Hiragana Chart: The Complete Guide
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Want a hiragana chart you can actually learn from, with every character, every sound and none of the gaps that send you hunting across five other pages?
This is that chart. Below you'll find the full hiragana syllabary laid out cleanly: the 46 base characters, the voiced dakuten and handakuten rows, and the little yōon combination sounds, all with romaji. After the tables I'll walk you through a sensible learning order, a few mnemonics, the basics of stroke order, and the handful of look-alike characters that trip up every single beginner.
A quick reassurance before we dive in. Hiragana looks like a wall of unfamiliar squiggles, and that wall is exactly what scares people off Japanese in week one. But here's the truth: hiragana is a small, regular, learnable system. It's 46 base characters built on a tidy five-vowel grid, and most learners can read all of them inside a week or two. This is genuinely one of the fastest early wins in the whole language.
I've sat where you are. I took on Japanese as one of my language missions, and the moment hiragana clicked, the rest of the language stopped feeling like a code and started feeling like a language. You can get there faster than you think. So let's get you reading.
What Is Hiragana? (And How It Fits with Katakana and Kanji)
Japanese is written with three scripts woven together, and hiragana is the one to learn first.
- Hiragana (ひらがな) is the curvy, flowing script used for native Japanese words, grammar bits, and word endings. It's the backbone of the writing system and the script that holds sentences together.
- Katakana (カタカナ) is the angular sister script, used mainly for foreign loanwords (think コーヒー, kōhī, “coffee”), names from other languages, and emphasis. It maps to exactly the same sounds as hiragana.
- Kanji (漢字) are the characters borrowed from Chinese that carry meaning rather than just sound, used for the core of most nouns, verbs and adjectives.
A typical sentence mixes all three. Hiragana is where everyone starts because you can read and sound out real Japanese with it straight away, and because once you know hiragana, katakana is the same idea with different shapes.
When Is Hiragana Used?
In day-to-day Japanese, hiragana does most of the heavy lifting:
- Grammatical words and particles (は, が, を, に and friends) that glue sentences together.
- Verb and adjective endings that change with tense and politeness.
- Native words that either have no kanji or whose kanji is rare or deliberately softened.
- Furigana, the tiny hiragana printed above tricky kanji to tell you how they're read. Furigana alone is a brilliant reason to learn hiragana early: it gives you the pronunciation of words you can't read yet.
The Hiragana Chart: 46 Base Characters (Gojūon)
Here's the heart of it. The basic hiragana characters are arranged in a grid called the gojūon (五十音, “fifty sounds”). Five vowels run across the top, and each row adds a consonant in front of them. Learn to read the grid and you've learned the logic of the whole script.
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | あ (a) | い (i) | う (u) | え (e) | お (o) |
| k | か (ka) | き (ki) | く (ku) | け (ke) | こ (ko) |
| s | さ (sa) | し (shi) | す (su) | せ (se) | そ (so) |
| t | た (ta) | ち (chi) | つ (tsu) | て (te) | と (to) |
| n | な (na) | に (ni) | ぬ (nu) | ね (ne) | の (no) |
| h | は (ha) | ひ (hi) | ふ (fu) | へ (he) | ほ (ho) |
| m | ま (ma) | み (mi) | む (mu) | め (me) | も (mo) |
| y | や (ya) | ゆ (yu) | よ (yo) | ||
| r | ら (ra) | り (ri) | る (ru) | れ (re) | ろ (ro) |
| w | わ (wa) | を (wo) | |||
| n | ん (n) |
A few things worth flagging, because they catch everyone:
- *し is shi, not “si”, ち is chi, つ is tsu, and ふ is fu*. These four are the irregular pronunciations in the grid, so give them an extra look.
- The y-row and w-row have gaps. There's no native yi, ye, wi, wu or we in modern Japanese, which is why those cells are empty.
- *を (wo) is special. It's pronounced just like お (o*) and is used only as a grammatical particle marking the object of a verb. You'll write it constantly and almost never inside a normal word.
- *ん (n) is the only standalone consonant.* It's the single hiragana that isn't a full syllable, and it's the one character that can end a word.
Dakuten and Handakuten: Voiced Sounds
Once the base grid is solid, you get a big batch of new sounds almost for free. Adding two little strokes (dakuten, ゛) or a small circle (handakuten, ゜) to the top-right of a character changes its sound in a regular way: k becomes g, s becomes z, t becomes d, and h becomes b (with the circle) or p.
| Dakuten/Handakuten | a | i | u | e | o |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| g | が (ga) | ぎ (gi) | ぐ (gu) | げ (ge) | ご (go) |
| z | ざ (za) | じ (ji) | ず (zu) | ぜ (ze) | ぞ (zo) |
| d | だ (da) | ぢ (ji) | づ (zu) | で (de) | ど (do) |
| b | ば (ba) | び (bi) | ぶ (bu) | べ (be) | ぼ (bo) |
| p | ぱ (pa) | ぴ (pi) | ぷ (pu) | ぺ (pe) | ぽ (po) |
You don't really learn 25 new characters here. You learn five small marks and where they go, and the shapes underneath are already familiar. A couple of notes:
- *じ and ぢ both sound like ji; ず and づ both sound like zu.* In modern Japanese the じ and ず versions do nearly all the work, so learn those as your default and treat ぢ and づ as the rare exceptions.
- The p-row uses the handakuten circle (゜), not the two strokes. It's the only row that does, which makes it easy to spot.
