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How To Write In Japanese – A Beginner’s Guide

Do you want to learn how to write in Japanese , but feel confused or intimidated by the script?

This post will break it all down for you, in a step-by-step guide to reading and writing skills this beautiful language.

I remember when I first started learning Japanese and how daunting the writing system seemed. I even wondered whether I could get away without learning the script altogether and just sticking with romaji (writing Japanese with the roman letters).

I’m glad I didn’t.

If you’re serious about learning Japanese, you have to get to grips with the script sooner or later. If you don’t, you won’t be able to read or write anything useful, and that’s no way to learn a language.

The good news is that it isn’t as hard as you think. And I’ve teamed up with my friend Luca Toma (who’s also a Japanese coach ) to bring you this comprehensive guide to reading and writing Japanese.

By the way, if you want to learn Japanese fast and have fun while doing it, my top recommendation is Japanese Uncovered which teaches you through StoryLearning®.

With Japanese Uncovered you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Japanese naturally through story… not rules. It’s as fun as it is effective.

If you’re ready to get started, click here for a 7-day FREE trial.

If you have a friend who’s learning Japanese, you might like to share it with them. Now, let’s get stuck in…

One Language, Two Systems, Three Scripts

If you are a complete beginner, Japanese writing may appear just like Chinese.

But if you look at it more carefully you'll notice that it doesn’t just contain complex Chinese characters… there are lots of simpler ones too.

Take a look.

それでも、日本人の食生活も急速に変化してきています。ハンバーグやカレーライスは子供に人気がありますし、都会では、イタリア料理、東南アジア料理、多国籍料理などを出すエスニック料理店がどんどん増えています。

Nevertheless, the eating habits of Japanese people are also rapid ly chang ing . Hamburgers and curry rice are popular with children . In cities , ethnic restaurants serv ing Italian cuisine , Southeast Asian cuisine and multi-national cuisine keep increas ing more and more .

(Source: “Japan: Then and Now”, 2001, p. 62-63)

As you can see from this sample, within one Japanese text there are actually three different scripts intertwined. We’ve colour coded them to help you tell them apart.

(What’s really interesting is the different types of words – parts of speech – represented by each colour – it tells you a lot about what you use each of the three scripts for.)

Can you see the contrast between complex characters (orange) and simpler ones (blue and green)?

The complex characters are called kanji (漢字 lit. Chinese characters) and were borrowed from Chinese. They are what’s called a ‘logographic system' in which each symbol corresponds to a block of meaning (食 ‘to eat', 南 ‘south', 国 ‘country').

Each kanji also has its own pronunciation, which has to be learnt – you can’t “read” an unknown kanji like you could an unknown word in English.

Luckily, the other two sets of characters are simpler!

Those in blue above are called hiragana and those in green are called katakana . Katakana and hiragana are both examples of ‘syllabic systems', and unlike the kanji , each character corresponds to single sound. For example, そ= so, れ= re; イ= i, タ = ta.

Hiragana and katakana are a godsend for Japanese learners because the pronunciation isn’t a problem. If you see it, you can say it!

So, at this point, you’re probably wondering:

“What’s the point of using three different types of script? How could that have come about?”

In fact, all these scripts have a very specific role to play in a piece of Japanese writing, and you’ll find that they all work together in harmony in representing the Japanese language in a written form.

So let’s check them out in more detail.

First up, the two syllabic systems: hiragana and katakana (known collectively as kana ).

The ‘Kana' – One Symbol, One Sound

Both hiragana and katakana have a fixed number of symbols: 46 characters in each, to be precise.

Each of these corresponds to a combination of the 5 Japanese vowels (a, i, u, e o) and the 9 consonants (k, s, t, n, h, m, y, r, w).

(Source: Wikipedia Commons )

Hiragana (the blue characters in our sample text) are recognizable for their roundish shape and you’ll find them being used for three functions in Japanese writing:

1. Particles (used to indicate the grammatical function of a word)

は wa topic marker

が ga subject marker

を wo direct object marker

2. To change the meaning of verbs, adverbs or adjectives, which generally have a root written in kanji. (“Inflectional endings”)

急速に kyuusoku ni rapid ly

増えています fu ete imasu are increas ing

3. Native Japanese words not covered by the other two scripts

それでも soredemo nevertheless

どんどん dondon more and more

Katakana (the green characters in our sample text) are recognisable for their straight lines and sharp corners. They are generally reserved for:

1. Loanwords from other languages. See what you can spot!

ハンバーグ hanbaagu hamburger

カレーライス karee raisu curry rice

エスニック esunikku ethnic

2. Transcribing foreign names

イタリア itaria Italy

アジア ajia Asia

They are also used for emphasis (the equivalent of italics or underlining in English), and for scientific terms (plants, animals, minerals, etc.).

So where did hiragana and katakana come from?

In fact, they were both derived from kanji which had a particular pronunciation; Hiragana took from the Chinese cursive script (安 an →あ a), whereas katakana developed from single components of the regular Chinese script (阿 a →ア a ).

So that covers the origins the two kana scripts in Japanese, and how we use them.

Now let’s get on to the fun stuff… kanji !

The Kanji – One Symbol, One Meaning

Kanji – the most formidable hurdle for learners of Japanese!

We said earlier that kanji is a logographic system, in which each symbol corresponds to a “block of meaning”.

食 eating

生 life, birth

活 vivid, lively

“Block of meaning” is the best phrase, because one kanji is not necessarily a “word” on its own.

You might have to combine one kanji with another in order to make an actual word, and also to express more complex concepts:

生 + 活 = 生活 lifestyle

食 + 生活 = 食生活 eating habits

If that sounds complicated, remember that you see the same principle in other languages.

Think about the word ‘telephone' in English – you can break it down into two main components derived from Greek:

‘tele' (far) + ‘phone' (sound) = telephone

Neither of them are words in their own right.

So there are lots and lots of kanji , but in order to make more sense of them we can start by categorising them.

There are several categories of kanji , starting with the ‘pictographs' (象形文字 sh ōkei moji), which look like the objects they represent:

(Source: Wikipedia Commons )

In fact, there aren’t too many of these pictographs.

Around 90% of the kanji in fact come from six other categories, in which several basic elements (called ‘radicals') are combined to form new concepts.

For example:

人 (‘man' as a radical) + 木 (‘tree') = 休 (‘to rest')

These are known as 形声文字 keisei moji or ‘radical-phonetic compounds'.

You can think of these characters as being made up of two parts:

A radical that tells you what category of word it is: animals, plants, metals, etc.)
A second component that completes the character and give it its pronunciation (a sort of Japanese approximation from Chinese).

So that’s the story behind the kanji , but what are they used for in Japanese writing?

Typically, they are used to represent concrete concepts.

When you look at a piece of Japanese writing, you’ll see kanji being used for nouns, and in the stem of verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Here are some of them from our sample text at the start of the article:

日本人 Japanese people 多国籍料理 multinational cuisine 東南 Southeast

Now, here’s the big question!

Once you’ve learnt to read or write a kanji , how do you pronounce it?

If you took the character from the original Chinese, it would usually only have one pronunciation.

However, by the time these characters leave China and reach Japan, they usually have two or sometimes even more pronunciations.

How or why does this happen?

Let's look at an example.

To say ‘mountain', the Chinese use the pictograph 山 which depicts a mountain with three peaks. The pronunciation of this character in Chinese is sh ā n (in the first tone).

Now, in Japanese the word for ‘mountain' is ‘yama'.

So in this case, the Japanese decided to borrow the character山from Chinese, but to pronounce it differently: yama .

However, this isn’t the end of the story!

The Japanese did decide to borrow the pronunciation from the original Chinese, but only to use it when that character is used in compound words.

So, in this case, when the character 山 is part of a compound word, it is pronounced as san/zan – clearly an approximation to the original Chinese pronunciation.

Here’s the kanji on its own:

山は… Yama wa… The mountain….

And here’s the kanji when it appears in compound words:

火山は… Ka zan wa The volcano…

富士山は… Fuji san wa… Mount Fuji….

To recap, every kanji has at least two pronunciations.

The first one (the so-called訓読み kun'yomi or ‘meaning reading') has an original Japanese pronunciation, and is used with one kanji on it’s own.

The second one (called音読み on'yomi or ‘sound-based reading') is used in compound words, and comes from the original Chinese.

Makes sense, right? 😉

In Japan, there’s an official number of kanji that are classified for “daily use” (常用漢字 joy ō kanji ) by the Japanese Ministry of Education – currently 2,136.

(Although remember that the number of actual words that you can form using these characters is much higher.)

So now… if you wanted to actually learn all these kanji , how should you go about it?

To answer this question, Luca’s going to give us an insight into how he did it.

How I Learnt Kanji

I started to learn kanji more than 10 years ago at a time when you couldn't find all the great resources that are available nowadays. I only had paper kanji dictionary and simple lists from my textbook.

What I did have, however, was the memory of a fantastic teacher.

I studied Chinese for two years in college, and this teacher taught us characters in two helpful ways:

He would analyse them in terms of their radicals and other components
He kept us motivated and interested in the process by using fascinating stories based on etymology (the origin of the characters)

Once I’d learnt to recognise the 214 radicals which make up all characters – the building blocks of Chinese characters – it was then much easier to go on and learn the characters and the words themselves.

It’s back to the earlier analogy of dividing the word ‘telephone' into tele and phone .

But here’s the thing – knowing the characters alone isn’t enough. There are too many, and they’re all very similar to one another.

If you want to get really good at the language, and really know how to read and how to write in Japanese, you need a higher-order strategy.

The number one strategy that I used to reach a near-native ability in reading and writing in Japanese was to learn the kanji within the context of dialogues or other texts .

I never studied them as individual characters or words.

Now, I could give you a few dozen ninja tricks for how to learn Japanese kanji. B ut the one secret that blows everything else out of the water and guarantees real success in the long-term, is extensive reading and massive exposure.

This is the foundation of the StoryLearning® method , where you immerse yourself in language through story.

In the meantime, there are a lot of resources both online and offline to learn kanji , each of which is based on a particular method or approach (from flashcards to mnemonic and so on).

The decision of which approach to use can be made easier by understanding the way you learn best.

Do you have a photographic memory or prefer working with images? Do you prefer to listen to audio? Or perhaps you prefer to write things by hands?

You can and should try more than one method, in order to figure out which works best for you.

( Note : You should get a copy of this excellent guide by John Fotheringham, which has all the resources you’ll ever need to learn kanji )

Summary Of How To Write In Japanese

So you’ve made it to the end!

See – I told you it wasn’t that bad! Let’s recap what we’ve covered.

Ordinary written Japanese employs a mixture of three scripts:

Kanji, or Chinese characters, of which there are officially 2,136 in daily use (more in practice)
2 syllabic alphabets called hiragana and katakana, containing 42 symbols each

In special cases, such as children’s books or simplified materials for language learners, you might find everything written using only hiragana or katakana .

But apart from those materials, everything in Japanese is written by employing the three scripts together. And it’s the kanji which represent the cultural and linguistic challenge in the Japanese language.

If you want to become proficient in Japanese you have to learn all three!

Although it seems like a daunting task, remember that there are many people before you who have found themselves right at the beginning of their journey in learning Japanese.

And every journey begins with a single step.

So what are you waiting for?

The best place to start is to enrol in Japanese Uncovered . The course includes a series of lessons that teach you hiragana, katakana and kanji. It also includes an exciting Japanese story which comes in different formats (romaji, hiragana, kana and kanji) so you can practice reading Japanese, no matter what level you're at right now.

– – –

It’s been a pleasure for me to work on this article with Luca Toma, and I’ve learnt a lot in the process.

Now he didn’t ask me to write this, but if you’re serious about learning Japanese, you should consider hiring Luca as a coach. The reasons are many, and you can find out more on his website: JapaneseCoaching.it

Do you know anyone learning Japanese? Why not send them this article, or click here to send a tweet .

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The Complete Guide to Learning Hiragana: Reading & Writing (With Video)

A screenshot of the Japanese hiragana character "a" with the stroke order. Next to it on the right, someone's had is seen writing it in on a piece of paper three times in blue ink.

ひらがな ( hiragana ) is the fundamental component of the Japanese writing system. カタカナ ( katakana ) and 漢字 ( kanji ) are the other two writing systems in Japanese. If you want to learn all of the hiragana for free with step-by-step videos and descriptions, this guide is for you.

In Japan, people start learning ひらがな ( hiragana ) at a very young age, usually in preschool or early elementary. Mastering hiragana might seem overwhelming; however, this article will teach you everything you need to know about writing, pronunciation, and any valuable tips regarding hiragana .

Modern Hiragana Characters

Modern hiragana has 46 base characters: five singular vowels, 40 consonant-vowel unions, and one singular consonant. Some of you may have seen it before, but the 46 characters are organized in a chart format, which is called あいうえお表 ( aiueo hyō ).

The chart has ten rows of up to five hiragana characters. The upcoming sections are organized according to the chart. In this guide, all hiragana characters will be explained. You’ll learn how to pronounce and write each correctly.

