Japanese Hiragana And Katakana

This deck is designed to help you get comfortable with the two basic syllabaries of written Japanese: hiragana and katakana. It walks you through the fundamentals, from what each script is used for to the individual characters themselves. You'll find cards that test recognition in both directions, helping you learn to read the characters and identify the sounds they represent.

It's a great fit for absolute beginners who are just starting their Japanese journey, as well as anyone returning to the language who wants a refresher on the basics. Mastering these two syllabaries is an essential first step before moving on to kanji or vocabulary study, since they form the foundation of how Japanese is written and read.

To get the most out of your study sessions, try practicing a little bit every day rather than cramming everything at once. Learning the characters in small groups by consonant family, such as all the "ka" sounds together, can make them easier to remember. It also helps to write the characters by hand as you study, since forming the strokes reinforces the shape and sound in your memory far better than recognition alone. Pair the cards with simple audio resources so you can connect each character to its correct pronunciation as well.

Modern Japanese is written using two syllabaries called kana: hiragana and katakana. Each syllabary contains 46 basic characters, and together they form the phonetic foundation of the written language. Although the two systems cover the same set of sounds, they serve different purposes. Hiragana is used primarily for native Japanese words and for grammatical particles that mark the structure of a sentence. Katakana, on the other hand, is reserved for loanwords from other languages, foreign names, and onomatopoeia. This division allows readers to immediately recognize whether a word is of Japanese origin or borrowed from abroad.

The building blocks of both syllabaries are the five vowels: a, i, u, e, o. These vowels appear in every row of the kana chart and combine with consonants to form syllables. The very first character of both syllabaries represents the vowel "a": あ in hiragana and ア in katakana. From this starting point, every other kana can be understood as a consonant paired with one of these five vowels, or as a special case that the chart handles separately.

Because hiragana is the most natural script for native Japanese vocabulary, it is usually the first one learners study. Once hiragana feels familiar, katakana introduces itself as a parallel system with the same sounds but a different visual style, distinct shapes that make loanwords easy to spot on the page. Mastering both syllabaries is the essential first step toward reading Japanese fluently.

The kana are organized into rows by their initial consonant, and each row pairs that consonant with the five vowels in the order a, i, u, e, o. The vowel row itself, sometimes called the A-row, contains あ い う え お in hiragana and ア イ ウ エ オ in katakana, pronounced /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/ respectively. Every other row follows this pattern. The K-row is か き く け こ (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko), the S-row is さ し す せ そ, the T-row is た ち つ て と, and the N-row is な に ぬ ね の. Each of these rows has exactly five characters.

Several rows contain irregular pronunciations that learners must memorize. In the S-row, the "si" slot is pronounced "shi" instead, giving し for /shi/. Similarly, the T-row uses "chi" and "tsu" for what would otherwise be "ti" and "tu", so ち represents /chi/ and つ represents /tsu/. The H-row also has a special case: "fu" is written with the character ふ rather than a hypothetical "hu". These irregularities are simply historical leftovers, and they are part of the basic chart rather than exceptions added later.

Not every consonant pairs with all five vowels in modern Japanese. The Y-row has only three characters: や ゆ よ (ya, yu, yo), with the "yi" and "ye" slots left empty. The W-row is even smaller, containing just わ (wa) and the particle を (pronounced /o/, used only as a grammatical marker). The standalone mora "n", written ん in hiragana and ン in katakana, sits apart from any consonant row because it is the only kana that represents a pure consonant without a vowel. Two historical characters, ゐ (wi) and ゑ (we), still appear in very old texts but are essentially unused in modern writing.

Kana can be modified with small marks that change the pronunciation of the consonant. The first of these is dakuten, also called ten-ten, which consists of two small strokes (゛) placed in the upper right of a character. Adding dakuten voices an otherwise unvoiced consonant. For example, か (ka) becomes が (ga), さ (sa) becomes ざ (za), た (ta) becomes だ (da), and は (ha) becomes ば (ba). The same transformation applies to every character in the K-, S-, T-, and H-rows, producing a full set of voiced consonants. In katakana, the voiced forms are written the same way: ガ for /ga/, ザ for /za/, ダ for /da/, バ for /ba/.

The second modifier is handakuten, also called maru, which is a small circle (゜) used exclusively on the H-row. Adding handakuten converts the "h" sound to a "p" sound, so は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa), ひ (hi) becomes ぴ (pi), ふ (fu) becomes ぷ (pu), へ (he) becomes ぺ (pe), and ほ (ho) becomes ぽ (po). The katakana half-voiced forms follow the same rule, giving パ for /pa/ and so on. There are no handakuten forms for any row other than the H-row, because Japanese does not use a "p" series for any other consonant.

