Kana Tables

Read the tables from top to bottom, and from right to left. You can remember the proper order for the basic kana characters with the saying:

"Kana Signs, Take Note How Much You Read and Write them."

Just remember that vowels are first and stand-alone 'n' is last.

Hiragana

Hiragana is used along with kanji to write all native Japanese words (including words of Chinese origin). Hiragana is used for verb and adjective endings (okurigana), particles, words that have no kanji, words which are commonly written only in kana, words for which the writer does not know the kanji, and as furigana (hints provided by the writer to the reading of an unfamiliar kanji).

Basic Characters

n	wa	ra	ya	ma	ha	na	ta	sa	ka	a
	wi*	ri		mi	hi	ni	chi (ti)	shi (si)	ki	i
		ru	yu	mu	fu (hu)	nu	tsu (tu)	su	ku	u
	we*	re		me	he	ne	te	se	ke	e
	wo	ro	yo	mo	ho	no	to	so	ko	o

* These syllables are not used in modern Japanese.

Voiced sounds

ba	pa	da	za	ga
bi	pi	ji (di)	ji (zi)	gi
bu	pu	zu (du)	zu	gu
be	pe	de	ze	ge
bo	po	do	zo	go

Glides

rya	mya	pya	bya	hya	nya	cha (tya)	ja (zya)	sha (sya)	gya	kya
ryu	myu	pyu	byu	hyu	nyu	chu (tyu)	ju (zyu)	shu (syu)	gyu	kyu
ryu	myo	pyo	byo	hyo	nyo	cho (tyo)	jo (zyo)	sho (syo)	gyo	kyo

Notes

In hiragana, long "o" or "u" vowels are indicated by following an "o" or "u" syllable with . There are occasions where a word contains a syllable that was originally written as "wo", where the lengthening is represented by hiragana "o" instead. There are relatively few of these, and so they may be learned on a case-by-case basis. One example is "ookii" which is written out in hiragana as (although, usually you use the kanji: )

Long "i" or "e" vowels are indicated by following an "i" or "e" syllable with . There has been some argument on the topic, but in general is read as a doubled length of and does not have any glide to an "i" sound.

Long "a" is written by following a syllable with .

Katakana

Katakana is used for loan words from western languages, including foreign names. It is used for emphasis similar to the way that italics are used in English. It is also used to replace the many unfamiliar kanji of things like fish or produce at a market or restaurant.

Basic Characters

n	wa	ra	ya	ma	ha	na	ta	sa	ka	a
	wi*	ri		mi	hi	ni	chi (ti)	shi (si)	ki	i
		ru	yu	mu	fu (hu)	nu	tsu (tu)	su	ku	u
	we*	re		me	he	ne	te	se	ke	e
	wo	ro	yo	mo	ho	no	to	so	ko	o

* These syllables are not used in modern Japanese.

Voiced sounds

ba	pa	da	za	ga
bi	pi	ji (di)	ji (zi)	gi
bu	pu	zu (du)	zu	gu
be	pe	de	ze	ge
bo	po	do	zo	go

Glides

rya	mya	pya	bya	hya	nya	cha (tya)	ja (zya)	sha (sya)	gya	kya
ryu	myu	pyu	byu	hyu	nyu	chu (tyu)	ju (zyu)	shu (syu)	gyu	kyu
ryu	myo	pyo	byo	hyo	nyo	cho (tyo)	jo (zyo)	sho (syo)	gyo	kyo

Additional Combinations

In katakana a number of combinations are possible to represent sounds in foreign words that do not occur in Japanese. Most of these are very rare. Different Japanese input method editors will require different combinations of letters to represent these kana combinations, or may not provide any, requiring a user to enter each character of the combination separately.

Where the romanizations do not look pronounceable, it is possible that they represent an input scheme for the combination rather than the actual sound.

dya

tsa

gwa

kwa

dji

tji

tsi

gwi

kwi

dyu

dwu

twu

tye

tse

zye

sye

gwe

kwe

dyo

tso

gwo

kwo

vyu

fyu

dju

tju

gyo

kyo

Notes

All long vowels in katakana are indicated by the vowel elongation mark (see below), rather than by additional characters as in hiragana.

Word boundaries may be indicated by the word separation mark (see below).

Additional Symbols and Punctuation

	Vowel Elongation Mark Indicates that the vowel of of the preceeding syllable is held for a second mora (beat). There may be a tonal change in between the first and second morae. This mark is almost exclusively used in katakana, which does not use additional characters to indicate long vowels.
	Word Separation Mark Indicates a word boundary. This is most often used in katakana to indicate the word boundary in a string of (possibly) unfamiliar words, or to prevent two words from being together as one.
	Full Stop Used similarly to a period in English.
	Comma Used similarly to a comma in English.
	Open Quote Mark Opens a quotation.
	Close Quote Mark Closes a quotation.
	Maru / Ideographic Zero A zero. Used in other ways.
	Kanji Repetition Mark Indicates repetition of the previous kanji.
	Hiragana Repetition Mark Indicates repetition of the previous hiragana character. This and the other kana repetition marks are not often used. The kana is simply repeated instead. In vertical writing however there are other repetion marks which are more common.
	Hiragana Voiced Repetition Mark Indicates repetition of the previous hiragana character with a voiced reading (e.g. "ku" becomes "gu", etc.). Not often used.
	Katakana Repetition Mark Indicates repetition of the previous katakana character. Not often used.
	Katakana Voiced Repetition Mark Indicates repetition of the previous katakana character with a voiced reading (e.g. "ku" becomes "gu", etc.). Not often used.