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Japanese Keyboard Online日本語キーボード

Three writing systems in one — 46 hiragana, 46 katakana and 2,136 everyday kanji — with a Romaji mode that builds kana from your QWERTY keyboard.

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Ready-Made Japanese Combos

One click to insert — or copy straight to clipboard

How To Use

Three steps. Ten seconds.

Type

Tap the hiragana grid to type ひらがな directly, open the katakana / special panel for カタカナ and small kana, or switch on Romaji mode to build kana from your keyboard.

Copy

In Romaji mode, type phonetically and press Space — konnichiwa becomes こんにちは, arigatou becomes ありがとう — exactly like a phone IME.

Paste

Press Copy and your Japanese is ready to paste into LINE, X, Instagram or any app — real Unicode, no installation.

Japanese Keyboard for Any App

Write your message above, tap Copy, and paste it straight into a LINE chat — the app 78% of Japan uses every day.Copy → paste into any app. No special settings needed.

Snapchat

Compose a post in hiragana and kanji, copy, and paste into X (Twitter) — no Japanese IME needed on the device you're borrowing.

Type a Japanese Instagram caption or bio here, copy, and paste — kana and kanji arrive as clean Unicode.

Instagram

Build a TikTok caption in Japanese — Romaji mode lets you type it from an English QWERTY keyboard.

TikTok

Any app, any device: copy your Japanese from here and paste it wherever you need it — no download, no system settings.

Free Japanese Keyboard

Free Japanese Keyboard Online.
Type from any device — no download, no install.

100% free · 124 million speakers · All devices

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.

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.

In Japan, LINE is the messaging layer of the whole country — about 97 million monthly users as of 2024, reaching roughly 78% of the population and nearly 9 in 10 adults. Stickers, LINE Pay and official accounts run daily life, and every message needs Japanese input. Japan is also one of the heaviest X (Twitter) markets on earth, where hiragana and kanji fill trends and replies. Yet a borrowed phone or a library PC often has no Japanese IME installed, and switching a work laptop into Japanese mode is fiddly. A browser keyboard solves it instantly: tap kana or type Romaji, copy, and paste clean Japanese into LINE, X, Instagram captions or a form — no system settings touched, nothing installed.

1. Open kactyl.com/japanese/ → 2. Click letters → 3. Copy → 4. Paste anywhere

Complete Japanese Typing Guide Tips, shortcuts & how to use on WhatsApp →

Inside the Three-Script System

Japanese is the only major language that mixes three writing systems in a single sentence — each doing a job the others can't. Here's how they divide the work.

Hiragana 46Katakana 462,136 jōyō kanji124M speakers

The grammar glue

Hiragana ひらがな

あいうえお

46 rounded, cursive kana derived from whole simplified kanji in the Heian period. They write every particle, verb ending and native word — the connective tissue that holds a sentence together. A child reads Japanese in hiragana alone.

こんにちは — hello · ありがとう — thank you

The foreign set

Katakana カタカナ

アイウエオ

A second 46-kana set with the same sounds but angular shapes, built from fragments of kanji by Heian monks. It writes loanwords, brand names, sound effects and emphasis — コーヒー (coffee), テレビ (TV).

アニメ — anime · ラーメン — ramen

Meaning in one mark

Kanji 漢字

日本語学

Logographs borrowed from Chinese around the 5th century — each carries a whole idea, not a sound. The Ministry of Education's jōyō list of 2,136 (last revised 30 Nov 2010) covers everyday reading. 日本語 = "Japan-language".

日本 — Japan · 学生 — student

The Romaji bridge

Small kana & sokuon

っゃゅょ

Tiny kana change the sound: っ doubles the next consonant, ゃゅょ glide it. Our Romaji mode builds them automatically — type kya→きゃ, tt→っ, shi→し — exactly like a phone IME.

がっこう (gakkou) — school · きょう (kyou) — today

FAQ

Frequently Asked
Questions

Everything you need to know about the Japanese keyboard

Turn on Romaji (Roman) mode, type phonetically, and press Space — the keyboard converts the word to kana the way a phone IME does. "ka"→か, "shi"→し, "tsu"→つ, "kya"→きゃ, and a double consonant like "tt" builds the small っ. It's a full wapuro-style converter, not a lookup of a few words.

They spell the same 46 sounds but do different jobs. Hiragana (ひらがな) writes native Japanese words, particles and verb endings; katakana (カタカナ) writes foreign loanwords, brand names and sound effects. コーヒー (coffee) is katakana; こんにちは (hello) is hiragana.

No. Everything runs in your browser. Tap the kana grid or use Romaji mode, then Copy and paste. Nothing is installed and no system language settings change — ideal on a borrowed phone, a library PC or a work laptop.

Open the special-characters panel for the katakana set and the small kana (っゃゅょぁぃ...). In Romaji mode they're automatic: "kk/tt"→っ, "kya/shu/cho"→きゃ/しゅ/ちょ.

This keyboard focuses on kana entry plus a common-character grid; the predictive bar suggests frequent words as you type. For full free-form kanji conversion you'd use a system IME, but for chat, captions and names, kana plus common kanji covers the vast majority of everyday Japanese.

Hiragana and katakana each have 46 basic characters (71 with the voiced and semi-voiced diacritics). Kanji are open-ended, but everyday literacy is defined by the government's jōyō list of 2,136 characters, last revised in 2010.

Yes — the keyboard outputs standard Unicode, so hiragana, katakana and kanji paste cleanly into LINE, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, email and documents on any device.

It doubles the following consonant — a short pause in speech. がっこう (gakkou, school) has it; without it the word changes. In Romaji mode a double consonant such as "kk" or "tt" produces it automatically.

In hiragana, long vowels are written by adding a vowel kana (おはよう = ohayou). In katakana they use the bar ー (コーヒー). Type the extra vowel in Romaji mode and it appears, e.g. "koohii".

Completely free, with no account and no download. Type as much Japanese as you like and copy it anywhere.

Yes — it runs in any mobile or desktop browser. Tap the kana keys on a phone, or use Romaji mode with a physical keyboard on a laptop.

Each script has a role: kanji carry meaning compactly, hiragana handle grammar, and katakana flag foreign or emphasized words. Mixing them makes text faster to scan — the kanji are visual anchors and the hiragana show how words connect.

Yes. Typing each hiragana and katakana while saying its sound reinforces the kana, and Romaji mode drills the a/i/u/e/o system — useful groundwork for JLPT N5 and N4.

In Romaji mode a single "n" before a consonant or at the end of a word becomes ん; "na/ni/nu/ne/no" produce the na-row kana. "konnichiwa" correctly yields こんにちは.

Yes — foreign names are normally written in katakana. Open the katakana panel or type the sounds in Romaji mode, e.g. "maria"→マリア, then copy.

Your current text is kept in the editor as you work and while the tab is open, so you won't lose a message mid-way. Copy it out when you're done.

They are the small marks that voice a kana: dakuten (゛) turns か into が (ka→ga), and handakuten (゜) turns は into ぱ (ha→pa). In Romaji mode type the voiced sound directly, e.g. "ga", "pa".

Yes — that's the point. Type here in the browser, copy, and paste. Your operating system's keyboard and language stay exactly as they were.

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