Learn Hiragana: Pronunciation, Charts and Practice

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If you’re new to Japanese, hiragana can look like a page of unfamiliar curves. The good news is that the basic set is small enough to learn in focused sessions, then strengthen through reading and writing practice.

I learned the characters in one evening when I was in high school. That was my experience, not a timetable every learner needs to match.

Mnemonics helped me recognise them quickly, while repeated reading and handwriting helped them stick. This guide gives you the chart, pronunciation notes and practice ideas you need to begin learning Japanese.

Hiragana is one of the three scripts used in ordinary written Japanese, alongside katakana and kanji. Although people often call it a hiragana alphabet, its symbols represent morae, the rhythmic units of Japanese.

Learning hiragana gives you a much more regular guide to Japanese sounds than English-based romanisation. It also lets you read furigana, small kana printed beside or above some kanji to show their reading. Furigana is common in material for children and learners, but it does not accompany every kanji in ordinary text.

Hiragana also opens up more learning resources. Romanisation can help at the very beginning, but it hides features of Japanese spelling and rhythm. A useful beginner resource should introduce kana and support you as you move away from romanisation; it does not need to force every learner onto the same schedule.

In my first-year Japanese class at college, we used the Genki textbooks. The early lessons moved from rōmaji, Japanese written in Latin letters, to hiragana and katakana. Some classmates found that transition overwhelming.

You may be able to recognise many hiragana after a few hours of concentrated study. Reading them accurately and automatically usually takes continued practice.

I’ve included a full hiragana chart, resources for hiragana practice, and more below.

The tips below are the ones I used to memorise the basic characters in high school. Try them, adapt them and keep testing recall rather than relying on recognition alone.

Editor's note: Before we get started, if you’re looking for an online Japanese course, here’s the course we recommend: Japanese Uncovered – Learn Japanese Through the Power of Story, a course with a fascinating new method by Olly Richards. You can try it for free for 7 days!

Learn Hiragana: The Basics

Hiragana is often called a “syllabary,” but its units align more closely with Japanese morae, or rhythmic beats, than with English-style syllables. Most full-sized kana represent a vowel or a consonant-plus-vowel mora; ん is a moraic nasal, small っ marks a consonant-length mora, and small ゃ, ゅ, or ょ combines with a preceding kana to form one mora.

So, what does that mean exactly?

Well, let’s look at the word てんき. Each of those characters represents a sound: て = te, ん = n, き = ki. So てんき reads as “tenki.” That means “weather” in Japanese, by the way.

Hiragana represents native Japanese morae using basic kana together with devices such as dakuten, small kana for contracted sounds and consonant length, and additional kana for long vowels.

Learning to write hiragana takes time, even if you usually type. Handwriting can reinforce recall, and standard stroke order helps you produce recognisable shapes. Hiragana is the sensible first Japanese script for most beginners, but reading ordinary Japanese eventually requires katakana and kanji as well.

Stroke order may seem strange, but English handwriting also has conventional stroke patterns. They help characters remain legible and consistent. The same principle applies to hiragana.

A useful general tendency is top to bottom and left to right, but each kana has its own conventional stroke order. Check a stroke-order model rather than treating the tendency as a complete rule.

Hiragana Pronunciation

Most full-sized kana represent a vowel or a consonant-plus-vowel mora, so the five vowels are a practical place to start.

Standard Japanese has five vowel phonemes, and kana-to-vowel correspondences are far more regular than English spelling. Actual pronunciation still varies with context: /i/ and /u/ are often devoiced, and may sound absent, between voiceless consonants or after a voiceless consonant at the end of a word.

These English cues are approximations rather than exact matches:

• あ (a): an open “ah” sound
• い (i): close to “ee” in “see”, but shorter
• う (u): a high back vowel made without the strong lip-rounding of English “oo”
• え (e): close to “e” in “bed”
• お (o): a short, steady “o”, without the glide common in English “oh”

From there, pair each vowel with the consonant rows in the chart. For example, か is ka and て is te. Listen to recordings by Japanese speakers as well as using written cues.

Kana spelling is regular, but actual sounds still shift with context. As noted above, /i/ and /u/ may be devoiced, and long vowels must be held for an extra mora.

Now let’s practise remembering these first few hiragana.

Hiragana Practice: Vowels

Memorizing the hiragana quickly takes mnemonics and writing practice. The first step is to create an association between the hiragana and something in English.

For instance, あ looks like someone yawning with closed eyes. When they yawn, they make a loud sound, “yAHHHHHHHwn.”

い looks like two こい (koi) fish swimming in a Japanese pond. (“Koi” has the “i” sound.)

う looks like the letter U tipped over. When it fell over, it said “ShOOt, how うるさい (urusai, “annoying”).”

え looks like someone running to catch a train at the えき (eki), the “station.” They sure are getting their Exercise.

お looks like a baby crying for おかあさん (okāsan, “Mum”), going “OH WAAAAAH.”

