Kenji's Complete Guide to Japanese Scripts: Hiragana & Katakana

Hi, beginners! I'm Kenji 😊

The first gate you encounter when starting Japanese is hiragana and katakana. Already feeling a headache from these two scripts? Don't worry!

Today we'll get clear on what they are, why there are two, and the parts that especially trip up English speakers.

📚 The basics: what are hiragana and katakana?

Japanese has three main writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are the two phonetic syllabaries — like Korean Hangul or English letters, each character represents one sound (mora).

🧐 Why do we need two phonetic scripts?

They have historical roots and complementary roles:

• Hiragana is mostly for native Japanese words and grammar (particles, verb endings).
• Katakana is mostly for loanwords, foreign names, onomatopoeia, and emphasis.

This split actually makes sentences easier to parse at a glance.

🌸 Mastering hiragana

Hiragana is the backbone of Japanese sentences. There are 46 basic characters built around the vowels あいうえお with consonants combining to form moras.

Each character has its own stroke order — following it makes your writing both prettier and easier to remember.

🎶 Beyond the basics: dakuten, handakuten, yōon, sokuon

• Dakuten (濁音): the " mark adds voicing — か → が, さ → ざ, た → だ, は → ば.
• Handakuten (半濁音): the ° mark — only on the は-row: は → ぱ.
• Yōon (拗音): small や/ゆ/よ to combine sounds — き + ゃ → きゃ.
• Sokuon (促音): small っ doubles the following consonant — きって (stamp), がっこう (school).

🎵 Katakana — and the tricky lookalikes

Katakana characters can look intimidating at first because some pairs look almost identical:

• シ (shi) vs ツ (tsu) — シ has near-horizontal short strokes; ツ has near-vertical short strokes, and a downward sweep.
• ン (n) vs ソ (so) — ン has horizontal short stroke; ソ has vertical.

Training your eye on stroke direction is the trick.