*Note: While there are many methods to memorize the hiragana characters, it’s just as easy (if not easier) to just remember the characters as you practice writing them. The characters are simple and are pretty simple to remember with a little work. If you follow this up by reviewing the characters (flashcards work great for this), you’ll remember all of the characters in no time.

Part I: How to Read and Write Hiragana: 直音 (Chokuon) – Basic Characters

These are all of the basic characters of hiragana . Be sure to practice reading and writing each character to ensure that you master all of them. We’ll be using these basic characters to create more complex hiragana later on.

If you want to use the blank hiragana practice sheets as seen in the video, you can get that here: Blank Hiragana Writing Practice Sheet

あ行 (A Gyō) – A Row: Pronunciation

あ ( a ) is often the first character people learn. As with all characters, try to match of balance and stroke lengths of the examples shown in the video.

This character looks very similar to お ( o ), so pay close attention to the stroke order. It is different than writing お ( o ). Also notice that お ( o ) has a small slash on the right side while あ ( a ) does not.

Words Starting With あ (A)

• あひる ( ahiru ): Duck (animal) • あるく ( aruku ): To walk

い ( i ) looks relatively similar to り ( ri ). い ( i ) has two vertical lines that are similar in length, whereas り ( ri ) has a longer line on the right side.

Words Starting With い (I)

• いす ( isu ): Chair • いか ( ika ): Squid

う ( u ) looks a little bit like the katakana character ラ ( ra ). Be sure to practice writing う ( u ) with a flowing curve instead of the rigid, straight lines that ラ ( ra ) has.

Words Starting With う (U)

• うめ ( ume ): Japanese plum • うに ( uni ): Sea urchin

Some people think that え ( e ) looks like う ( u ) character described above. Just be sure to pay attention to the second stroke and feel how the last stroke (“the tail”) flows off of your pen.

Words Starting With え (E)

• えんぴつ ( enpitsu ): Pencil • えいご ( eigo ): English

お ( o ) does look very similar to the first character we learned, あ ( a ). Many people get these two characters mixed up in the beginning, so be sure to follow the correct stroke order of both characters. お ( o ) has a small slash on the right side for its final stroke. This is also why you need to practice writing the characters; not only will it help you to remember the characters faster, but you’ll notice more details that you may miss if you just practice reading them.

Words Starting With お (O)

• おに ( oni ): Demon • おなか ( onaka ): Stomach

か行 (Ka Gyō) – Ka Row: Pronunciation

When you start to learn katakana , you’ll notice that the カ ( ka ) looks almost identical to this hiragana か ( ka ). The biggest difference is the third stroke in this hiragana character. However, the hiragana か is also more rounded at the upper right-hand corner. Be sure to follow the video to see exactly how it’s written.

Words Starting With か (Ka)

• かさ ( kasa ): Umbrella • からあげ ( karaage ): Deep-fried food, usually chicken

This character also looks similar to its katakana equivalent (キ). So be sure to focus on how this hiragana き ( ki ) is written. The great thing about hiragana and katakana characters looking similar to each other is that it makes it easier to remember both.

However, き ( ki ) also looks similar to the hiragana さ ( sa ). Be aware that き ( ki ) has an extra horizontal line running through it.

Words Starting With き (Ki)

• きつね ( kitsune ): Fox • きけん ( kiken ): Danger

This character is a breath of fresh air since it’s one of the few (if not only) characters that looks familiar. It is similar in shape to the “less than” symbol, just spread out a little wider.

Words Starting With く (Ku)

• くじら ( kujira ): Whale • くらげ ( kurage ): Jellyfish

け ( ke ) is similar to the hiragana character は ( ha ). The difference is at the end of the third and last stroke. The third stroke of け ( ke ) trails off to the left side while は ( ha ) goes back and loops over itself.

Words Starting With け (Ke)

• けしごむ ( keshigomu ): Eraser • けっこん ( kekkon ): Marriage

The computerized version of Japanese writing differs from how it’s written by hand. This character is a good example. The image shown to the left doesn’t have a small “hook” at the end of the first stroke. However, if you were to write こ ( ko ) by hand, you would need to put this small hook at the end in order for it to look nice.

Words Starting With こ (Ko)

• こども ( kodomo ): Child • これ ( kore ): This

さ行 (Sa Gyō) – Sa Row: Pronunciation

As mentioned above in the ka -row section, さ ( sa ) looks a little like き ( ki ). However, さ ( sa ) also looks like the hiragana character ち ( chi ), especially when it’s in computer font form. When writing it out by hand, it’s easy to see that the two characters are quite different. In addition to the third and last stroke of さ ( sa ) going in the opposite direction of ち ( chi ), it is also not touching the first two strokes.

Words Starting With さ (Sa)

• さかな ( sakana ): Fish • さしみ ( sashimi ): Raw, sliced seafood (usually fish)

し ( shi ) looks like a backwards “J” or a fishhook. It is also similar to the first stroke of the character も ( mo ), which we’ll learn a little bit later. While this character is only one stroke, it takes a bit of practice to make it look nice. As with all characters, aim to have a nice balance (of the strokes and spaces in-between and around the strokes) when writing them.

Words Starting With し (Shi)

• しまうま ( shimauma ): Zebra • しお ( shio ): Salt

If you combine す ( su ) with し ( shi ) above, you’ll get the popular Japanese food すし ( sushi ). Have fun with “loop” in the second stroke. This type of loop is unique to certain characters in hiragana . It does not appear in katakana or commonly used kanji .

Words Starting With す (Su)

• すいか ( suika ): Watermelon • すず ( suzu ): Bell

This another character that looks similar to its katakana counterpart. The hiragana せ ( se ) has three strokes while the katakana セ ( se ) only has two. However, it can be easy to get these two characters mixed up in the beginning.

Words Starting With す (Se)

• せみ ( semi ): Cicada • せっけん ( sekken ): Soap

The bottom half of そ ( so ) is slightly similar to て ( te ), but the single stroke and look of そ ( so ) is so unique that most people remember it quickly.

Words Starting With そ (So)

• そら ( sora ): Sky • それ ( sore ): That

た行 (Ta Gyō) – Ta Row: Pronunciation

た ( ta ) and に ( ni ) look a little similar. た has an extra horizontal line on the left side (the first stroke). た ( ta ) also has four strokes while に ( ni ) has three.

Words Starting With た (Ta)

• たぬき ( tanuki ): Raccoon dog • たこ ( tako ): Octopus

As previously mentioned, ち ( chi ) can be mistaken for さ ( sa ) since they look similar. It’s almost like a lower case “b” and “d” where the bottom part of the character determines which letter it is. Another thing to note is that “chi” is the Hepburn romanization style. There is another romanization style called 訓令式 ( kunrei shiki ), where ち would be written as “ ti .” Proper English translations use the Hepburn style, but be aware that there are other ways to write romaji.

Words Starting With ち (Chi)

• ちず ( chizu ): Map • ちじ ( chiji ): Governor

つ ( tsu ) looks like し ( shi ) flipped over and turned on its side. Even though they share the same shape, the difference in their position makes them easy to recognize and remember. Practice them both and you’ll see for yourself 🙂

Words Starting With つ (Tsu)

• つくえ ( tsukue ): Desk • つる ( tsuru ): Crane (bird)

て ( te ) almost looks like curvy “T.” As you learn more Japanese, you’ll find yourself using the て ( te ) character a lot. Not only is it common in words, but there is something called the て-Form . It is a way to conjugate verbs, adjectives, and nouns to create all kind of wonderful grammatical patterns. You’ll use this character so much there’s no way you’ll forget it!

Words Starting With て (Te)

• て ( te ): Hand • てがみ ( tegami ): Letter (as in “I wrote a letter to her…”)

と ( to ) is also another character you’ll be using a lot in your Japanese studies. It is a useful Japanese particle that means “and” or “with.” It is also one of the easier particles in Japanese to understand and use. So practice this one because you’ll be using it often in the future!

Words Starting With と (To)

• とけい ( tokei ): Clock • とかげ ( tokage ): Lizard

な行 (Na Gyō) – Na Row: Pronunciation

な ( na ) can feel a little tricky to write at first. Put the effort into writing this character neatly and smoothly, because you’ll be using it relatively often in your Japanese studies. There are two types of adjectives in Japanese ; い-adjectives and な-adjectives. な-adjectives all end in な, so you’ll be using this character a lot when you learn about adjectives.

Words Starting With な (Na)

• なす ( nasu ): Eggplant • なぞ ( nazo ): Riddle, puzzle

As mentioned previously, に ( ni ) looks a little bit like た ( ta ). You just need to be aware of the first horizontal stroke in た ( ta ) (or the lack thereof in に ( ni )).

Words Starting With に (Ni)

• にわとり ( niwatori ): Chicken • にわ ( niwa ): Garden, yard

ぬ ( nu ) and め ( me ) look almost the same. Many people get these characters mixed up, so be sure to learn this correctly from the beginning. The difference is that ぬ ( nu ) has a small loop at the bottom (that looks like a “2”) while め ( me ) does not.

Words Starting With ぬ (Nu)

• ぬりえ ( nurie ): Picture for coloring (like a coloring book) • ぬの ( nuno ): Cloth

This is another character that looks very similar to another. ね ( ne ) and れ ( re ) are very similar. Just like with ぬ ( nu ) and め ( me ), the difference is whether or not there is a small loop on its final stroke. ね ( ne ) has a small loop at the bottom (that looks like a “2”) while れ ( re ) does not.

Words Starting With ね (Ne)

• ねこ ( neko ): Cat • ねずみ ( nezumi ): Mouse, rat

の ( no ) looks like the letter “e” that has been flipped over and rotated. It is pronounced almost the same way as “no” in English. It is also another useful particle , which is used for the possessive form (my book, his computer, my company’s car, etc.)

Words Starting With の (No)

• のり ( nori ): Seaweed (for eating), glue • のみもの ( nomimono ): Drink(s), beverage

は行 (Ha Gyō) – Ha Row: Pronunciation

は ( ha ) and ほ ( ho ) look very similar. The biggest difference is that ほ ( ho ) has two horizontal lines running through the last vertical stroke on the right side. は ( ha ) only has one horizontal line going through it.

Also, は is actually pronounced “wa” when it’s used as a particle. You’ll learn more about this when you start to study basic Japanese sentences.

Words Starting With は (Ha)

• はさみ ( hasami ): Scissors • はな ( hana ): Flower(s), nose

ひ ( hi ) is only one stroke, so just be sure to start from the left side ending the stroke on the right side.

Words Starting With ひ (Hi)

• ひつじ ( hitsuji ): Sheep • ひみつ ( himitsu ): Secret

ふ ( fu ) looks a little complicated to write. It is probably the most difficult hiragana character to write, but you can still learn to write it quickly with a little practice. There are also two ways to write ふ ( fu ). Check out the video to see both ways you can write this character. Also, you would think this character would be read as “ hu ,” not “ fu .” Actually, both are correct, but as explained in the ち ( chi ) description, fu is the Hepburn romanization style and is used much more commonly in proper English translations.

Words Starting With ふ (Fu)

• ふぶき ( fubuki ): Snowstorm • ふきん ( fukin ): Dishcloth

へ ( he ) is another single stroke character. It is pretty easy to write, but just make sure to start on the left side, stroking down towards the right.

Words Starting With へ (He)

• へび ( hebi ): Snake • へや ( heya ): Room

As mentioned in the description for は ( ha ) above, ほ ( ho ) looks almost the same but has an extra horizontal line at the top. Be sure to be aware of this extra line to differentiate between は ( ha ) and ほ ( ho ).

Words Starting With ほ (Ho)

• ほたて ( hotate ): Scallop • ほほえみ ( hohoemi ): Smile

ま行 (Ma Gyō) – Ma Row: Pronunciation

ま ( ma ) looks like the right side of ほ ( ho ), but there is a very important detail you should be aware of. The vertical line going through the two horizontal lines in ま ( ma ) extends above the top horizontal line. You’ll start writing the vertical line (the third stroke) above the top horizontal line (the first stroke). However, in ほ ( ho ), the vertical line does not extend past the top horizontal stroke. For ほ ( ho ), you’ll start the vertical line (fourth stroke) at or just below (but still touching) the top horizontal stroke.

Words Starting With ま (Ma)

• まくら ( makura ): Pillow • まぐろ ( maguro ): Tuna

み ( mi ) is another character with that unique loop shape on its left side. Have fun writing this character as you go down, loop around, and finish the first stroke on the right-hand side.

Words Starting With み (Mi)

• みず ( mizu ): Water • みち ( michi ): Street, road, path

む ( mu ) has a similar shape as す ( su ), except the line keeps going after the loop and extends to the right, and finishes by curving back up slightly.

Words Starting With む (Mu)

• むし ( mushi ): Insect • むすこ ( musuko ): Son

As mentioned earlier, め ( me ) looks almost exactly like ぬ ( nu ). The differnce is that ぬ ( nu ) has a loop at the end while め ( me ) does not.

