ChiramiHiragana, katakana and kanji: what each one does
Japanese is written with three scripts at once, often in the same sentence. Kanji are characters borrowed from Chinese, and each one carries a meaning: they write most nouns and the core of verbs and adjectives. Hiragana (ひらがな) is a set of 46 basic sound symbols for the grammar: particles, verb endings and native words with no common kanji. Katakana (カタカナ) is a second set of 46 for the same sounds, used mainly for words from other languages, foreign names and sound effects. Learn hiragana first, then katakana, then kanji a few at a time.
One sentence, three scripts
Here’s an everyday sentence, 私は毎朝コーヒーを飲みます (watashi wa maiasa koohii o nomimasu), “I drink coffee every morning”, taken apart:
| Part | Script | Reading | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 私 | kanji | watashi | I |
| は | hiragana | wa | particle: marks the topic |
| 毎朝 | kanji | maiasa | every morning |
| コーヒー | katakana | koohii | coffee, a loanword |
| を | hiragana | o | particle: marks the object |
| 飲 | kanji | no | drink: the verb’s stem |
| みます | hiragana | mimasu | the verb’s polite ending |
The kanji carry the meaning: I, every morning, drink. The hiragana hold the sentence together. The katakana marks the one word that came from abroad. コーヒー even has a kanji spelling, 珈琲, but those kanji were picked for their sound (ateji), and the word is usually written in katakana.
What is hiragana used for?
Hiragana has 46 basic characters in modern use. Each stands for a sound, such as あ (a), か (ka) or ん (n), and two small marks add more: ゛ turns か (ka) into が (ga), and ゜ turns は (ha) into ぱ (pa). It’s used for:
- Particles, the little words that show each word’s role: は (wa), を (o), に (ni).
- Endings of verbs and adjectives, called okurigana: the みます of 飲みます, the い of 高い (takai), tall.
- Native words with no common kanji, or whose kanji look too formal. こんにちは and ありがとう are normally written in hiragana.
- Furigana, the small reading guides printed over kanji (more on those below).
What is katakana used for?
Katakana has the same sounds as hiragana, written with sharper, straighter shapes. Compare か and カ (ka), or き and キ (ki). It’s used for:
- Loanwords: コーヒー (koohii), coffee, and アイスクリーム (aisukuriimu), ice cream.
- Foreign names and places: アメリカ (Amerika), America, and your own name, if it isn’t Japanese. Countries once had kanji spellings too, and a few survive as short forms.
- Sound words: ピンポン (pinpon), the ding-dong of a doorbell.
- Emphasis, a little like italics in English, and on signs: ゴミ (gomi), rubbish.
- Plants and animals in science: in biology, even humans are ヒト (hito).
The line in コーヒー is a long-vowel mark, ー, used mostly in katakana. Small kana help spell foreign sounds too: ファ (fa) in ファミリー (famirii), family.
コーヒーをください。
Koohii o kudasai.
A coffee, please.
アイスクリームが好きです。
Aisukuriimu ga suki desu.
I like ice cream.
アメリカから来ました。
Amerika kara kimashita.
I'm from America.
What are kanji?
Kanji (漢字), “Han characters”, came to Japan from China, and each one has a meaning as well as a sound: 山 is a mountain, 飲 is to drink. They write most nouns and the stems of verbs and adjectives, and hiragana adds the ending, as in 飲みます. Most kanji have more than one reading, as onyomi vs kunyomi explains.
The official list of kanji for general use, the jōyō kanji, has 2,136 characters, and Japanese children learn 1,026 of them in primary school.
Why Japanese still needs kanji
If 46 hiragana can spell any Japanese word, why keep kanji? First, Japanese is written without spaces between words, and kanji make the words that carry the meaning stand out from the grammar around them. Second, Japanese has a fairly small set of sounds, so many words sound alike. In speech, context and pitch sort them out. In writing, kanji do:
| Sound | Kanji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| はし (hashi) | 橋 | bridge |
| はし (hashi) | 箸 | chopsticks |
| はし (hashi) | 端 | edge, end |
| かみ (kami) | 紙 | paper |
| かみ (kami) | 髪 | hair |
Written in kana, the three はし look exactly the same; the lesson on hashi shows how kanji and pitch tell them apart. That’s one reason modern Japanese texts without kanji are rare.
Where hiragana and katakana came from
Both grew out of kanji. From the 5th century, people wrote Japanese by borrowing kanji for their sounds. Written fast in a flowing hand, those kanji wore down into hiragana, from around 800: あ comes from 安, and か from 加. Katakana, from the 9th century, kept only a piece of a kanji: カ is the left half of 加. Hiragana are kanji in disguise tells the whole story.
Furigana: small kana that help you read kanji
Furigana are small kana printed above a kanji, or beside it in vertical text, to show how it’s read. Books for young children put them on every kanji, textbooks for learners use them a lot, and Japanese forms have a space for the reading of your name. Our sentence with furigana looks like this:
私は毎朝コーヒーを飲みます。
Where romaji fits in
Romaji (ローマ字) is Japanese written in the Latin alphabet, like the “watashi wa maiasa koohii o nomimasu” above. It isn’t a fourth script that Japanese people read every day. In Japan you’ll see it on street and station signs and in passports, and people use it to type on a computer. For you it’s a first step, not a way to read: real Japanese text isn’t written in it, and spellings vary between systems, so し can be shi or si. Move on to kana as soon as you can.
What order to learn them in
- Hiragana: 46 basic characters, plus the two marks. With hiragana alone you can already write any Japanese word.
- Katakana: the same sounds in 46 new shapes, plus the long-vowel mark.
- Kanji, a few at a time, each with a real word. Start once hiragana feels easy; you don’t need to finish katakana first.
Chirami includes all 92 basic kana for complete beginners, then the kanji level by level. For your first kanji, try 5 easy kanji to learn first, then our N5 kanji list. The JLPT hasn’t published official kanji lists since 2010, so every N5 list, ours included, is a guide.
Common questions
Do I need to learn kanji?
To read Japanese, yes. Signs, menus, messages and books all mix the three scripts, and modern texts without kanji are rare. You can start speaking and listening without them, and hiragana carries you through your first lessons, but reading real Japanese means learning kanji little by little.
Is katakana harder than hiragana?
It isn’t more to learn: the same sounds, the same 46 basic characters. It can feel harder at first, partly because hiragana gets more practice, since the particles and endings in nearly every sentence are hiragana, and partly because a few katakana look alike: シ (shi) and ツ (tsu), ソ (so) and ン (n).
Can you write Japanese with only hiragana?
Yes, and books for very young children often do, because young children know few kanji. Everyday Japanese doesn’t: with no spaces between words and many words that sound alike, it relies on kanji, and modern texts without them are rare.
How long does it take to learn hiragana?
It depends on how much time you give it each day, so there’s no honest single number. What can be counted is the size of the job: 46 basic characters. At five new ones a day, you’d meet them all in ten days, then keep reviewing until you read them without stopping to think.
The kanji in this guide
Tap Draw it to watch the stroke order. Numbers show where each stroke starts.