About the Japanese Script
Japanese is written with three scripts at once, and each arrived differently. Kanji — logographic characters — were borrowed from China around the 5th century, the first way Japanese was ever written. Because Chinese characters fit the Japanese language poorly, scribes then invented two native syllabaries from them. Hiragana grew out of the flowing cursive forms of man'yōgana during the Heian period (9th–10th century) — at first called "women's hand" — while katakana was pieced together by Buddhist monks from small fragments of kanji used as reading aids. Both settled into 46 basic characters each, a perfect sound-for-sound mirror. Modern kanji use is anchored by the Ministry of Education's jōyō list of 2,136 characters, last revised on 30 November 2010. The result is a system where a single sentence routinely blends all three — something no other living language does.
The Japanese Alphabet — Every Letter
Here is the full Japanese character set. You can click any letter on the Kactyl Japanese keyboard to type it instantly — no need to memorize positions.
- Script: Hiragana and katakana syllabaries plus kanji characters, left-to-right
- Speakers: 125 million worldwide
- Writing direction: Left-to-right
- Distinctive feature: Japanese is the only major writing system that uses three scripts together in one sentence, each with a clear job: kanji carry meaning, hiragana supply grammar — the particles and verb endings — and katakana mark foreign words, brand names and sound effects. Read 日本語を勉強します and you see all three at work in five words. This keyboard gives you the full 46-kana hiragana grid plus a katakana panel, and its Romaji mode reproduces exactly what a phone IME does — typing kya builds きゃ, tt builds the small っ, n before a consonant becomes ん.
The Japanese Alphabet, Letter by Letter
Every Japanese letter with its name, the sound it makes, and a real example word. Tap any letter to hear and copy it — keep this reference open while you learn to read or type:
| Letter | Name | Sound | Example word |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | あめ — ame (rain) | |
| i | i | いぬ — inu (dog) | |
| u | u | うみ — umi (sea) | |
| e | e | えき — eki (station) | |
| o | o | おに — oni (ogre) | |
| ka | ka | かさ — kasa (umbrella) | |
| ki | ki | き — ki (tree) | |
| ku | ku | くalso — kumo (cloud) | |
| ke | ke | けむり — kemuri (smoke) | |
| ko | ko | こめ — kome (rice) | |
| sa | sa | さかな — sakana (fish) | |
| shi | shi | しろ — shiro (white) | |
| su | su | すし — sushi | |
| se | se | せかい — sekai (world) | |
| so | so | そら — sora (sky) | |
| ta | ta | たまご — tamago (egg) | |
| chi | chi | ちず — chizu (map) | |
| tsu | tsu | つき — tsuki (moon) | |
| te | te | て — te (hand) | |
| to | to | とり — tori (bird) | |
| na | na | なつ — natsu (summer) | |
| ni | ni | にく — niku (meat) | |
| nu | nu | ぬの — nuno (cloth) | |
| ne | ne | ねこ — neko (cat) | |
| no | no | のり — nori (seaweed) | |
| ha | ha | はな — hana (flower) | |
| hi | hi | ひ — hi (fire) | |
| fu | fu | ふね — fune (boat) | |
| he | he | へや — heya (room) | |
| ho | ho | ほし — hoshi (star) | |
| ma | ma | まち — machi (town) | |
| mi | mi | みず — mizu (water) | |
| mu | mu | むし — mushi (insect) | |
| me | me | め — me (eye) | |
| mo | mo | もり — mori (forest) | |
| ya | ya | やま — yama (mountain) | |
| yu | yu | ゆき — yuki (snow) | |
| yo | yo | よる — yoru (night) | |
| ra | ra | らくだ — rakuda (camel) | |
| ri | ri | りんご — ringo (apple) | |
| ru | ru | るす — rusu (absence) | |
| re | re | れきし — rekishi (history) | |
| ro | ro | ろく — roku (six) | |
| wa | wa | わたし — watashi (I) | |
| wo | o (particle) | を — object marker | |
| n | n | ほん — hon (book) |
🔊 Click any letter to hear it pronounced (recorded native voice) and copy it to your clipboard.
What Makes the Japanese Alphabet Distinctive
These are the features of the Japanese script that trip up learners coming from the Latin alphabet — the things worth understanding before you start reading or typing:
- Japanese writes with three scripts at once: hiragana (rounded, for grammar and native words), katakana (angular, for foreign words), and kanji (Chinese characters, for meaning). This chart is hiragana, the first one learners master.
- Hiragana is a syllabary, not an alphabet: each symbol is a whole syllable — か is “ka”, not “k” + “a”. There are 46 basic syllables.
- Hiragana and katakana are two costumes for the same 46 sounds — か and カ both say “ka” — kept apart only by the job they do.
- Two small dots (dakuten ゛) or a circle (handakuten ゜) shift the sound: か (ka) → が (ga), は (ha) → ば (ba) → ぱ (pa).
- ん is the only standalone consonant, and を (pronounced “o”) now survives only as the particle that marks a sentence’s object.
Japanese Script — The Facts
- Unicode block: Hiragana U+3040–309F; Katakana U+30A0–30FF
- ISO 15924 script code: Hira (410) / Jpan (413)
- Script family: Syllabary (kana), derived from simplified kanji
- First attested: ~9th century CE (Heian period)
- Speakers: 125 million (Ethnologue)
Sources: Unicode Hiragana block (U+3040) · Ethnologue — Japanese · ISO 15924 — Hira
Common Japanese Words to Learn
These everyday words are a fast way to start recognizing Japanese letters in real context:
- こんにちは (konnichiwa = hello)
- ありがとう (arigatō = thank you)
- さようなら (sayōnara = goodbye)
Type Japanese Online Without Learning the Layout
You don't need to memorize where each Japanese letter sits on a physical keyboard. Open kactyl.com/japanese/, click the letters you see on screen (or type phonetically), then copy your text anywhere — WhatsApp, documents, social media.
Tips for Typing Japanese
- Type in rōmaji and let the IME convert to kana/kanji
- Press space to cycle kanji candidates, Enter to confirm
- Hiragana for grammar, katakana for foreign words