Words Starting With め (Me)

• め ( me ): Eye • めがね ( megane ): Eyeglasses

も ( mo ) is similar to し ( shi ), but has two horizontal lines cutting through its vertical stroke.

Words Starting With も (Mo)

• もり ( mori ): Forest • もも ( momo ): Peach

ら行 (Ra Gyō) – Ra Row: Pronunciation

ら ( ra ) has a unique shape and sometimes people confuse it for さ ( sa ) or や (ya). It takes a little bit of getting used to, but if you practice writing all the characters (as much as you can!) and review with flashcards/notes, you’ll remember all of them in no time.

Words Starting With ら (Ra)

• らくだ ( rakuda ): Camel • らくがき ( rakugaki ): Graffiti, scribble

This hiragana り ( ri ) looks almost identical to the katakana リ ( ri ). This makes it easy to remember both, but when writing, the hiragana り ( ri ) usually has a small hook at the end of the first stroke.

Words Starting With り (Ri)

• りんご ( ringo ): Apple • りかい ( rikai ): Understanding

る ( ru ) and ろ ( ro ) look very similar, so just remember that る ( ru ) has a loop at the bottom while ろ ( ro ) does not.

Words Starting With る (Ru)

• るす ( rusu ): Absence • るいじ ( ruiji ): Resemblance, similarity

れ ( re ) looks like ね ( ne ). Just remember that れ ( re ) does not loop around at the end of the second stroke. These differences seem very small at first, but after a while you’ll notice them easily.

Words Starting With れ (Re)

• れきし ( rekishi ): History • れんこん ( renkon ): Lotus root

As previously mentioned, ろ ( ro ) looks like る( ru ). Just remember that ろ ( ro ) does not have a loop at the end of its stroke.

Words Starting With ろ (Ro)

• ろうそく ( rōsoku ): Candle • ろんり ( ronri ): Logic

や行 (Ya Gyō) – Ya Row: Pronunciation

Traditionally, the ya -row comes before the ra -row on hiragana charts. However, there are only three characters in the ya -row, so we decided to teach it after the ra -row to make it easier to follow and hopefully easier to understand.

Words Starting With や (Ya)

• やかん ( yakan ): Kettle • やきにく ( yakiniku ): Yakiniku, Japanese grilled meat done in a Korean barbeque style

ゆ ( yu ) is a fun character to write. It almost looks like a picture of a fish. You’ll also see this character if you go to an onsen ( hot spring ) in Japan. At an onsen in Japan, ゆ ( yu ) means “hot water” or “hot spring water” that you bathe in. The kanji for hot water is 湯 ( yu ), but you will often see the hiragana “ゆ” written on signs or noren (short curtains hung at the top of a door/entrance) at onsens.

Words Starting With ゆ (Yu)

• ゆき ( yuki ): Snow • ゆず ( yuzu ): Yuzu (type of citrus fruit)

よ ( yo ) looks a little bit like ま ( ma ). However, よ ( yo ) only has one horizontal line (the first stroke) while ま ( ma ) has two. Also, if you look closely, the horizontal line in よ ( yo ) does not go through the vertical stroke. Be sure to practicing writing よ ( yo ) so that the first stroke doesn’t cut across the second, vertical stroke.

Words Starting With よ (Yo)

• よる ( yoru ): Night • よやく ( yoyak u): Appointment, reservation, advance order

わ行 (Wa Gyō) – Wa Row: Pronunciation

わ ( wa ) looks similar to ね ( ne ). The difference is ね ( ne ) has a loop and わ ( wa ) doesn’t.

Words Starting With わ (Wa)

• わに ( wani ): Alligator • わくせい ( wakusei ): Planet

This is actually another character for “ o ,” but it is sometimes written as “ wo ” as shown here. Usually, we write this を as “ o ” in our other Japanese lessons , as it is more standardized for learners of Japanese. The biggest difference between を ( o ) and お ( o ), is that this を ( o ) is a particle, and is not used in any words.

Words Starting With を (Wo)

There is no Japanese word that starts with を ( o ). を is a particle and indicates what the direct object of a sentence is.

How to Read and Write Hiragana: を (wo/o)

The last character! After you complete this, you’ll have learned all of the hiragana characters! However, your work is not done yet. There’s a few more things to learn about hiragana before you have completely mastered everything.

Words Starting With ん (N)

There is no Japanese word that starts with ん ( n ). Do you know a Japanese word game called しりとり ( shiritori )? The players need to say a word that begins with the last character of the previous word that was said by the other player. If a player says a word ending in ん ( n ), they lose the game, as no Japanese word begins with that character.

Congratulations!!! You’ve learned all of the basic hiragana characters. Give yourself a big pat on the back! However, there are still things you need to learn. There are a few things that you can add to some of these hiragana characters to change their pronunciation. Also, you can combine certain characters together to make a “hybrid” character!

Part II: Advanced Hiragana: Characters With Different Sounds

If you mastered all of the hiragana characters on this page, the hard work is over. Now we just need to learn a few more things to truly master all of commonly used hiragana characters in Japanese.

濁音 (Dakuon) – Hiragana with 濁点(Dakuten)

濁点 ( Dakuten ) is the two small dashes that you write on the upper right-hand side of certain characters. This mark looks similar to double quotation marks in English (“). This will change the pronunciation of the character from an unvoiced consonant, to a voiced consonant, 濁音 ( dakuon ).

Sounds confusing? Don’t worry! It’s actually really easy. You just need to remember which characters can take this mark, and the rest is really easy.

The only characters that can take the 濁点 ( dakuten ) are the か ( ka ) , さ ( sa ) , た ( ta ) , and は ( ha ) rows . Let’s see what happens when you add 濁点 ( dakuten ) to the characters in these rows.

濁音 (Dakuon): か (Ka) Row Becomes the が (Ga) Row

Any character in the か ( ka ) row that has a dakuten attached to it will go from a “k” sound to a “g” sound.

か ( ka ) —> が ( ga )
き ( ki ) —> ぎ ( gi )
く ( ku ) —> ぐ ( gu )
け ( ke ) —> げ ( ge )
こ ( ko ) —> ご ( go )

How to Read and Write Hiragana: が行 (Ga Gyō) - Ga Row

濁音 (Dakuon): さ (Sa) Row Becomes the ざ (Za) Row

Any character in the さ ( sa ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten) attached to it will go from a “s” sound to a “z” sound, EXCEPT for し ( shi ). し ( shi ) will turn into じ ( ji ).*

さ ( sa ) —> ざ ( za )
し ( shi ) —> じ ( ji )
す ( su ) —> ず ( zu )
せ ( se ) —> ぜ ( ze )
そ ( so ) —> ぞ ( zo )

*Note: じ ( zi ) is the 訓令式 ( kunrei shiki ) reading, which is the system ordered by the Cabinet of Japan. However, ji is the Hepburn style of romaji, which is what is used in most English translations. It is also much closer to the pronunciation of that actually Japanese. For example, the word “じかん” means “time.” It is pronounced “ ji kan.” If you were to pronounce it using the kunrei shiki romanization, it would be “ zi kan,” which would not be the correct pronunciation.

How to Read and Write Hiragana: ざ行 (Za Gyō) - Za Row

Example Words: ざ (Za) Row

ざ ( za ) —> ざぶとん ( za buton ): Floor cushion
じ ( ji ) —> じかん ( ji kan ): Time
ず ( zu ) —> ずかん ( zu kan ): Picture book
ぜ ( ze ) —> ぜんそく ( ze nsoku ): Asthma
ぞ ( zo ) —> ぞう ( zō ): Elephant

濁音 (Dakuon): た (Ta) Row Becomes the だ (Da) Row

The た ( ta ) row is a little tricky. It has two exceptions, but it’s not too difficult. Characters in the た ( ta ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten ) attached to it will go from a “t” sound to a “d” sound, EXCEPT for ち ( chi ) and つ ( tsu ).

ち ( chi ) will turn into ぢ ( ji ). Wait a minute! We just learned that し ( shi ) also turns into じ ( ji ). Yes, both of these characters have the same romaji and same pronunciation. How can two different characters have the same reading?

The answer lies in something called 連濁 ( rendaku ) in Japanese. Basically, 連濁 ( rendaku ) is when you combine words together that result in the first consonant of the second word becoming voiced. This is the same thing we are doing here; ち ( chi ) becomes a voiced ぢ ( ji ) with the 濁点 ( dakuten ). Let’s check out an example.

Let’s look at two different words and combine them. はな ( hana ) can mean either flower or nose. For our example, it will mean “nose.” ち ( chi ) also has two meanings; it can either mean blood or ground/earth. In this example, it will mean “blood.”

If we put these words together, it will mean “nosebleed” and it should look like this: はなち ( hanachi )…BUT

Because of the 連濁 ( rendaku ), the first constant of the second word ち ( chi – blood) will become voiced —> ぢ ( ji ). Therefore, the correct word will be “はなぢ ( hana ji ).” Most of the time, ぢ ( ji ) is found in the middle or end of words. There are few (if any) words that start with ぢ ( ji ). It’s when the original word uses ち ( chi ) but becomes voiced when combined with other words.

The other exception is つ ( tsu ). With the 濁点 ( dakuten ), it will change to づ ( zu ). This also shares the same romaji as the character す ( su ) —> ず ( zu ). Just like with the ぢ ( ji ) character above, づ ( zu ) is most used as 連濁 ( rendaku ). In other words, づ ( zu ) is mainly used when it is combined with other words (in the middle or end of words, not at the beginning).

Let’s take a look at the whole だ ( da ) row:

た ( ta ) —> だ ( da )
ち ( chi ) —> ぢ ( ji )
つ ( tsu ) —> づ ( zu )
て ( te ) —> で ( de )
と ( to ) —> ど ( do )

How to Read and Write Hiragana: だ行 (Da Gyō) - Da Row

Example Words: だ (Da) Row

だ ( da ) —> だいず ( da izu ): Soy beans
ぢ ( ji ) —> はなぢ ( hana ji ): Nosebleed
づ ( zu ) —> つづき ( tsu zu ki ): Continuation (of something; story, work, tv show, etc.)
で ( de ) —> でぐち ( de guchi ): Exit
ど ( do ) —> どろ ( do ro ): Mud

濁音 (Dakuon): は (Ha) Row Becomes the ば (Ba) Row

Any character in the は ( ha ) row that has a 濁点 ( dakuten ) attached to it will go from a “h” sound to a “b” sound.

は ( ha ) —> ば ( ba )
ひ ( hi ) —> び ( bi )
ふ ( fu ) —> ぶ ( bu )
へ ( he ) —> べ ( be )
ほ ( ho ) —> ぼ ( bo )

How to Read and Write Hiragana: ば行 (Ba Gyō) - Ba Row

Example Words: ば (Ba) Row

ば ( ba ) —> ばけつ ( ba ketsu ): Bucket
び ( bi ) —> びじん ( bi jin ): Beautiful woman
ぶ ( bu ) —> ぶり ( bu ri ): Japanese amberjack, yellowtail
べ ( be ) —> べんごし ( be ngoshi ): Lawyer
ぼ ( bo ) —> ぼくし ( bo kushi ): Pastor

半濁音 (Handakuon) – Hiragana With the Consonant “P”

半濁音 ( handakuon ) only applies to the は ( ha ) row. As seen above, the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading for the は ( ha ) row changes to a “b” sound (ば ( ba ), び ( bi ), ぶ ( bu ), べ ( be ), ぼ ( bo )).

However, the characters in the は ( ha ) row can also be changed to a 半濁音 ( han dakuon ) reading. This changes the “h” sound to a “p” sound. This is done by writing a small circle at the top right-hand corner of the character. This small is written from the bottom to the top, clockwise:

は ( ha ) —> ぱ ( pa )
ひ ( hi ) —> ぴ ( pi )
ふ ( fu ) —> ぷ ( pu )
へ ( he ) —> ぺ ( pe )
ほ ( ho ) —> ぽ ( po )

Be sure to notice whether it’s a small circle 半濁音 ( handakuon ) or the two slashes which will create a 濁点 ( dakuon ) at the upper right-hand corner of the character. It can be easy to mix them up, especially when it’s written in a small font size.

