Hiragana Charts download
FREE Printable Hiragana Charts
Learning Japanese? It is easier than you probably think.
You shoud try our free Japanese app for Hiragana charts with audio. Get it for iOS here and Android here. You could be reading, writing, and speaking your first words of Japanese in minutes instead of days.
Download your FREE Hiragana Chart pdf here
If you prefer a physical Hiragana chart, you can find one in our Hiragana and Katakana flash cards, available on Amazon.
Each card is packed with everything you need to learn the ‘Japanese alphabets’ in just one day.
The Japanese written language is comprised of three different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are both referred to as the Kana symbols.
Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words or to spell words or part of words that don’t have their own Kanji symbol. Kanji symbols are the busy looking characters derived from Chinese. Katakana is used mainly to write foreign words that have made their way into Japanese.
There is also Romaji, the romanized version of Japanese which is basically just the plain old alphabet we use in English everyday. The primary usage of rōmaji is on computers and other electronic devices that do not support the display or input of Japanese characters and in educational materials for foreigners.
Hiragana and Katakana each consist of 46 basic symbols which can be modified slightly to cover every syllable you need. A lot of Hiragana symbols resemble Katakana symbols so you are already on your way to mastering that too.
What is the hardest part about learning Japanese?
Maybe you're coming from a background of enjoying anime or manga, or perhaps you just always had a fascination about Japanese cutlure. Either way, or regardless of how you came to be interested in learning Japanese, you probably have a fair idea that the Japanese writing system is derived from Chinese and it use three different 'alphabets'. (Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji)
Grammatically, Japanese is not that hard. Really, if you separate the reading of Japanese with the actual sentence structure and formation, it is really easy.
Learning to read Hiragana and Katakana can be done in a few days. Some Japanese teachers like to start their students very slowly and dedicate a couple of weeks to both Hiragana and Katakana but we've found that many students then feel overwhelmed when they hit the 'Kanji wall'.
We recommend using our mnemonic memory tricks to learn Hiragana and Katakana quicky, then using the same visual learning style to jump straight into learning Kanji.
Hiragana and Katakana Cheat Sheets
Get a compact version for Hiragana here and Katakana here