Yōon: Combination Sounds
The last piece of the chart is yōon (拗音), the contracted sounds you make by gluing a small や, ゆ or よ onto any character in the i-column. So き (ki) plus a small ゃ gives きゃ (kya), one single syllable. The small kana is written noticeably smaller than a full-size one, which is your visual cue.
| ya | yu | yo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| k | きゃ (kya) | きゅ (kyu) | きょ (kyo) |
| s | しゃ (sha) | しゅ (shu) | しょ (sho) |
| t | ちゃ (cha) | ちゅ (chu) | ちょ (cho) |
| n | にゃ (nya) | にゅ (nyu) | にょ (nyo) |
| h | ひゃ (hya) | ひゅ (hyu) | ひょ (hyo) |
| m | みゃ (mya) | みゅ (myu) | みょ (myo) |
| r | りゃ (rya) | りゅ (ryu) | りょ (ryo) |
| g | ぎゃ (gya) | ぎゅ (gyu) | ぎょ (gyo) |
| j | じゃ (ja) | じゅ (ju) | じょ (jo) |
| b | びゃ (bya) | びゅ (byu) | びょ (byo) |
| p | ぴゃ (pya) | ぴゅ (pyu) | ぴょ (pyo) |
Notice the s-row and t-row break the tidy pattern: しゃ is sha (not “shya”) and ちゃ is cha, because they're already built on shi and chi. Once you've spotted that, the rest of the yōon are exactly what they look like.
That's the entire hiragana system on one page: 46 base characters, the dakuten and handakuten rows, and the yōon. Nothing else to find.
Your Free Printable Hiragana Chart
The tables above are deliberately clean so you can use them as your printable reference. Screenshot the gojūon grid, send it to your phone's lock screen, or print it and pin it above your desk. Seeing the whole grid every day does more than any app for getting the layout into your head, because hiragana rewards repetition more than almost anything else in a language.
How to Learn Hiragana (the Fast Way)
Hiragana is a sprint, not a marathon. Here's the order and the approach I'd use.
A Sensible Learning Order
- Start with the five vowels: あ い う え お. Everything else in the grid is built on these five sounds, so over-learn them until they're instant.
- Add one consonant row at a time. Take か き く け こ, then さ し す せ そ, and so on. Five characters a day is a comfortable, sticky pace.
- Learn to read before you learn to write. Recognising characters is the skill that opens up real Japanese fastest. Handwriting can follow once you can read.
- Only then add dakuten, handakuten and yōon. They're small modifications of shapes you already know, so they slot in quickly once the base grid is solid.
- Read real Japanese as soon as you can. Sound out signs, menus, song lyrics, anything. Using hiragana for real beats any drill, and it's exactly the speak-and-read-from-day-one approach that makes a language stick.
Mnemonics That Stick
The fastest way to bolt a character to a sound is to turn its shape into a little picture and a story. A few that have stuck for me and loads of other learners:
- き (ki) looks like a key.
- く (ku) is a bird's beak going “coo“.
- の (no) is a clear “no entry” swirl.
- め (me) has an eye in it, and you see things with your eyes (“me“).
- た (ta) hides a little t and a in its shape.
Build your own where you can. A mnemonic you invented sticks far better than one you were handed, because the act of inventing it is itself a rep.
Stroke Order Basics
Japanese characters are written in a set order, and following it makes your writing legible and your hand faster. The two rules that cover most cases:
- Top to bottom, and left to right.
- Horizontal strokes before vertical ones that cross them.
You don't need to obsess over this on day one, especially if you're learning to read first. But when you do start writing, learning the correct stroke order from the start saves you unlearning a messy habit later.
The Confusing Look-Alike Pairs (and How to Tell Them Apart)
A small set of hiragana look almost identical, and mixing them up is the single most common beginner stumble. Here are the usual suspects and a concrete way to keep each one straight.
| Pair | The trick |
|---|---|
| し (shi) / つ (tsu) | Think of which way the “cup” tips. し is a tall hook curving up at the bottom (a fishing line, “shi“-ng line). つ sits flat and wide like a cup or a wave on its side. |
| ね (ne) / れ (re) / わ (wa) | All share the same left vertical stroke, so watch the right side. ね ends in a full loop (think a curly cat's tail). れ has a sharp little kick with no loop. わ is the plainest, a soft curve that just turns back in. |
| は (ha) / ほ (ho) | Nearly twins. ほ has two horizontal bars on its right-hand part; は has only one. Count the rungs: more rungs means ho. |
| る (ru) / ろ (ro) | Identical curl, one difference: る finishes with a little loop at the bottom; ろ ends in an open tail with no loop. Loop equals ru. |
The pattern across most of these is the loop: ね, る and friends close into a loop, while their look-alikes leave the stroke open. Train your eye to check for that loop and most of the confusion melts away. A few others worth a glance as you go are あ/お (the お has a little flag on top) and う/つ (the う stands tall, つ lies flat).
Where to Go After Hiragana
Once hiragana clicks, the doors swing open. The natural next steps:
- Katakana, the second script. It's the same set of sounds with different shapes, so it goes faster the second time around.
- A starter stock of vocabulary. Build out from a base of core Japanese words and some everyday Japanese phrases you can actually say.
- Your first conversations. Learn a few ways to say hello in Japanese and get a feel for how Japanese sentence structure works, then start putting words in order.
- The bigger picture. When you want to see how it all fits together, our Japanese language masterclass and our guide to how to learn Japanese map out the road ahead.
Hiragana is the first real foothold in Japanese, and it's a generous one: a couple of weeks of focused practice and you can read the script that holds the whole language together.
That last point about using it for real is the heart of how I approach every language. If you want a structured way to go from your first characters to actual conversations with real people, that's exactly what we build inside the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp, a community and a method where we coach you to actually use your Japanese with a human, fast.
For now, though, you've got the complete hiragana chart and a plan to learn it. Pin it up, start with those five vowels, and go.
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