’ll be able to access it across the Asia Pacific region in English and in Japanese and Korean. But there is no word on when the app will come to the UK, countries in the EU, or Switzerland.

Gemini Advanced (the paid-for service that gives access to Gemini Ultra) is available in English in more than 150 countries, including the UK and EU (but not France). Google says it is analyzing local requirements and fine-tuning Gemini for cultural nuance in different countries. But the company promises that more languages and regions are coming.

What can you do with it? Google says it has developed its Gemini products with the help of more than 100 testers and power users. At the press conference yesterday, Google execs outlined a handful of use cases, such as getting Gemini to help write a cover letter for a job application. “This can help you come across as more professional and increase your relevance to recruiters,” said Google’s vice president for product management, Kristina Behr.

Or you could take a picture of your flat tire and ask Gemini how to fix it. A more elaborate example involved Gemini managing a snack rota for the parents of kids on a soccer team. Gemini would come up with a schedule for who should bring snacks and when, help you email other parents, and then field their replies. In future versions, Gemini will be able to draw on data in your Google Drive that could help manage carpooling around game schedules, Behr said.   

But we should expect people to come up with a lot more uses themselves. “I’m really excited to see how people around the world are going to push the envelope on this AI,” Hsaio said.

Is it safe? Google has been working hard to make sure its products are safe to use. But no amount of testing can anticipate all the ways that tech will get used and misused once it is released. In the last few months, Meta saw people use its image-making app to produce pictures of Mickey Mouse with guns and SpongeBob SquarePants flying a jet into two towers. Others used Microsoft’s image-making software to create fake pornographic images of Taylor Swift .

The AI Act aims to mitigate some—but not all—of these problems. For example, it requires the makers of powerful AI like Gemini to build in safeguards, such as watermarking for generated images and steps to avoid reproducing copyrighted material. Google says that all images generated by its products will include its SynthID watermarks. 

Like most companies, Google was knocked onto the back foot when ChatGPT arrived. Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI has given it a boost over its old rival. But with Gemini, Google has come back strong: this is the slickest packaging of this generation’s tech yet. 

Artificial intelligence

Ai for everything: 10 breakthrough technologies 2024.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT reached mass adoption in record time, and reset the course of an entire industry.

What’s next for AI in 2024

Our writers look at the four hot trends to watch out for this year

  • Melissa Heikkilä archive page

These six questions will dictate the future of generative AI

Generative AI took the world by storm in 2023. Its future—and ours—will be shaped by what we do next.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Stay connected

Get the latest updates from mit technology review.

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at [email protected] with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.

IMAGES

  1. Japanese spelling alphabet

    writing on japanese

  2. New Japanese writing system 新日語書寫系統 on Behance

    writing on japanese

  3. Japanese Alphabet Hiragana And Katakana

    writing on japanese

  4. File:Japanese Writing System Yokogaki.jpg

    writing on japanese

  5. Japanese Writing for Beginners

    writing on japanese

  6. Japanese Writing

    writing on japanese

COMMENTS

  1. How to Write in Japanese

    How to Write in Japanese - A Beginner's Guide Blog • Japanese How To Write In Japanese - A Beginner's Guide by Olly Richards 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.

  2. How to Write in Japanese -- A Beginner's Guide to Japanese Writing

    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."

  3. Kakimashou

    Welcome to Kakimashou Practice writing Japanese on your screen. Let's write! Learning to write in Japanese takes a lot of practice, but this website will take care of a lot of the legwork for you. You can stop wasting paper and looking up stroke-order diagrams and just focus on learning. Why not give it a try?

  4. Japanese writing system

    [5] [better source needed] In modern Japanese, the hiragana and katakana syllabaries each contain 46 basic characters, or 71 including diacritics. With one or two minor exceptions, each different sound in the Japanese language (that is, each different syllable, strictly each mora) corresponds to one character in each syllabary.

  5. When Do You Use the Three Japanese Writing Systems?

    When to use hiragana (ひらがな) Hiragana represent sounds in Japanese. However, unlike an alphabet that represents individual letters, each hiragana usually represents a combination of a consonant and a vowel.

  6. Complete Guide to Writing Japanese

    1. Why learn to write Japanese? One of the most common questions we hear is 'why learn to write kanji?'. After all, computers and smartphones are nearly universal, and make it extremely easy to draw any character you need to. Even if you have to create a handwritten note, it's easy to use a device to look up the kanji first if you need to.

  7. Understanding the Japanese Writing System

    0:00 / 11:20 Learn ALL Hiragana in 1 Hour - How to Write and Read Japanese Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com Japanese writing uses not only one—but three different scripts! At the...

  8. Ultimate Guide To The Japanese Alphabet And Writing System

    1. There is a system for foreign words in the Japanese alphabet 2. There is no plural in Japanese 3. Intonation is essential 4. Many sounds can be represented by the same Kanji symbol 5. Rōmaji has a direct connection to Christianity What is Japanese writing called? How many letters are in the Japanese alphabet?

  9. Japanese Writing for Beginners

    General Tips. If you want to learn Japanese writing, start with hiragana and katakana. Once you are comfortable with those two scripts, then you can begin to learn kanji. Hiragana and katakana are simpler than kanji, and have only 46 characters each. It is possible to write an entire Japanese sentence in hiragana.