How to Read and Write Hiragana: ぱ行 (Pa Gyō) - Pa Row

Example Words: ぱ (Pa) Row

ぱ ( pa ) —> ぱん ( pa n ): Bread
ぴ ( pi ) —> ぴったり ( pi ttari ): Exactly, precisely
ぷ ( pu ) —> ぷにぷに ( pu ni pu ni ): Squishy, bouncy, cuddly
ぺ ( pe ) —> ぺきん ( pe kin ): Beijing
ぽ ( po ) —> ぽちゃ ( po cha ): Chubby

促音 (Sokuon) – The Small “つ (Tsu)”

The small っ ( tsu ), otherwise known as 小さいつ ( chiisai tsu ), is used to represent a doubled or “geminate” consonant, referred to as a 促音 ( sokuon ) in Japanese. It’s called the small っ ( tsu ) because it is a mini version of the hiragana つ ( tsu ) character:

Normal tsu : つ
Small tsu : っ

The small っ ( tsu ) does not have any special pronunciation on its own. Instead, it will affect the pronunciation of the character that follows it. Any character that comes after the small っ ( tsu ) will have its consonant changed into a double consonant . What does this mean? Let’s look at an example:

かこ ( kako ) in Japanese means “the past.) If we put a small っ ( tsu ) in the middle of this word, we would get かっこ ( kakko ). The character that comes after the small っ ( tsu ) (こ in this case) will change into a double consonant. This just means that:

No small っ ( tsu ): こ ( ko )
Small っ ( tsu ) in front of character: っこ ( kko )

The small っ ( tsu ) acts as a small pause when pronouncing words. かっこ ( kakko ) would almost feel as if you were saying two separate words, kak and ko . You would say “ kak ” first, followed by a short pause, then say “ ko “. Let’s look at some other examples of words with the small っ ( tsu ).

Example Words: Small っ (Tsu)

にっぽん ( ni pp on ): Japan
きって ( ki tt e ): Postage stamp
てっぱん ( te pp an ): Iron plate which is used to cook food

How to Read and Write Hiragana: The Small “つ (Tsu)

Part III: Combination Characters

This is the last part! We can combine some of the hiragana characters together to form new characters, but learning how to read them are very simple. You just need to remember which characters go together, and you’ll master this section easily…and you’ll be a hiragana professional!

拗音 (Yōon) – Combination Hiragana Characters

You can take the three characters from the や ( ya ) row; や ( ya ), ゆ ( yu ), よ ( yo ) and combine it with these characters:

き ( ki ) and ぎ ( gi )
し ( shi ) and じ ( ji )
ち ( chi ) and ぢ ( ji )
ひ ( hi ), び ( bi ), and ぴ ( pi )

How to Combine Hiragana Characters Together

Combining hiragana characters are really easy. All you need to do is take one of the ya -row characters; や ( ya ), ゆ ( yu ), よ ( yo ), and write it smaller, and put it on the lower right-hand corner of one of the characters listed above (if writing it horizontally). If you are writing hiragana in the traditional vertical way, you would first write one of the characters listed above and then put the smaller ya -row character beneath it.

To read this new combined character, you would replace the “ i ” of any character listed above with the reading of the ya -row character. Sounds confusing? Take a look at this and it should clear things right up:

き ( k i ) + ゃ ( ya ) = きゃ ( kya )
き ( k i ) + ゅ ( yu ) = きゅ ( kyu )
き ( k i ) + ょ ( yo ) =きょ ( kyo )
and so on…

However…

The readings for し ( shi ), じ ( ji ), ち ( chi ), and ぢ ( ji ) are the exceptions. Just like the characters above, you will replace the “ i ” with the reading of a ya -row character. However, you will get rid of the “y” and only use the vowel of the や ( ya ) row character ( a , u , o ).

し ( sh i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = しゃ ( sha )
し ( sh i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = しゅ ( shu )
し ( sh i ) + ょ ( y o ) = しょ ( sho )
じ ( j i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = じゃ ( ja )
じ ( j i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = じゅ ( ju )
じ ( j i ) + ょ ( y o ) = じょ ( jo )
ち ( ch i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = ちゃ ( cha )
ち ( ch i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = ちゅ ( chu )
ち ( ch i ) + ょ ( y o ) = ちょ ( cho )
ぢ ( j i ) + ゃ ( y a ) = ぢゃ ( ja )
ぢ ( j i ) + ゅ ( y u ) = ぢゅ ( ju )
ぢ ( j i )+ ょ ( y o ) = ぢょ ( jo )

Let’s take a look at each of these combination hiragana characters in more detail.

きゃ行 (Kya Gyō) – Kya Row: き (Ki) and ぎ (Gi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: きゃ行 (Kya Row)

Remember that you can also make these combination hiragana characters with the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of き: ぎゃ ( gya ), ぎゅ ( gyu ), ぎょ ( gyo )

Example Words: きゃ (Kya) Row

きゃく ( kya ku ): Customer
きゅうり ( kyū ri ): Cucumber
きょうふ ( kyō fu ): Fear
ぎゃく ( gya ku ): Opposite
ぎゅうにく ( gyū niku ): Beef
ぎょうざ ( gyō za ): Dumpling

しゃ行 (Sha Gyō) – Sha Row: し (Shi) and じ (Ji) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: しゃ行 (Sha Row)

The 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of し ( shi ) is じ ( ji ), and it can be combined with any character from the ya -row as well.

Example Words: しゃ (Sha) Row

しゃかい ( sha kai ): Society
しゅうまつ ( shū matsu ): Weekend
しょうじ ( shō ji ): Paper sliding door
じゃんけん ( ja nken ): Rock scissors paper game
じゅぎょう ( ju gyō ): Class
じょうあい ( jō ai ): Affection

ちゃ行 (Cha Gyō) – Cha Row: ち (Chi) and ぢ (Ji) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: ちゃ行 (Cha Row)

The 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of ち ( chi ) is ぢ ( ji ), and it can be combined with any character from the ya -row as well.

Example Words: ちゃ (Cha) Row

ちゃわん ( cha wan ): Rice bowl
ちゅうし ( chū shi ): Cancel
ちょうれい ( chō rei ): Morning assembly
ぢゃ ( ja ): Same as じゃ ( ja ), and is usually not used. じゃ ( ja ) is commonly used.
ぢゅ ( ju ): Same as じゅ ( ju ), and it usually not used. じゅ ( ju ) is commonly used.
ぢょ ( jo ): Same as じょ ( jo ), and it usually not used. じょ ( jo ) is commonly used.

にゃ行 (Nya Gyō) – Nya Row: に (Ni) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: にゃ行 (Nya Row)

Example Words: にゃ (Nya) Row

にゃん ( nya n ): Meow (the sound of a cat’s meow)
にゅういん ( nyū in ): Hospitalization
にょう ( nyō ): Urine

ひゃ行 (Hya Gyō) – Hya Row: ひ (Hi), び (Bi), and ぴ (Pi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: ひゃ行 (Hya Row)

You can also make these combination hiragana characters with the 濁音 ( dakuon ) reading of ひ ( hi ):

and the 半濁音 ( handakuon ) reading:

Example Words: ひゃ (Hya) Row

ひゃく ( hya ku ): A hundred
ひゅう ( hyū ): Sound of winds
ひょうか ( hyō ka ): Evaluation
びゃくだん ( bya kudan ): Indian sandalwood
びゅうげん ( byū gen ): Fallacy
びょういん ( byō in ): Hospital
ろっぴゃく ( rop pya ku ): Six hundred
ぴゅう ( pyū ): Sound of something whizzing through the air
ぴょん ( pyo n ): Jumping lightly or nimbly

みゃ行 (Mya Gyō) – Mya Row: み (Mi) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: みゃ行 (Mya Row)

Example Words: みゃ (Mya) Row

みゃく ( mya ku ): Pulse
きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ ( Kyary Pa myu Pa myu ): Name of famous Japanese singer
みょうじ ( myō ji ): Last name

りゃ行 (Rya Gyō) – Rya Row: り (Ri) + ゃ (Ya), ゅ (Yu), and ょ (Yo)

How to Read and Write Hiragana: りゃ行 (Rya Row)

Example Words: りゃ (Rya) Row

りゃく ( rya ku ): Abbreviation
りゅうこう ( ryū kō ): Trend
りょこう ( ryo kō ): Trip

Part IV: The History of Hiragana

When you look at the history of the Japanese writing system, 漢字 ( kanji ) are known to be the first characters used. 漢字 ( kanji ) came to Japan from China more than 1,000 years ago. Japanese people back then only used 漢字 ( kanji ).

However, according to many sources, including this educational Japanese website (Japanese only), 漢字 ( kanji ) was only used by men, not women. (In today’s society, there is no such rule regarding kanji ). Therefore, women needed to come up with a different way to communicate with others, and this was when ひらがな ( hiragana ) was created.

Hiragana characters were created by mimicking and breaking down kanji characters. Since the telephone didn’t exist at the time, they used letters to exchange ideas and feelings. For women and men to understand each other, men eventually needed to learn hiragana characters. And this is how hiragana was born and passed on.

I hope you could master all of the hiragana characters with this guide! Please let us know this guide help you to learn how to read and write hiragana , or if you have any suggestions. Be sure to check out more of our Japanese lessons to learn more!

Momoko Hoyt

Hiragana Reading Practice

Either if you have memorized the shape of Hiragana manually or by using mnemonics provided by our guide , you will still need to practice a lot of reading to lock them up to your long term memory. But yes, it’s not easy to gather material to practice Hiragana. So we try to create a page for you to practice your reading!

One of the best resource for beginners to practice reading are children’s book & easy to read manga . If you only want to choose one, the best one is from Ghibli’s picture book series. They are thick (over 150 pages), use simple sentences, equipped with furigana and not to mention, the price cost the same as a 10-20 pages children book! So worth to have~

In any case that you can’t get your hand on the books, you can use this page to practice reading! This page takes 2 part of Princess Kaguya story and layouted in a way so you can focus practicing Hiragana reading. We’ll keep adding more stories, so please look forward to them!

Important notes before you start

Treat these pages only as a reading practice and not as a lesson to learn japanese.

You can totally ignore the meaning. Just try to read the hiragana correctly since understanding the meaning of a sentence require more knowledge in Japanese grammar and is an entirely different skill set than what you want to achieve now, which is to read Hiragana & lock them up in you long term memory.

If you focus on both the word & meaning, your brain will get exhausted very quickly and might get discouraged to learn further.

But what if I want to learn Japanese?

Check out lesson index instead, or if you have budget and only want to read one book, get Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar . Once you read it, you’ll be able to use other books to practice reading Japanese and expand your vocabularies effectively with less frustration.

Some hiragana are read differently

Notice some hiragana which being used as particles in a sentence are read differently. • は A particle to mark topic, is read as WA • へ A particle to mark direction of movement, is read as E • を A particle to mark direct object, is read as O

You don’t have to memorize the usage of particles for now

Just focus on noticing them and read them correctly. To make it easier to you, hiragana used as particle and read differently is written in bold .

Now that you’re ready to practice, pick one of these stories below!

Note that these stories are a work in progress. They are incomplete stories but you can use them to practice reading Hiragana with no problem 😀 Happy learning~

Japanese Writing Lab #1: Basic self-introduction

In a recent post I announced I would be starting a new program on my blog called “Japanese Writing Lab” that aims to motivate people to practice writing in Japanese, provides feedback on their writing, and allows them to see posts of other Japanese learners. This article represents the first writing assignment of that program.

For this assignment, I’d like to focus on a very common, but important topic: self-introduction, known as 自己紹介 (jiko shoukai) in Japanese.

Self-introductions can range widely from formal to casual, and from very short (name only) to much longer. This time, I’d like everyone to focus on writing a basic self-introduction whose main purpose is to actually introduce yourself to me and others in the group. So while it is a writing exercise, it actually serves an important purpose as well. Try to keep it brief (a few sentences is fine) and stick more to written language as opposed to spoken language. For example, you would avoid using things like “あの。。。” which you might say if you actually spoke a self-introduction.

For those who are comfortable writing a self-introduction in Japanese, you can go ahead and get started. If you have written one recently, I suggest you try to write one again from scratch without referring to it unless you really get stuck.

Once you finish this writing assignment please post it via one of the two following methods:

For those who have a blog (WordPress or anywhere else is fine): post it on your blog, and post a comment on this article including a link to your post. I also suggest adding a link on your post back to this article, so people who find your post can follow it to read other people’s submissions.
For those who don’t have a blog: simply post it as a comment to this article with the text you’ve written. [Note: creating a blog is pretty easy and free on many sites, so if you have a few minutes I’d just consider just trying to create a blog]

I’ll be reading through the submitted assignments and will try to make constructive comments. I highly recommend for everyone submitting to read other people’s submissions.

For those who are not too familiar with how to write self-introductions in Japanese, here is a general template to help you get started (taken from this Japanese website). If you want to do your own research on how to write a self-introduction, that is fine as well. Feel free to omit any of the below categories, for example if you don’t want to discuss where you live.

Keep in mind that for a self-introduction in Japanese, it is usually best to use at minimum basic polite language, like ~です and ~ます, since you aren’t likely to be on very familiar terms with those you are speaking to.

General template for basic self-introduction

僕（私) の名前は [your name here] です。

Place where you live (住所)

住所は[place where you live]というところです。

Hobbies (趣味)

趣味は [one or more of your hobbies]です。

仕事は「your current job」をしています。

Positive ending

[try to think of something positive to close with]

My submission

For each assignment I will give my submission as well, to help give you ideas. Feel free to send me questions or comments about my submission.

