Hiragana Chart (Complete): All 46 Kana + Readings

Level: N5. Hiragana is the first writing system to learn in Japanese. It is phonetic, so once you know the characters you can read most native words aloud. This page gives the full chart with readings, then the extra marks that build every other hiragana sound.

By the end of this page you can…

…read all 46 basic hiragana in the gojūon order, add dakuten and handakuten, build the small-kana blends, and use the audio here to practise.

What hiragana is

Japanese uses three scripts together: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana is a phonetic script — each character spells a sound, not a meaning. It writes native Japanese words, grammar endings and the little words that hold sentences together.

Each basic character stands for one mora, a short beat of sound: a single vowel such as あ (a), or a consonant plus a vowel such as か (ka). The one exception is ん (n), which is a consonant on its own. The traditional order is the gojūon, literally the “fifty sounds”, laid out in a grid of five vowels across and consonant rows down.

The complete gojūon chart

Read across each row; every cell shows the kana and its reading.

Note the irregular readings: し (shi) is not “si”, ち (chi) is not “ti”, つ (tsu) is not “tu”, and ふ (fu) is not “hu” — learn these fixed readings as they are.

Dakuten and handakuten: voiced and p-sounds

Ten of the rows take a dakuten, two small strokes at the top right, to become voiced. The h-row can also take a handakuten, a small circle, to become a p-sound.

So か (ka) plus a dakuten is が (ga), and は (ha) becomes either ば (ba) with a dakuten or ぱ (pa) with a handakuten.

The small kana: blends, double consonants, long vowels

Three more rules complete the system:

• Blends (yōon). A small ゃ (ya), ゅ (yu) or ょ (yo) after an i-row kana makes one blended beat: き (ki) plus ゃ (ya) gives きゃ (kya), and き (ki) plus ゅ (yu) gives きゅ (kyu). For example きゅう (kyū) means “nine”.
• Double consonant (sokuon). A small っ (tsu) doubles the consonant that follows it: きって (kitte, “stamp”) and がっこう (gakkō, “school”) each have a short pause where the small っ (tsu) sits.
• Long vowels. A following vowel lengthens the sound: おばさん (obasan) means “aunt”, but おばあさん (obāsan) with a long vowel means “grandmother”. The length changes the word.

Listen and read the kana

Press play, then read each word aloud, one mora per beat.

Practice

Quiz

Next

• Point at things with これ / それ / あれ (kore / sore / are)
• Hear the sounds in context in the Japanese grammar section
• New here? Start with Start Learning Japanese Here