  10. The Fascinating Japanese Writing System, Explained

    In this article, we'll be looking at how Japan adopted its 3 Japanese writing systems - kanji, hiragana, and katakana - as well as explaining when to use each of them. Discover the history of these scripts, and find out how to write in Japanese the way the Japanese do. Updated: 07/28/2023

  11. The Japanese Writing: #1 Easy Introduction For Beginners

    The Basics Of The Japanese Writing System. Today, the modern Japanese writing system consists of two elements: kanji and kana. Kanji basically refers to the Chinese characters that were adapted into Japanese, while kana is divided into hiragana and katakana. Japanese is applicable to both vertical writing (縦書き - tategaki) and horizontal ...

  12. The Writing System

    In Japanese, writing the strokes in the correct order and direction is important, especially for Kanji. Because handwritten letters look slightly different from typed letters (just like how 'a' looks totally different when typed), you will want to use a resource that uses handwritten style fonts to show you how to write the characters (see ...

  13. 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?

  14. Japanese Writing Practice: Ultimate List of Resources for Every Level

    Skritter. 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.

  15. How to Write in Japanese on your Keyboard

    How to Write in Japanese on your Keyboard ⏱ 4 minutes Contents Activate the Japanese input option On Windows PC On Mac OS X On iPhone Romaji writing guide Using the QWERTY keyboard Specific features of the Japanese language Japanese fonts On iPhone

  16. Learn Japanese: A Ridiculously Detailed Guide

    It is one of three Japanese writing systems you need to learn to be able to read. The other two are katakana and kanji, but hiragana is where everything starts. The ability to read hiragana is going to be a prerequisite for most beginner Japanese textbooks and resources. It's the first thing you learn in a traditional classroom.

  17. Japanese Keyboard

    To type みんな, press m i n n a. Pressing n ' a produces んあ and pressing n y a produces にゃ. For mobile phones and tablets, touch and hold inside the text area to copy the text. You can then paste the text in any app such as Facebook, Twitter, email, or search app. Write Japanese letters (Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana) online without ...

  18. How to Learn Japanese: Our 13 Favorite Tips for Beginners

    1. Start with pronunciation, core vocabulary and basic grammar 2. Set good goals and have realistic expectations 3. Learn Japanese that's relevant and interesting to you 4. Prioritize specific language skills 5. Use movies and TV shows to learn 6. Listen to Japanese podcasts 7. Immerse yourself in Japanese language and culture 8.

  19. Japanese Writing, A Beautifully Complex System

    Japanese Writing Scripts #. Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three basic scripts: Kanji — which are Chinese ideographic symbols — as well as Hiragana and Katakana — two phonetic alphabets (syllables). There are a few thousand Kanji characters, while Hiragana and Katakana have 46 each. Although there is a basic rule for when to ...

  20. A Complete Guide to the Three Writing Systems in Japanese

    Japanese has three distinct scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In normal Japanese writing, you will see all of these jumbled together in a sentence, but each of them has a unique role in the language, so let's learn about them separately. Hiragana, the first script typically taught to learners, consists of 46 characters, each ...

  21. Learning Japanese for Beginners: A Complete Guide

    Step 1: Learning Katakana. By now, you should be able to read and write all of the hiragana characters. Now it's time to learn katakana, another one of Japan's writing systems. The good news is that the characters aren't hard to learn. Just like hiragana, each katakana character represents one syllable in Japanese.

  22. How to write and say Japan in Japanese

    How to write and say Japan in Japanese Learn Japanese » Japanese lessons How to write and say Japan in Japanese ⏱ 1 minute This post will answer simple but common questions: how do you write 'Japan' in Japanese? how do you pronounce it? and what does it mean? Japanese language uses 'kanji' (characters) which, for most of them, represent ideas.

  23. How to Type Katakana

    For example, to write "hot coffee," either "ホットコーヒー" or "ホット・コーヒー" is acceptable. Many English speakers like having that mark to indicate the break. To write a "・" on your computer, simply type "/" while using a Japanese keyboard. To write it on your smartphone, look through the punctuation ...

  24. The Complete Guide to Writing Dates in Japanese

    The date in Japanese is written in the order of Year + Month + Day, so let's look into how to say the year, month, and day in Japanese. Years in Japanese. The year is easy to write if you know how to write numbers into the thousands. Just write the year in numerical form then add the counter 年 (ねん) (nen) to the end! 2022 in Japanese is ...

  25. Academic writing in English: Lessons from an EMI-program in Japan

    This finding aligns with those from other relevant studies, including those by Costa and Mastellotto (2022) and Tomak (2022), which have demonstrated that effective academic writing courses can indeed contribute to enhancing students' writing skills and better prepare them for subsequent EMI writing requirements.Moreover, Aizawa et al. (2020) determined that placing significant emphasis on ...

  26. Take your first dive into Japanese literature from ...

    Banana Yoshimoto burst onto the Japanese literary scene in 1987 with her mega-hit novel, "キッチン" (Kitchin, Kitchen). It was so explosively popular that literary critics actually started ...

  27. Google's Gemini is now in everything. Here's how you can try it out

    Finally, Google is launching a paid-for service called Gemini Advanced. This comes bundled in a subscription costing $19.99 a month that the company is calling the Google One Premium AI Plan.

  28. Takeaways from Fani Willis' stunning testimony in Georgia

    The Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump and 14 of his allies took a stunning turn Thursday when two top prosecutors testified under oath about their romantic relationship at a ...