Hiragana Katakana

Let's learn Japanese characters, Hiragana Katakana online.

Japanese language uses three characters, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.
Kanji came from China in the 5th to the 6th centuries.
Then later Hiragana and Katakana evolved to represent "readings" in Japanese.

Kanji represent forms of something or situation and each of them represent meaning.
On the other hand, Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic symbols.
They do not represent any meaning. Learn more - Hiragana Katakana Overview

| English | Japanese |

Japanese fonts
are required
in your system

One Point Lesson

Let's Review Hiragana Katakana

For those who have finished the Hiragana Katakana First Step,
we provided the short sentencs including the essential words in Hiragana Katakana.
Let's start reading the sentences.

2012/May/11

Hiragana Katakana Self-teaching materials

Hiragana Katakana Charts

Hiragana Katakana tables which
are called 50-On Hyoo

Charts in PDF format

PDF file for printing, 3 pages, A4

Hiragana Kickoff

Katakana Kickoff

Let's start learning Hiragana Katakata. This is for your warming-up.

Hiragana First Step

Katakana First Step

If you are new to learning Japanese characters, go Hiragana first.

Hiragana Type & Check(Sample)

Katakana Type & Check(Sample)

This series is available for "Basic Japanese - Building Up Conversation" as an online support material.
We provided some samples, here.

Let's Read Sentences in Hiragana Katakana(Sample)

This series is available for "Basic Japanese - Building Up Conversation" as an online support material.
We provided some samples, here.

Hiragana Writing Practice PDF

inluding Hiragana tables, 15 pages, B5

Katakana Writing Practice PDF

inluding Katakana tables, 15 pages, B5

Both Hiranaka Katakana PDF

inluding Hiragana Katakana writing practice sheets, 26 pages, B5

Basic Japanese - Building Up Conversation

includes the follwoing materials.

Hiragana Katakana Kickoff (available in this section for free)

Hiragana Katakana First Step (available in this section for free)

Hiragana Katakana Type and Check

Hiragana Katakana Read sentences 201

Basic Japanese Words 2000

Handy Japanese Phrases 200

Hiragana Katakana - Overview

Both Hiragana and Katakana consists of 46 basic letters and several combination letters.
The vowels are a, i, u, e and o.

In modern Japanese, Hiragana is used for native Japanese words.
Katakana is used for loanwords (words of foreign origin) such as Amerika (America) and Wain (wine).

The long vowels are written in the following ways.
(See Hiragana First Step about details of the long vowels)

Hiragana

Katakana - The long vowel is indicated by a symbol " - ".
(See Katakana First Step about details of the long vowels)

The double consonants are indicated by the small tsu.
(See Hiragana First Step about details of the double consonants)

The particles wa and o are written in the following.
(See Hiragana First Step about details of the particle "wa" and "o")

Ordinary Japanese sentences are written in the following.
(See Hiragana First Step for more example sentences with audio)

There is no Space between word and word in the ordinary Japanese sentence.