Hiragana Chart With Stroke Order
Hiragana is the basic Japanese script: 46 characters, one for each sound, plus 25 more made with the dakuten (゛) and handakuten (゜) marks. This chart shows all 71 with their romaji. Tap a character to watch it written, stroke by stroke.
Japanese uses hiragana for grammar endings, small words and anything without a common kanji. Every kanji reading can be written in it, so it is the script to learn first. Its partner script is katakana.
The hiragana chart
Rows go by consonant, columns by vowel. Romaji follow the Hepburn system.
The 46 basic characters 46
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vowels | |||||
| k-row | |||||
| s-row | |||||
| t-row | |||||
| n-row | |||||
| h-row | |||||
| m-row | |||||
| y-row | |||||
| r-row | |||||
| w-row | |||||
| n-row |
With dakuten and handakuten 25
| a | i | u | e | o | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| g-row | |||||
| z-row | |||||
| d-row | |||||
| b-row | |||||
| p-row |
Combined sounds 33
An i-column character plus a small ゃ, ゅ or ょ makes one syllable: きゃ is kya.
| ya | yu | yo |
|---|---|---|
| きゃ kya | きゅ kyu | きょ kyo |
| しゃ sha | しゅ shu | しょ sho |
| ちゃ cha | ちゅ chu | ちょ cho |
| にゃ nya | にゅ nyu | にょ nyo |
| ひゃ hya | ひゅ hyu | ひょ hyo |
| みゃ mya | みゅ myu | みょ myo |
| りゃ rya | りゅ ryu | りょ ryo |
| ぎゃ gya | ぎゅ gyu | ぎょ gyo |
| じゃ ja | じゅ ju | じょ jo |
| びゃ bya | びゅ byu | びょ byo |
| ぴゃ pya | ぴゅ pyu | ぴょ pyo |
How to learn hiragana
- Learn it row by row. Start with the five vowels, then the k-row, the s-row and so on. A row a day takes you through the 46 basic characters in under two weeks.
- Mind the irregular ones. し is shi, ち is chi, つ is tsu and ふ is fu. ん is the only character that is a consonant alone. を sounds like o and marks the object of a sentence; は and へ are read wa and e when they are particles.
- Separate the look-alikes. さ and ち, ぬ and め, ね, れ and わ, る and ろ, は and ほ, い and り. Watch the stroke order: it shows where each shape begins and ends.
- Learn the two marks once. Dakuten (゛) voices the k, s, t and h rows: か ka becomes が ga, さ sa ざ za, た ta だ da, は ha ば ba. Handakuten (゜) turns the h-row into p: ぱ pa. A small っ doubles the next consonant: きって kitte (stamp).
- Write each one a few times. Writing in the usual stroke order makes your kana look right and helps you tell similar shapes apart. Then read: signs, menus, children's books.
Practice them in a tile puzzle
GlyphLink is a free tile-matching puzzle for iPhone and iPad, and its hiragana and katakana sets are free. Spotting the same shapes again and again trains your eye for them, so reading gets quicker.
Try a small board right here: tap two identical tiles and link them with a line that turns twice or less.
Board cleared
A small, gentle demo with no clock. In the app, boards have 52, 80 or 114 tiles and about four minutes on the clock.
Opens the GlyphLink App Clip: a real board of kana in seconds, right here on your iPhone or iPad.
Free to play, with ads.
No account needed.
Sources and licence
- Stroke order: KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel and contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Romaji: Hepburn romanization. The 71-character set is GlyphLink's.
You may reuse the chart on this page under CC BY-SA 4.0, with credit to GlyphLink; the KanjiVG strokes keep their CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. The stroke file this page plays is hiragana-chart.json.