For this assignment I’ll keep things pretty simple and mostly follow the template I gave above, but in future assignments I’ll start using more advanced language and get more creative.

僕の名前はlocksleyuです。

住所はオレゴン州のポートランドですが、先週までは南フロリダに住んでいました。

趣味は色々ありますが、最近は日本の小説を読んだりチェスをやったりしています。

仕事はソフトウェア開発をしています。

このクラスで日本語の文章力を向上できたらいいと思います。

よろしくお願いします。

22 thoughts on “ Japanese Writing Lab #1: Basic self-introduction ”

Hi – I put together a WordPress site today so I could participate in this, and also to encourage me to write in Japanese.

Here’s my basic self introduction article: https://bokunojapanese.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/japanese-writing-lab-1-basic-self-introduction/

I tried once yesterday and once just now to post here and I am not seeing anything getting through. Are these comments moderated? Is there some other issue? I’m sick of retyping my introduction 🙁

The comments are moderated (that is the default setting of WordPress) but I check very often and approve pretty much all comments except for Spam. For some reason I didn’t see any of your comments from yesterday, only two from today.

I’ll read your other comment and respond now.

OK, this blog doesn’t seem to accept Japanese characters as comments (I just tried a third time).

I’m sorry that you are experiencing trouble. I’ll try to do my best help you out so we can get this solved (:

I have used Japanese before in comments. Let’s test now:

こんにちは [<- can you read this?] What happens when you try to write Japanese characters? Can you please make a post like this with some Japanese and some English so I can see what it looks like? Also, what browser/OS are you using? Can you try a variation of either? I am using Safari/Mac OS.

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, I’m reading that. The last three comments I have made that have included either all Japanese characters or a mix of Japanese and English have just…vanished. Like, I click “post” and the page refreshes but I don’t see my comment or even a “Your comment is pending” notification. I’m on Chrome on Mac OS, everything’s reasonably up to date.

Here’s a comment with English and hiragana only: こんにちは Thanks for helping me debug and sorry to be leaving so many comments on the blog ;_;

Here’s a comment with English, hiragana and kanji: こんいちは漢字は難しいですが、大切です。

Everything looks great now, I can see all the characters fine (: I’m guessing that was just some temporary issue with WordPress.

You can go ahead and try to put your self-introduction now. Just make a backup copy in case it gets deleted again.

You’re not going to believe this, but it STILL isn’t posting. I was avoiding making a new blog because I thought it would be “more work” but now I’m thinking that would be simpler after all.

Thats so weird, I wonder why. Maybe if you make a longer comment it doesn’t like it?

I agree it will probably be easier at this point to create your own blog, and that will have other benefits for you in the future.

But if you still want to try and troubleshoot the original issue I can help…

The good news is that WordPress makes it really easy to set up a new blog these days. I guess in retrospect I should have done that to begin with. Thanks for your help trying to debug this issue! https://nihongonoheya.wordpress.com/2016/06/02/first-blog-post/

Great, glad you were able to make a blog so easily! Will check out your blog later today when I get more time.

Hi, I have been reading several of your articles with great interest. The first that lead me to you was your comments on ‘Hibana’ by Naoki Matayoshi. A friend of mine in Japan is reading this book and I was curious about its content. Your translation is amazing. To introduce myself I set up a site, above link, however it doesn’t really seem to be a blog as such, so I may need to change that later. Anyway it’s accepted the script ok so you should be able to read it. I hope to join in here to improve my Japanese. Thanks for your time, Sylvia

Thanks very much for the comment and feedback!

Also, I’m glad you are interested in joining my program. I checked out your site, but like you said it seems like it isn’t exactly a blog, so I am not sure if I will be able to comment. Without that, it will be hard for me to correct your writings (I found a few errors I wanted to point out).

If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind trying to create a blog on WordPress.com? It should be pretty easy and it’s free.

Hi, Thank you for your reply. I think I’ve sorted it OK. See link below, I’ve never done a blog before so this is new to me! https://kafuka97.wordpress.com/

I just copied what I wrote before, no changes. Many thanks, Sylvia

PS: I do have a website which I have sent a link to.

Hello! My name is Jheanelle, I just found your website today and I think I’ve already looked through have of it. Its amazing. I’m interested in doing the assignments but I don’t have a blog so I’ll post it in the comments section.

ジェネルと言います。今日本に住んで仕事にしています。私は英語の先生です。色々な趣味があります。例えば、寝たり、韓国の番組を見たり、本を読んだりするのが好きです。日本語もっと上手になりたいそしてこのブログを見つけて嬉しくなった

どうぞよろしくお願いします

Hello Jheanelle. I’m sorry for the late reply but your message was showing up in Spam on my blog for some reason.

Thanks for the submission. Right now I am sort of taking a break from the writing labs since I didn’t get too much response from my readers, but I will consider restarting them again at some point. There is a few others however I posted (up to #3 or #4, I think).

I hope your Japanese studies are going well.

One minor comment, in your sentence “今日本に住んで仕事にしています” I think maybe you could have said: “今日本で仕事をしています” or “今日本に住んでで仕事もしています”

These might sound a little better.

One more thing, I recommend watching Japanese dramas instead of Korean if you want to improve faster (:

Hello locksleyu, I just posted my self-introduction here: https://soreymikleo1421.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/japanese-writing-lab-1-basic-self-introduction/ Thank you in advance!

Thanks! I just posted a few comments.

How to Write in Japanese — A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Writing

Does the Japanese writing system intimidate you?

For most people, this seems like the hardest part of learning Japanese. How to write in Japanese is a bit more complex than some other languages. But there are ways to make it easier so you can master it!

Here at Fluent in 3 Months , we encourage actually speaking over intensive studying, reading, and listening. But writing is an active form of learning too, and crucial for Japanese. Japanese culture is deeply ingrained in its writing systems. If you can’t read or write it, you’ll struggle as you go along in your studies.

Some of the best Japanese textbooks expect you to master these writing systems… fast . For instance, the popular college textbook Genki , published by the Japan Times, expects you to master the basics in as little as a week. After that, they start to phase out the romanized versions of the word.

It’s also easy to mispronounce words when they’re romanized into English instead of the original writing system. If you have any experience learning how to write in Korean , then you know that romanization can vary and the way it reads isn’t often how it’s spoken.

Despite having three writing systems, there are benefits to it. Kanji, the “most difficult,” actually makes memorizing vocabulary easier!

So, learning to write in Japanese will go a long way in your language studies and help you to speak Japanese fast .

Why Does Japanese Have Three Writing Systems? A Brief Explainer

Japanese has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The first two are collectively called kana and are the basics of writing in Japanese.

Writing Kana

If you think about English, we have two writing systems — print and cursive. Both print and cursive write out the same letters, but they look “sharp” and “curvy.” The same is true for kana. Hiragana is “curvy” and katakana is “sharp,” but they both represent the same Japanese alphabet (which is actually called a syllabary). They both represent sounds, or syllables, rather than single letters (except for vowels and “n”, hiragana ん or katakana ン). Hiragana and katakana serve two different purposes.

Hiragana is the most common, and the first taught to Japanese children. If this is all you learn, you would be understood (although you’d come across child-like). Hiragana is used for grammar functions, like changing conjugation or marking the subject of a sentence. Because of this, hiragana helps break up a sentence when combined with kanji. It makes it easier to tell where a word begins and ends, especially since Japanese doesn’t use spaces. It’s also used for furigana, which are small hiragana written next to kanji to help with the reading. You see furigana often in manga , Japanese comics, for younger audiences who haven’t yet learned to read all the kanji. (Or learners like us!)

Katakana serves to mark foreign words. When words from other languages are imported into Japanese, they’re often written in Japanese as close as possible to the original word. (Like how you can romanize Japanese into English, called romaji). For example, パン ( pan ) comes from Spanish, and means “bread.” Or from English, “smartphone” is スマートフォン ( suma-tofon ) or shortened, slang form スマホ ( sumaho ). Katakana can also be used to stylistically write a Japanese name, to write your own foreign name in Japanese, or to add emphasis to a word when writing.

Writing Kanji

Then there’s kanji. Kanji was imported from Chinese, and each character means a word, instead of a syllable or letter. 犬, read inu , means “dog.” And 食, read ta or shoku , means “food” or “to eat.” They combine with hiragana or other kanji to complete their meaning and define how you pronounce them.

So if you wanted to say “I’m eating,” you would say 食べます ( tabemasu ), where -bemasu completes the verb and puts it in grammatical tense using hiragana. If you wanted to say “Japanese food,” it would be 日本食 ( nipponshoku ), where it’s connected to other kanji.

If you didn’t have these three forms, it would make reading Japanese very difficult. The sentences would run together and it would be confusing. Like in this famous Japanese tongue twister: にわにはにわにわとりがいる, or romanized niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru . But in kanji, it looks like 庭には二羽鶏がいる. The meaning? “There are chickens in the garden.” Thanks to the different writing systems, we know that the first niwa means garden, the second ni wa are the grammatical particles, the third niwa is to say there are at least two, and niwatori is “chickens.”

Japanese Pronunciation

Japanese has fewer sounds than English, and except for “r,” most of them are in the English language. So you should find most of the sounds easy to pick up!

Japanese has the same 5 vowels, but only 16 consonants. For the most part, all syllables consist of only a vowel, or a consonant plus a vowel. But there is the single “n,” and “sh,” “ts,” and “ch” sounds, as well as consonant + -ya/-yu/-yo sounds. I’ll explain this more in a minute.

Although Japanese has the same 5 vowel sounds, they only have one sound . Unlike English, there is no “long A” and “short A” sound. This makes it easy when reading kana because the sound never changes . So, once you learn how to write kana, you will always know how to pronounce it.

Here’s how the 5 vowels sound in Japanese:

あ / ア: “ah” as in “latte”
い / イ: “ee” as in “bee”
う / ウ: “oo” as in “tooth”
え / エ: “eh” as in “echo”
お / オ: “oh” as in “open”

Even when combined with consonants, the sound of the vowel stays the same. Look at these examples:

か / カ: “kah” as in “copy”
ち / チ: “chi” as in “cheap”
む / ム: “mu” as in “move”
せ / セ: “se” as in “set”
の / ノ: “no” as in “note”

Take a look at the entire syllabary chart:

Based on learning how to pronounce the vowels, can you pronounce the rest of the syllables? The hardest ones will be the R-row of sounds, “tsu,” “fu,” and “n.”

For “r” it sounds between an “r” and an “l” sound in English. Almost like the Spanish, actually. First, try saying “la, la, la.” Your tongue should push off of the back of your teeth to make this sound. Now say “rah, rah, rah.” Notice how your tongue pulls back to touch your back teeth. Now, say “dah, dah, dah.” That placement of your tongue to make the “d” sound is actually where you make the Japanese “r” sound. You gently push off of this spot on the roof of your mouth as you pull back your tongue like an English “r.”

“Tsu” blends together “t” and “s” in a way we don’t quite have in English. You push off the “t” sound, and should almost sound like the “s” is drawn out. The sound “fu” is so soft, and like a breath of air coming out. Think like a sigh, “phew.” It doesn’t sound like “who,” but a soft “f.” As for our lone consonant, “n” can sound like “n” or “m,” depending on the word.

Special Japanese Character Readings and How to Write Them

There are a few Japanese characters that combine with others to create more sounds. You’ll often see dakuten , which are double accent marks above the character on the right side ( ﾞ), and handakuten , which is a small circle on the right side ( ﾟ).

Here’s how dakuten affect the characters:

And handakuten are only used with the H-row characters, changing it from “h” to “p.” So か ( ka ) becomes が ( ga ), and ひ ( hi ) becomes either び ( bi ) or ぴ ( pi ).

A sokuon adds a small っ between two characters to double the consonant that follows it and make a “stop” in the word. In the saying いらっしゃいませ ( irasshaimase , “Welcome!”), the “rahs-shai” has a slight glottal pause where the “tsu” emphasizes the double “s.”

One of the special readings that tend to be mispronounced are the yoon characters. These characters add a small “y” row character to the other rows to blend the sounds together. These look like ちゃ ( cha ), きょ ( kyo ), and しゅ ( shu ). They’re added to the “i” column of kana characters.

An example of a common mispronunciation is “Tokyo.” It’s often said “Toh-key-yo,” but it’s actually only two syllables: “Toh-kyo.” The k and y are blended; there is no “ee” sound in the middle.

How to Read, Write, and Pronounce Kanji Characters

Here’s where things get tricky. Kanji, since it represents a whole word or idea, and combines with hiragana… It almost always has more than one way to read and pronounce it. And when it comes to writing them, they have a lot more to them.

Let’s start by breaking down the kanji a bit, shall we?

Most kanji consist of radicals, the basic elements or building blocks. For instance, 日 (“sun” or “day”) is a radical. So is 言 (“words” or “to say”) and 心 (“heart”). So when we see the kanji 曜, we see that “day” has been squished in this complex kanji. This kanji means “day of the week.” It’s in every weekday’s name: 月曜日 ( getsuyoubi , “Monday”), 火曜日 ( kayoubi , “Tuesday”), 水曜日 ( suiyoubi , “Wednesday”), etc.