One subtle point concerns the voiced form of ち (chi). Theoretically, adding dakuten to ち produces ヂ, pronounced /ji/. In practice, however, the standard character used for /ji/ is ジ, derived from the voicing of シ (shi). Learners will encounter ヂ only in rare compound words, while ジ appears constantly in everyday katakana loanwords. The same situation arises for the voiced form of つ, written ヅ and pronounced /zu/, although this character appears more often than ヂ. Recognizing these patterns helps learners read unfamiliar words more confidently.

Japanese uses a set of sounds that combine a consonant with a "y" glide, similar to the "ky" or "hy" sounds in English words like "cute" or "human". In kana, these palatalized sounds are written by combining a base consonant with a smaller version of one of the Y-row characters. A small や, ゆ, or よ is attached to the lower right of the preceding kana, forming a single syllable. This construction is called yōon, meaning "contracted sound".

Yōon exists for every consonant that can pair with "y". From the K-row comes きゃ (kya), きゅ (kyu), and きょ (kyo); the voiced version gives ぎゃ (gya), ぎゅ (gyu), and ぎょ (gyo). From the S-row comes しゃ (sha), しゅ (shu), and しょ (sho), with the voiced variant じゃ (ja), じゅ (ju), and じょ (jo). From the T-row comes ちゃ (cha), ちゅ (chu), and ちょ (cho). The N-row gives にゃ (nya), にゅ (nyu), にょ (nyo); the H-row gives ひゃ (hya), ひゅ (hyu), ひょ (hyo); the M-row gives みゃ (mya), みゅ (myu), みょ (myo); and the R-row gives りゃ (rya), りゅ (ryu), りょ (ryo). The H-row also has voiced forms びゃ (bya) and half-voiced forms ぴゃ (pya).

In katakana, yōon uses the same idea but with angular shapes: キャ, シャ, チャ, ニャ, ヒャ, and so on. The second character is always written smaller than the first, which is the visual cue that the two kana together represent one sound. A useful example is the place name とうきょう, which contains きょう, a two-kana yōon that counts as a single mora. Understanding yōon unlocks a large portion of the Japanese sound system that the basic 46 characters alone cannot represent.

Beyond the basic characters and their modifiers, kana writing uses a few small symbols that carry important information. The first is the sokuon, a small つ in hiragana or a small ッ in katakana placed before another character. The sokuon indicates a geminate consonant, meaning the following consonant is held briefly, producing a double sound. In a word like きっと ("certainly"), the small ッ represents a pause that doubles the "t" sound. The sokuon has no sound of its own; its role is purely to lengthen and emphasize the consonant that follows.

The second special mark is the chōonpu, written as a horizontal dash ー in katakana. It is used to extend the preceding vowel sound, marking the long vowels that appear in many loanwords. For example, コーヒー (coffee) is written コ + ー + ヒ + ー, where each ー prolongs the preceding vowel to produce "kōhī". Without the chōonpu, the word would be read as "kohi", which sounds quite different. The chōonpu has no counterpart in hiragana; long vowels in native Japanese words are written simply by adding another vowel character.

A third symbol is the nakaguro, a middle dot ・ used in katakana to separate foreign words or names that have been strung together. It is the katakana equivalent of a space, since Japanese normally runs words together without spaces. Furigana is another convention worth knowing: small kana, usually hiragana, are printed above or beside kanji to indicate the pronunciation. For example, the kanji 食べる is annotated with the furigana たべる to show its reading. These auxiliary marks and conventions turn the basic 46 characters into a complete and flexible writing system.

Putting kana into practice begins with writing the words learners meet earliest. Foreign loanwords are rendered in katakana by mapping each syllable to its closest kana. The country name アメリカ (America) becomes ア + メ + リ + カ, and フランス (France) becomes フ + ラ + ン + ス. Place names written in hiragana follow the same principle: Tokyo is とうきょう, with each mora represented by its corresponding kana, including the yōon きょう as a single syllable.

An important convention is that grammatical particles, even when their pronunciation happens to match a katakana character, are always written in hiragana. The particle "to" is therefore written とは not トは, because particles are native grammatical elements rather than foreign words. This rule helps readers instantly recognize the role of small words like を, は, and が in a sentence, since these grammatical markers always appear in hiragana no matter what.

Several katakana pairs are notoriously easy to confuse, especially in handwriting. The pair シ (shi) and ツ (tsu) trips up many beginners: シ is written with two strokes that both flow toward the left, while ツ begins with one short leftward stroke followed by a longer curve to the right. The pair フ (fu) and ウ (u) is another hazard: フ is a small hook that curves back to the left, while ウ extends with a longer stroke bending downward. Finally, the characters ソ (so) and ン (n) both look like small marks; the difference lies in whether the stroke leans or curls. Practicing these distinctions carefully at the start saves a great deal of confusion later on.

One final concept to internalize is the mora. A mora is a unit of sound that Japanese uses to count syllables, and it does not always match the number of kana written. The word とうきょう contains four morae: と, う, きょ, and う. Although きょう looks like two kana, it represents one mora. Understanding this distinction is essential for pronunciation, for using dictionaries that list words by mora count, and for mastering rhythm in spoken Japanese.