I like to tie together both how the hiragana look with something I can picture, as well as tying the sound to both an English and Japanese word. With え, I tied the look of the hiragana to a person running. I then associated the “eh” sound with “exercise” (an English word) and えき (eki), a Japanese word.

Building these associations takes time, and one pass may not be enough. Recall the kana without looking, write them, then revisit the ones you miss.

Hiragana Chart

Now let’s take a look at the entire Japanese hiragana chart so we can get an idea for how things look.

The chart is traditionally organised as a-i-u-e-o, then ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, and so on. This layout is called the gojūon, or “fifty sounds”, although modern standard Japanese has fewer than fifty basic symbols in the grid.

Most rows follow the same vowel pattern. A few romanised forms look less regular, including し (shi), ち (chi) and つ (tsu), but they still occupy the I and U columns of the chart. The Y row has only ya, yu and yo.

Your own mnemonics may be easier to recall than somebody else’s. To get you started, here are some of mine:

• き looks like an old-fashioned skeleton key
• こ is a coin
• ま looks like a mama holding her baby
• み looks like the cursive script for “21”: “As for me (mi), I’m 21”
• む is a cow’s face: “moo”
• め is an Olympic goal medal
• も is a fish hook to catch more fish
• そ looks like a sewing-machine stitch: “sew” for so
• つ is a tsunami wave
• と looks like a big toe
• ら is a cheerleader jumping in the air, going “ra, ra, ra!”
• れ is a character running away, saying “Ret’s get out of here!”
• に looks like a knee: ni
• ぬ is a ramen noodle: nu
• ひ looks like a smile: “hee, hee”
• ん looks a little like the letter “n”
• や looks like a yak, horns and all

What other mnemonics can you come up with for the characters? Make sure it’s something you can remember, that reminds you of something in English and the Japanese sound! Bonus points if you can tie it with a Japanese word, too.

Dakuten, Handakuten and Other Hiragana Marks

Next, let’s look at the full hiragana chart.

* These characters are not commonly used.

This table shows the basic hiragana, their voiced and semi-voiced forms, and common combinations with small ゃ, ゅ, and ょ. It does not show every spelling pattern: small っ represents a geminate consonant, and added vowel kana represent long vowels.

This larger chart builds on the basic kana. Look for the recurring marks and combinations rather than treating every entry as a completely new character.

Dakuten are the two small marks at the upper right of a kana. In the standard hiragana chart, they voice consonants in the K, S, T and H rows:

• K → G
• S → Z, with し (shi) becoming じ (ji)
• T → D, with ち and つ becoming ぢ and づ; in standard Japanese these are usually pronounced like じ (ji) and ず (zu)
• H → B

So か, “ka,” becomes が, “ga.” さ (“sa”) becomes ざ (“za”). し, “shi,” changes to じ, “ji.” て (“te”) becomes で (“de”). And ほ, “ho,” changes to ぼ, “bo.”

Handakuten is a small circle in the same position. In the standard chart, it attaches to H-row kana and changes their initial consonant to P.

• H → P

So, ほ (“ho”) becomes ぽ (“po”).

Combinations with small ゃ, ゅ and ょ are called yōon. In the standard chart, these small kana follow consonant-initial I-row kana such as き, し, に and み, not い itself or kana such as か and さ. Write the Y-row kana smaller and at the lower right.

A common example is とうきょう (Tōkyō), which has four morae: と・う・きょ・う. The small ょ combines with き to form きょ, while each う marks a long vowel in this word.

You can use this to create a lot of new sounds. き could also combine with ゆ or や to make “kyu” or “kya”. You could combine it with handakuten or dakuten characters as well, like じゃ for “ja” and ぴょ for “pyo.”

Last, there is the sokuon, written as small っ. It marks a geminate, or lengthened, following consonant. For example, いらっしゃいませ is romanised irasshaimase. The っ before しゃ adds a brief consonant closure before the sha sound. The expression means “welcome” and is commonly heard when entering a shop or restaurant.

Hiragana Quiz

Time to test your knowledge! If you want some hiragana practice, here are some resources to help you out and a hiragana test to see how you’re doing.

• Use Anki to make or download a hiragana flashcard deck.
• Draw an empty gojūon grid on paper and fill it from memory. Leave gaps rather than guessing, check your answers, then practise the missing kana.
• Try an app such as Bunpo, Dr. Moku’s Hiragana and Katakana or Scripts by Drops. Features and prices can change, so check the current listing before choosing one.
• Use these hiragana practice sheets to study stroke order.
• Study hiragana with JapanesePod101.
• Test recognition with Real Kana or Hiragana Quiz.
• Try the hiragana game from Dr. Lingua.
• Use the current Genki self-study resources for kana, listening and textbook practice.

Start Learning Hiragana Today

Start with the five vowels and one consonant row, then test yourself without looking. Add another row when recall is reliable, and mix reading, listening and handwriting so you learn both the shape and the sound. You do not need to finish in one evening; you need a practice routine you can return to.