When the kanji for “words” is mixed into another kanji, it usually has something to do with conversation or language. 日本語 ( nihongo ) is the word for “Japanese” and the final kanji 語 includes 言. And as for 心, it’s often in kanji related to expressing emotions and feelings, like 怒る ( okoru , “angry”) and 思う ( omou , “to think”).

In this way, some kanji make a lot of sense when we break them down like this. A good example is 妹 ( imouto ), the kanji for “little sister.” It’s made up of two radicals: 女, “woman,” and 未, “not yet.” She’s “not yet a woman,” because she’s your kid sister.

So why learn radicals? Because radicals make it easier to memorize, read, and write the kanji. By learning radicals, you can break the kanji down using mnemonics (like “not yet a woman” to remember imouto ). If you know each “part,” you’ll remember how to write it. 妹 has 7 strokes to it, but only 2 radicals. So instead of memorizing tons of tiny lines, memorize the parts.

As for pronouncing them, this is largely a memorization game. But here’s a pro-tip. Each kanji has “common” readings — often only one or two. Memorize how to read the kanji with common words that use them, and you’ll know how to read that kanji more often than not.

Japanese Writing: Stroke Order

So, I mentioned stroke order with kanji. But what is that? Stroke order is the proper sequence you use to write Japanese characters.

The rule of stroke order is you go from top to bottom, left to right.

This can still be confusing with some complex kanji, but again, radicals play a part here. You would break down each radical top left-most stroke to bottom right stroke, then move on to the next radical. A helpful resource is Jisho.org , which shows you how to properly write all the characters. Check out how to write the kanji for “kanji” as a perfect example of breaking down radicals.

When it comes to kana, stroke order still matters. Even though they’re simpler, proper stroke order makes your characters easier to read. And some characters rely on stroke order to tell them apart. Take シ and ツ:

[Shi and Tsu example]

If you didn’t use proper stroke order, these two katakana characters would look the same!

How to Memorize Japanese Kanji and Kana

When it comes to Japanese writing, practice makes perfect. Practice writing your sentences down in Japanese, every day. Practice filling in the kana syllabary chart for hiragana and katakana, until there are no blank boxes and you’ve got them all right.

Create mnemonics for both kanji and kana. Heisig’s method is one of the best ways to memorize how to write kanji with mnemonics. Using spaced repetition helps too, like Anki. Then you’re regularly seeing each character, and you can input your mnemonics into the note of the card so you have it as a reminder.

Another great way to practice is to write out words you already know. If you know mizu means “water,” then learn the kanji 水 and write it with the kanji every time from here on out. If you know the phrase おはようございます means “good morning,” practice writing in in kana every morning. That phrase alone gives you practice with 9 characters and two with dakuten! And try looking up loan words to practice katakana.

Tools to Help You with Japanese Writing

There are some fantastic resources out there to help you practice writing in Japanese. Here are a few to help you learn it fast:

JapanesePod101 : Yes, JapanesePod101 is a podcast. But they often feature YouTube videos and have helpful PDFs that teach you kanji and kana! Plus, you’ll pick up all kinds of helpful cultural insights and grammar tips.
LingQ : LingQ is chock full of reading material in Japanese, giving you plenty of exposure to kana, new kanji, and words. It uses spaced repetition to help you review.
Skritter : Skritter is one of the best apps for Japanese writing. You can practice writing kanji on the app, and review them periodically so you don’t forget. It’s an incredible resource to keep up with your Japanese writing practice on the go.
Scripts : From the creator of Drops, this app was designed specifically for learning languages with a different script from your own.

How to Type in Japanese

It’s actually quite simple to type in Japanese! On a PC, you can go to “Language Settings” and click “Add a preferred language.” Download Japanese — 日本語 — and make sure to move it below English. (Otherwise, it will change your laptop’s language to Japanese… Which can be an effective study tool , though!)

To start typing in Japanese, you would press the Windows key + space. Your keyboard will now be set to Japanese! You can type the romanized script, and it will show you the suggestions for kanji and kana. To easily change back and forth between Japanese and English, use the alt key + “~” key.

For Mac, you can go to “System Preferences”, then “Keyboard” and then click the “+” button to add and set Japanese. To toggle between languages, use the command key and space bar.

For mobile devices, it’s very similar. You’ll go to your settings, then language and input settings. Add the Japanese keyboard, and then you’ll be able to toggle back and forth when your typing from the keyboard!

Japanese Writing Isn’t Scary!

Japanese writing isn’t that bad. It does take practice, but it’s fun to write! It’s a beautiful script. So, don’t believe the old ideology that “three different writing systems will take thousands of hours to learn!” A different writing system shouldn’t scare you off. Each writing system has a purpose and makes sense once you start learning. They build on each other, so learning it gets easier as you go. Realistically, you could read a Japanese newspaper after only about two months of consistent studying and practice with kanji!

Caitlin Sacasas

Content Writer, Fluent in 3 Months

Caitlin is a copywriter, content strategist, and language learner. Besides languages, her passions are fitness, books, and Star Wars. Connect with her: Twitter | LinkedIn

Speaks: English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish

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Japanese Hiragana

Hiragana developed from Chinese characters, as shown below. Hiragana were originally called onnade or 'women's hand' as were used mainly by women - men wrote in kanji and katakana . By the 10th century, hiragana were used by everybody. The word hiragana means "oridinary syllabic script".

In early versions of hiragana there were often many different characters to represent the same syllable, however the system was eventually simplified so that there was a one-to-one relationship between spoken and written syllables. The present orthography of hiragana was codified by the Japanese government in 1946.

Hiragana and the kanji from which they developed

In each column the rōmaji appears on the left, the hiragana symbols in the middle and the kanji from which they developed on the right. There is some dispute about the orgins of some of the symbols

The symbols for 'wi' and 'we' were made obsolete by the Japanese Minsitry of Education in 1946 as part of its language reforms. The symbols 'ha', 'he' and 'wo' are pronounced 'wa', 'e' and 'o' respectively when used as grammatical particles.

Hiragana syllabary (平仮名 / ひらがな)

The symbols on the right are the basic hiragana syllabary in the order they appear in dictionaries and indices (reading from left to right and top to bottom). Additional sounds (the symbols on the right) are represented by diacritics and combinations of symbols.

Long vowels

Download this chart in Word , or PDF format (also includes katakana).

See a Hiragana chart by Kayo Takumyo (JPG, 409K).

Pronunciation

Characteristics and usage of hiragana.

The hiragana syllabary consists of 48 syllables and is mainly used to write word endings, known as okurigana in Japanese. Hiragana are also widely used in materials for children, textbooks, animation and comic books, to write Japanese words which are not normally written with kanji, such as adverbs and some nouns and adjectives, or for words whose kanji are obscure or obselete.

Hiragana are also sometimes written above or along side kanji to indicate pronunciation, especially if the pronunication is obscure or non-standard. Hiragana used in this way are known as furigana or ruby. In horizontal texts, the furigana appear above the kanji and in vertical texts, the furigana appear on the right of the kanji. In newspapers it is a legal requirement for furigana to be attached to kanji which are not included in the official list of the 1,945 most frequently-used kanji. Newspapers in fact rarely use kanji not included in this list.

Furigana in action

The furigana in the following text are the small hiragana above or beside the kanji.

Horizontal text with furigana

Vertical text with furigana, this text in hiragana, this text in standard japanese (without furigana), transliteration (rōmaji).

Subete no ningen wa, umare nagara ni shite jiyū de ari, katsu, songen to kenri to ni tsuite byōdō de aru. Ningen wa, risei to ryōshin to o sazukerareteari, tagai ni dōhō no seishin o motte kōdōshinakerebanaranai.

Hear a recording of this text

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Hiragana are sometimes used to write words which would normally written with katakana to make them appear more "feminine", particularly in comic books and cartoons for young girls. In children's video games texts are often written entirely in hiragana or katakana.

How to write Hiragana:

Information about Hiragana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana http://japanesehiragana.org

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Page last modified: 15.03.23

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9 Japanese Writing Exercises for Creative Language Practice

Writing is one of the most important skills you can learn in Japanese.

It involves creating your own sentences with all the Japanese words and grammar you’ve learned so far.

So how can you practice your writing skills in a way that’s fun, stimulating and rewarding ?

The best answer I’ve found so far is doing unique Japanese writing exercises, especially if you do so in a journal specifically for that purpose.

Read on for my nine favorite Japanese writing practice activities !

1. The New Character Challenge

2. the daily journal entry challenge, 3. the character count challenge, 4. the show and tell challenge, 5. the letter challenge, 6. the review challenge, 7. the recipe challenge, 8. the diary challenge, 9. the memory challenge, why use a journal for japanese writing exercises, how to practice japanese handwriting, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Chances are that you have a reasonably concrete study schedule set in place by now. (If not, start here !) That means you should be learning new characters—or at least seeing them pop up in your study materials—quite frequently.

What better way is there to reinforce your character studies than to practice using them?

Try keeping a record of this week’s (or this month’s) new characters. These could be hiragana, katakana or kanji, depending on your current level.

Then, use each new character at least once , in context, in your Japanese notebook or journal. The more you use them, the better!

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Write a journal entry every day for a week .

This could be about anything. Something you did that day, something you learned in Japanese class, something you want to do in the future, a conversation you had with a friend… the possibilities are endless!

Even if things are pretty routine and dull during the week, keep track of what you do, think, feel, see or even dream.

Then, knuckle down and write seven entries in seven days. Try writing at the same time every day to get into the habit of doing it.

If you’re feeling up to an extra challenge, try to keep this going for an additional week, for a whole month or indefinitely.

Set yourself a character minimum for your journal entry for that day.

Decide how many characters you’re going to write. This will vary depending on your current Japanese skill level and your quantity of available time.

Start with 100 (yes! It’s supposed to be a challenge). If you plan on writing in mostly hiragana and katakana , increase your character count a little. One kanji character is sometimes equal to two or even three kana letters.

Then, increase your character minimum the next time to 200, then 250, then 300… You get the picture. You’ll get to know your own limits as you go.

This challenge is extremely difficult for some—particularly anyone who would say they’re shy or a perfectionist. You’ve got to show your journal (or at least an entry or two) to your Japanese friends for proofreading and checking.

Try not to be shy! Find a native or fluent Japanese speaker who would be willing to read your writing. Their feedback will help you figure out and improve on any mistakes you’ve made.

Not only will your reader point you in the right direction with things you’re struggling with, but they’ll most likely be very impressed with your effort and praise you on your strengths, too!

If you don’t have any Japanese friends or acquaintances, you can check out some online platforms where you’ll likely find some people who would be more than happy to check for you.

You can also use italki to find a Japanese tutor and ask them to go through your writing and offer constructive criticism .

Maybe you’re all on board to try the above challenges, but there’s one little problem—you have no clue what to write!

If that’s the case, this challenge (and the next ones) will help give you more guidance and spark your creativity.

In the letter challenge, the idea is to try writing a heartfelt letter in Japanese to one of your friends (or family members, if applicable). This could be a great way to practice using Japanese honorifics .

You can also practice writing formal letters (perhaps to practice for applying to Japanese-speaking jobs) and using keigo , the most polite form of Japanese.

Or, you can simply write a casual letter to a friend who can speak Japanese. It’ll be motivating knowing that they’ll be able to read it when you’re done.

Think about a recent book , manga , movie or anime you’ve watched recently, then write about what you thought of it .

If you choose to write about something from your home country, bear in mind your review might be one of just a few in Japanese—perhaps even the very first!

Do you write a personal blog? Reviews are great blogging content. You might end up with a huge Japanese following!

Need more things to review? Treat yourself to a one-time Kawaii Box , or sign up for a monthly subscription. You’ll get ten adorable Japanese items in each box, ranging from yummy little snacks to toys and pencil cases, which gives you ample things to write about.

This Japanese writing exercise will give you the chance to practice descriptive adjectives . You should aim to use a good number of these in your writing—try setting a personal goal before you start.

It’s always nice when your Japanese studies can link you with delicious food .

So, choose your favorite dish—it’s totally fine to pick one native to your own country. Now, in your Japanese notebook, describe the flavors and ingredients of the dish . Talk about any customs surrounding it or seasonal consumption, if applicable.

Write out a recipe for how to prepare your dish in Japanese. It can be as complicated or as simple as you like, depending on the dish and your language level.

This is a great way to practice using imperatives and the ～てください / ～でください form.

This is a good challenge to combine with the daily writing challenge in #2. Write a simple diary entry of your day or an event you recently went to.

The diary challenge is especially good if you’re an intermediate level learner and you’re doing something exciting that week that you can write about, such as going on vacation.

However, there’s no problem with choosing a fairly normal event (going to school, work, etc.). Those are things you probably talk about often, anyway, which means you’ll get good practice with useful vocabulary and common grammar points .

In fact, this is a great way to get grammar practice or review in: You can practice tenses, adjectives, prepositions and anything else you learned recently.

Up for a chance to test yourself?

Open two blank pages of your notebook, preferably side by side. On the left page, write a journal entry by yourself, with no assistance —no using a dictionary and no asking for help. If you’re writing kanji, don’t check the shape or stroke order!

When you’ve finished, check it yourself or with a friend. Then, on the right-hand page, rewrite it neatly with any corrections. Essentially, the left page is your “draft” piece, and the right page is your “final” piece.

In this format, it will be easier to see where there’s room for improvement. Beyond meaning and usage, pay special attention to any mistakes you’ve made in the shape or size of the characters.

This exercise will get you used to writing from memory and will also improve your writing confidence . If you do this practice more than once (which you should!), you’ll eventually be able to see a clear line of your progress.

First of all, the best way to improve your writing is by writing. A lot.

Keeping a journal gives you a designated place to store your writing . You don’t have to hunt for spare paper or take up precious space in your actual learning notebook.

Any notebook can be a writing journal, but a high quality one with lots of pages will work especially well. I recommend buying something you’d be proud to show off to people, so you can get native speaker feedback on your work.

Having a specific notebook can also help you get into the habit of doing Japanese writing exercises every day . Practicing your writing often will improve your writing speed, as well as your grammar and vocabulary , too.

What’s more, a writing journal is a wonderful tool for tracking language learning progress . By keeping a notebook and writing in it consistently, you’ll be able to actually see improvement in your writing skills as time goes on.

Eventually, your journal will also become a resource for you to reference . Have you forgotten some old kanji? Do you need to brush up on a certain grammar concept? No worries. You just have to flip back and have a look at previous entries.

So, once you have your ideal notebook, you should:

Decide how much time you’re going to dedicate to journal-writing. Start with 30 minutes a week, and expand on it later.
Decide on a topic, or a certain type of writing. Use any or all of the ideas above for guidance!
Keep it simple at the beginning. Use grammar and vocabulary you know well—perhaps fill the first page with a self-introduction. Build up your confidence.
Keep at it! Practice using hiragana and katakana, then work yourself up to kanji. Start covering more complex topics as well.

Whatever you do, just keep writing !

Writing in a physical journal, as suggested, is a great way to improve your Japanese handwriting.

It can especially help you learn kanji and stroke order , if you’re at that level, but you can also use kanji apps to get more guided practice in.

You can do further Japanese writing exercises right on your device (using your finger, mouse or digital pen) with the guided lessons on Kakimashou . You can also use a physical resource such as this writing practice book , which includes how-to information and grid sheets for you to practice hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Even if you don’t want to use something so specific, just writing in your notebook often will help you refine your Japanese handwriting abilities. You can check over previous entries for places you can improve, or have your native reviewer give you some feedback and tips.

Either way, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the characters and you’ll remember them better when you need them in other situations.

So what are you waiting for?

Try out the above nine challenges to really bring your Japanese writing practice to its best possible level—but remember that you can make them your own as well. Allow yourself to be inspired.

Have fun, and good luck!

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FREE Websites for Japanese Reading Practice (At Every Level)

Want to get better at Japanese?

Reading is one of the best ways to improve your language skills.

It’s especially important to read a lot when you’re learning a language with a different writing system, like Japanese.

Hiragana, katakana and kanji can be overwhelming at first. But with enough reading practice, reading these characters will become natural!

Reading consolidates all that vocabulary and grammar you’ve spent all that time learning. When you come across new words in a story or article, it’s much easier to remember.

And best of all, it’s free!

So if you’re wondering how to learn Japanese effectively, I really do recommend making regular time to read.

Here’s a selection of great websites for completely free Japanese reading practice online , whatever your level:

Japanese reading practice for beginners

If you’re a beginner, you’ll probably want to stick to resources in hiragana only.

(Not sure what hiragana is? First check out my post on how to read Japanese for a quick introduction to the Japanese writing systems!)

Japan Foundation’s hiragana mini books

The simplest (and cutest!) Japanese reading practice on this list! Designed as a classroom resource to teach hiragana to complete beginners, you can start reading these mini books as soon as you have just two hiragana characters under your belt (あ and か).

The navigation on this site is not great, but for more hiragana books, look for the grey link at the bottom of the page. There are also katakana versions here .

Plus, once you’ve learned all your kana, you can move on to the manga and short stories here .

Screenshot of Japan Foundation website. Six covers of Hiragana mini books - Series 1 for Japanese reading practice. Each cover shows different illustrations alongside Japanese hiragana characters.

Tadoku literally means ‘read a lot’, and the idea behind this site is that reading a lot is the best way to learn Japanese! Tadoku provides dozens of free, simple picture books for students of Japanese.

The site is all in Japanese, but don’t panic! It’s not hard to navigate. For beginner Japanese reading material, look for those marked with the blue ‘L0’ towards the top of the page. Click on a book cover that catches your attention. On the next page, click on the grey box labelled ‘READ FOR FREE’ (in English). Enjoy!

A screenshot from the Japanese website Tadoku, showing some of the free books you can download to practise reading in Japanese at the beginner level.

Another truly wonderful site based on the concept of tadoku (reading a lot). This is a great site for free Japanese reading practice at every level.

The texts are categorised based on JLPT levels (N5 being the easiest, N1 the most advanced). There is also an N6 level, which is the easiest and suitable for beginners who’ve just learned hiragana.

There are a couple of things I love about this site. Firstly, plenty of pictures to keep it interesting and help your comprehension! Secondly, it uses kanji (with furigana or pronunciation guides in hiragana) even from the very basic levels.

This means you will gradually get accustomed to seeing kanji, and it hopefully won’t be such a big step up when you start learning them!

Kindly shared by reader SakuraSpeaks.

Screenshot of Yomujp website showing a picture of Mount Fuji at the top, with a blue, white, and green site navigation bar. Below, there are various links and images related to Japanese Reading Practice and other Japanese language reading resources.

Hukumusume is a site full of traditional Japanese children’s stories.

It’s is an absolutely huge site and it is written for Japanese children (not language students), so it can be a bit confusing to navigate. I recommend that beginners start with this page which has four stories written in hiragana with English translations.

Once you’ve read those, you can explore the rest of the stories here . Most of them don’t have English translations, but they are written in very simple Japanese so you can have a go at translating them yourself!

This page lists the stories by Japanese school year. Start with １ねんせい (1 st grade, which uses hiragana only) and work up to 6 th grade as you learn more kanji!

Many of the stories also have audio or video tracks.

Crunchy Nihongo’s hiragana stories

Here’s a very simple site for Japanese reading practice in hiragana only. Scroll to the bottom of the linked page and you will find links to several Japanese fairy tales, written in very simple Japanese. There is the option to show or hide romaji and English translation line by line.

EhonNavi is an amazing site that lets you read hundreds of different Japanese children’s picture books, all for free! Unlike the above sites, there are lots of modern books (not just traditional tales). You can browse books by age, from 0 up to 12. Yes, there are even books for babies with just one of two words per page, making this a great resource even for complete beginners!

The only downside is that you have to register. The whole site is in Japanese, so it’s a bit difficult for beginners. Here you can find fantastic instructions with screenshots to help you get set up.

CosCom News

It’s unusual to find reading materials for beginners that aren’t children’s books, but I managed it! This site publishes very short news articles in simple Japanese. You can click the buttons at the top to switch between romaji, hiragana, and full Japanese (with kanji).

A screenshot of the CosCom site for learning Japanese, highlighting the buttons to change script.

You can also download a pdf of the article if you want to write notes. Key vocabulary is listed in English below.

The ‘Tenki Yohoo’ (weather forecast) and ‘Short News’ sections contain very short articles for beginners. The ‘Japan News and World News’ section has slightly longer articles. Only the most recent article in each section is available for free. You can also pay for membership to read the archives.

Easy Japanese Stories

The author of this site is a high school Japanese teacher who writes simple stories as Japanese reading practice for their students. There are some made up stories and also some traditional Japanese children’s stories, rewritten in simple Japanese. The stories contain some kanji with furigana (pronunciation guide in hiragana). Each story comes with a vocab list, a sound recording and a downloadable pdf. Thank you Matthew for sharing!

Another source for Japanese children’s picture books online. This site is not so user-friendly, but I included it as an extra resource in case you have problems with the above sites.

Just click on an image to go to the book. Then click the yellow ‘next’ button at the top to turn the pages.

A screenshot of the site E-hon for beginners Japanese reading practise with kids books.

One problem with this site is that the writing is an image file, so you can’t copy and paste words to look in a dictionary. You can increase the text size from the homepage.

A list of websites for Japanese reading practice resources for beginners, including websites like tadoku.org and yomujp.com. These resources are in hiragana and katakana and are suitable for complete beginners to JLTP N5 level. For more information, visit TeamJapanese.com.

Intermediate Japanese reading practice

At the intermediate level, you will be able to understand longer sentences and more difficult words. You know hiragana and katakana, and can also read some kanji.

You need some reading resources that introduce these features of the language, but you still need a bit of help understanding new words.

We have just the thing for you! Here are some sites for Japanese reading practice for intermediate students:

Hirogaru is a cute site for Japanese learners. It has short texts and videos on lots of different topics. In particular, it has a lot of articles on traditional Japanese culture, such as calligraphy, tea ceremony and martial arts. There are vocabulary lists (with English translations) of key words for each topic.

Screenshot of a webpage featuring Japanese text, colorful circular buttons with various categories including stars and sky, outdoor, martial arts, cafe and tea. Perfect for Japanese reading practice, the header reads "Hirogaru".

Matcha is a cool Japanese travel and culture magazine. It’s available in 10 different languages, including an easy Japanese version! (My link will take you directly to the ‘easy Japanese’ site.) It does use kanji but always with furigana (pronunciation guides) above.

Most of the articles are available in English too. You can read the English version afterwards to check your understanding (use the drop down bar at the bottom of the page to change the language). Be careful though, because the translations aren’t always the same word-for-word.

Screenshot of the Matcha Japanese travel website showcasing Japan. Top includes categories and search bar. Main images feature scenic views, city lights, cherry blossoms, and Mt. Fuji. Bottom section highlights hotel search options.

Watanoc is a ‘free web magazine in simple Japanese’. The name comes from ‘wa’ (Japanese) ‘tanoshii’ (fun). It has a lot of articles of different lengths and different levels, so it’s suitable from beginners to intermediate. The topics include food, culture, events and funny news. After each title, it tells you the approximate JLPT reading level (N5 is the easiest). Also, if you hover your mouse over a word, it will pop up with an explanation in English! Highly recommended for upper beginners and lower intermediate.

NHK News Web Easy

NHK is Japan’s national news service. On this site, you can read NHK’s top news stories each day in simple Japanese. It’s aimed at Japanese elementary school children, as well as foreigners learning Japanese.

The site has furigana on the kanji, and Japanese dictionary definitions that pop up when you hover over a word. Many of the stories have videos too.

You can toggle furigana on and off using the blue button at the top of each article labelled 感じの読み方を消す. And, if you’re feeling up for a challenge, you can view the original NHK version of the article by clicking the blue button at the bottom labelled 普通のニュウスを読む.

The site has several new stories each day. If you enjoy reading about current affairs, this is a good site for you.

Short news articles, school lessons, games and bulletin boards in simple Japanese, aimed at elementary school kids. There is no furigana on the kanji so this might be a bit advanced for some users.

Hiragana Times

Hiragana Times is a magazine that publishes articles about Japan in simple Japanese with furigana, alongside an English translation. You have to subscribe for full access, but you can read selected sample articles on the main website here . You can toggle furigana, romaji and English on and off using the ‘あ’ button to the left hand side. You can also download a free sample magazine here .

Nippon Talk

This is a blog about many aspects of everyday life in Japan. Each paragraph is written in Japanese, with translation in English underneath. A small number of posts have French translations, too. You can choose to turn the furigana on or off. Unfortunately the blog is no longer updated, but there are several years of posts to read through.

Wasabi (Fairy Stories)

A small collection of Japanese fairy stories with furigana, audio, vocabulary lists and English translations. You can play the audio at different speeds, so this is also a useful site to practise reading aloud and work on your pronunciation! The Japanese texts contain kanji and a bit more advanced than the children’s stories in the beginner section above.

Wasabi (Manga)

This is from the same site as above but I wanted to list it separately because it’s so useful. If you dream of reading Japanese manga in the original, but you need some extra help, this is a great place to start. On this page you can read Give My Regards to Black Jack, a bestselling Japanese manga about a young doctor. Alongside the original manga, there is the Japanese script with English translation and language notes.

Bunsuke’s Newsletter

Bunsuke publishes short snippets from famous Japanese writers, together with a vocab list and translation. This is an excellent way for intermediate learners to dip their toes into reading Japanese literature in the original version, without overwhelm. You might even discover some favourite works to explore further!

Previously, Bunsuke sent out his snippets every day in an email newsletter. The daily emails are paused for now, but you can read all previous newsletters in his Substack archive. He also runs occasional interactive reading challenges.

A note page titled "Japanese Reading Practice for Intermediate Level" featuring a curated list of helpful websites to practise reading Japanese texts. Discover more resources at TeamJapanese.com.

Advanced Japanese reading practice

If you are an advanced Japanese learner, I recommend using real Japanese materials as much as possible. By this I mean books and articles written for native Japanese speakers – not for language learners.

The ultimate goal is to speak fluent Japanese, the way native speakers do. You will learn the most natural language by using real life sources.

The good news is, it’s incredibly easy to find real life Japanese resources online! You can also find resources on literally any topics.

I recommend thinking about what you read in your native language for fun. What do you read in your spare time, just because you love it ? Find the Japanese version of that! This means you’ll be more likely to stick with it. Plus, you’ll learn new words specific to your hobbies and interests.

This is also a good time to change your phone, computer, Facebook settings into Japanese and create an immersion environment .

Here are a few websites to start you off. I tried to choose a selection of websites from different genres. Remember, this list is just to give you some ideas! When you know advanced Japanese, you can read whatever you want 🙂

NHK – the Japanese national broadcaster. As well as reading the news online, you can stream radio and watch some TV shows (might be blocked depending on location)

Yomiuri Shimbun – national newspaper (conservative)

Mainichi Shimbun – national newspaper (moderate/left leaning)

Asahi Shimbun – national newspaper (left leaning)

Big list of Japanese news sites, including many regional and industry-specific publications

Aozora Bunko – free digital copies of books for which the copyright has expired

Project Gutenberg (Japanese) – another site for free out-of-copyright books

Shousetsuka ni narou – a site where budding authors publish their work online for free to get reviews

University of Virginia Japanese Text Initiative – a huge library of Japanese texts online, and you can even choose to read with furigana

Bookwalker – Bookwalker is a Japanese ebook store and app. They specialise in manga and light novels. Although you have to pay for most of the content, they have a large selection of volumes (mostly manga) that you can download for free. Just look for the section marked 無料.

Also, you can usually read several sample pages of other (paid) books on the site for free. This is good if you want to try out some Japanese reading materials in different styles or by different authors. Just look for the 試し読み button on the product page.

Note that there is an English version of the website, but this will only show you English language books. You need to navigate the website in Japanese to download Japanese books ( tutorial on how to sign up ).

Bauddha – This website publishes bilingual stories and excerpts from famous writings, political speeches and other sources. You can read the Japanese version alongside the English version. This website is actually for Japanese learners of English, not the other way around! The language level here is quite advanced because the writings are mostly literary classics.

A screenshot of the Bauddha Japanese website showing Japanese and English parallel versions of the opening lines of The Great Gatsby.

NDL Digital Collections – digital library of the National Diet. Digital versions of books and documents of historical/national importance. You have to dig around a bit, but if you are interested in classical Japanese texts, folklore, etc, you will find some gems.

Comicwalker – free manga from the publisher Kadokawa. You can read the comics online, or there’s an app too. Look for the ones with the red 無料マンガ (free manga) triangle. From the same people as BookWalker above but it has some different content.

Shonen Jump – the best selling manga magazine in Japan. On their website you can read their latest manga instalments and also news articles about new releases and so on.

Sai Zen Sen – you can read some Japanese manga online for free

Comico – another site with some free Japanese manga to read online.

Animate Times – site dedicated to anime and related pop culture and media, including manga, light novels, cosplay and more. The tab on the far right of the menu bar links to free manga to read online ( 無料マンガ .) You can also read interviews with artists and directors, news about new releases, commentary/reviews and so on.

Yahoo Questions – yes, Yahoo Questions has died out in the West but the Japanese version is still going strong – in fact, it’s one of the most popular forums on the Japanese internet. It’s a good way to get used to reading casual Japanese and hearing Japanese people’s viewpoints on all kinds of issues.

Oshiete! Goo – another popular forum for questions and answers.

Ameblo – a Japanese personal blogging platform similar to Blogspot or Livejournal. You can browse blogs and articles by topic.

Twitter – the biggest social media platform in Japan (after messaging app LINE). It’s a great way to get some reading practice in bite-sized chunks! You could start by following your favourite Japanese celebrities or search for your interests/interesting hashtags in Japanese. Or, check out the website Togetter , which rounds up popular threads and topics from Japanese Twitter.

Anonymous Diary – a simple bulletin board/forum where people can post anonymously. It’s a mixed bag – some posts are just random thoughts, but since it’s anonymous, there are lots of controversial takes and secret confessions too.

Girls Channel – a bulletin board, kind of like Reddit but just for girls. Good for learning internet slang and girls’ talk.

Mixi – a Japanese social network. You can read news articles and some public threads without signing up. There are communities on different topics similar to Reddit. It’s not as popular as it used to be but there is still plenty of content for free Japanese reading practise.

Magazines, lifestyle and more

Your options here are literally endless, but here are just a few sites that I enjoy personally or that have been recommended to me!

Japanese magazine lists – This site and this one have huge lists of popular Japanese magazines with links to their websites. They are mostly fashion magazines but there are some in other categories such as business, tech and travel. Note that the amount of free content varies by site; some have a lot of free articles online whereas others just want you to buy the print magazine.

Rocket News – short funny news articles on topics such as pop culture, viral content, new releases etc. Very fun and easy to read with lots of pictures! They have an English-language sister site, Sora News , and you can sometimes find the same article on both which is useful for checking your comprehension.

Hatena Bookmarking – a social bookmarking site. Users share interesting articles from around the web.

1000moji – user-submitted short stories in 1000 characters

Pouch – Pouch describe themselves as offering ‘cute, fun, weird’ content for women! It’s a round-up of content on popular culture, cute items, trending internet stuff, random blog articles and more.

Kinarino – women’s lifestyle blog covering food, fashion, travel, interiors and more

CanCam – a popular Japanese women’s fashion magazine

Otokomae – otokomae means ‘handsome guy’, so as you might expect, this site is about men’s fashion and grooming.

Spot – curated travel blog about local travel and points of interest in Japan. Its stated goal is to collect “tourist information provided by locals”.

Tabizine – all about travel (Japan and international) and food

Lifehacker – interesting tips and tricks, and tech news

Toyo Keizai – a well-known business and finance magazine

BuzzFeed Japan – you probably know this one! Funny and interesting things from around the internet

The Rising Wasabi – satirical news site

Nippon.com – news about and from Japan. Many articles are also available in English (and other languages) so you can switch to check your comprehension.

Note – a Japanese magazine style site as recommended by our reader Erik. It covers lifestyle, education, culture, work and more. Content is user generated and very varied.

Orange Page – one of the biggest Japanese cooking sites. Love Japanese food? Why not kill two birds with one stone and learn to cook some Japanese dishes while you get your Japanese reading practise! In addition to recipes, they also publish some lifestyle articles.

VNs – VNs or Visual Novels are interactive games with lots of text. They are like a cross between novels and games. Personally I have never played one but I have heard some people swear by them to improve their Japanese reading, so I thought I’d give them a shout out here! Freem and Novel Game have lots of free Japanese VNs. Here is a blog all about learning Japanese with VNs.

Handwritten on lined paper, a curated list of Japanese reading practice websites for advanced level including NHK News, Aozora, Syosetu, Bookwalker, Comic-Walker, Animate Times, RocketNews24, Hatena, Youpouch, Nippon and BuzzFeed. Visit teamjapanese.com for more resources and ideas.

Browser extensions for reading Japanese online

No doubt about it, learning to read in Japanese in slower than most other languages simply because of the Japanese writing system! I just wanted to finish off by sharing a few useful browser extensions that can help you read Japanese websites.

Rikaikun (for Chrome) – hover over any Japanese word and a dictionary box will pop up.
Yomichan (for Firefox) – same as above.
Furigana Extension (for Chrome) – adds furigana (pronunciation guide) to kanji.
Furigana (for Firefox) – same as above.

There are dozens of similar extensions out there but these are some of the top recommended!

More free resources to learn Japanese

And finally, if you enjoyed this list, please check out my other round-ups of free native materials to practise Japanese:

Best Japanese podcasts for listening practice
Best YouTube channels to learn Japanese
Japanese Writing Practice: Ultimate List of Resources for Every Level
Where to get Your Japanese Listening Practice: The Epic List of Resources!
10+ Effective Ways to Get Japanese Speaking Practice (Even if You Study By Yourself!)

Do you know any other good sources for free Japanese reading practice online? Please share in the comments!

JapanesePod101 is our top recommendation to learn Japanese online. We love the fun, current audio lessons and interactive online tools. Sign up for your free lifetime account and see for yourself!

Bookshelves filled with Japanese books. Text above reads, "How to Find Free Japanese Reading Practice"

Rebecca Shiraishi-Miles

Rebecca is the founder of Team Japanese. She spent two years teaching English in Ehime, Japan. Now back in the UK, she spends her time blogging, self-studying Japanese and wrangling a very genki toddler.

31 thoughts on “FREE Websites for Japanese Reading Practice (At Every Level)”

That’s wonderful! Thank you so much!

You’re welcome, Mario! I hope it’s useful for you 🙂

These are great resources! It’s hard to find good reading sources for intermediate level. If you’re interested, I’d like to reference your website on mine. I have a website for people learning any language and showing them ways to use their skills to help others, and I’m looking for good resources to share with them.

Let me know what you think! 頑張っって！！

Hi Keith! Thanks very much for your comment and sorry for the late reply! I’d be very happy for you to share my site with your readers 🙂 looks like your site is a great resource too!

I’d also recommend Nippon.com for advanced Japanese readers. No paywall, and an additional benefit is that much of the content gets translated into other languages (not always close line-for-line translations, but you can see what is being said in the Japanese). My disclaimer is that I work here and am in charge of the English-language edition.

Thank you!! Exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I would recommend https://www.kanshudo.com all the way through from beginners to very advanced Japanese learners. You can jump in at any level and it makes intelligent study recommendations to help improve your grammar, vocab and kanji. There are also lots of enjoyable games and challenges.

Kanshudo also has a very good dictionary with links to more context such as example sentences, etc.

I have gone from near beginner a few years ago, learning as a hobby (a few hours a week) to nearly reading newspapers, so highly recommended!

This is the best and most useful article I’ve ever seen in my entire life. All the information you give about the sites are so clear and detailed! Thank you so much, this is more than awesome! If I were to look for these sites, I wouldn’t have found anything … this really made my day! 🙂

Chiara, that is so nice to hear! I put a lot of effort into researching this article, so I’m glad you found it useful 🙂 thank you for your feedback!

Great post! Thank you! I already started using the advanced learner resources.

Thanks for your comment, Fumi! I hope you will enjoy the resources!

Thanks, this will be a great resource for my students. There is another site I don’t see on here though. http://www.easyjapanesestories.com

I hope that I can get more reading skill from your website. Thank you.

Thank you so much ! great material

Thank you so much! This is very helpful 🙂

One site I enjoy is https://note.com/ The reading experience is great thanks to the minimalistic design and there’s a lot of varied content.

for those who want to read manga in Japanese, I would recommend the combo: bilingualmanga.com + yomichan browser extension.

Thank you so much. You have done a great job by creating this information page. Really very useful.

This website is the most useful among all the things I’ve been searching. Thanks a lot for making it soo detailed, it is very helpful.

For those who want to learn the Japanese language through a private tutor, I recommend you visit the site of TUTOROO. They have great native Japanese tutors and speakers. TUTOROO can help you connect with them and you can even choose your own Japanese tutor from their website. You can view their tutors here: https://www.tutoroo.co/japanese-tutor Hope this helps!

some of them are currently showing error 404 . could u update the blog pls. thank u ! few of them really helped

Thanks for letting us know! Sad to see a couple of great sites have closed down. This page has been fully updated today with lots more resources! 🙂

My name is Maki and I am a writer/artist from North Carolina, USA (born and raised in Japan). My recent bilingual children’s book “What do you love to do?” was published by Mirai Publishing in Japan on 4/29/22 and is now available on amazon.co.jp ( https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4434302612 ). My book won an award from Purple Dragonfly Book Contest in the USA.

I wrote this book to inspire children all over the world. On the back cover, I included some artwork drawn by a 11 year-old girl who loves to draw pictures to demonstrate a child “doing what she loves to do” and kids love it! If this book can help American children living in Japan, please share my amazon link information with their parents.

Thank you very much, I sincerely appreciate your consideration.

Maki Nishio Phipps

I want to learn japanese

a set of learning japanese method is useful for me.Thank you very much

You are such a life saver! I have been looking for such a page for months now and given up hope. And today it happen to be in my Pinterest proposed paged. THANK YOU SO MUCH! There ist nothing better to consolidate a new writing system in your mind than reading. Here you can finally find tonns of material. Great!

“There is nothing better to consolidate a new writing system in your mind than reading.” – I 100% agree! So glad you find it useful! 🙂

What a great website, thank you for putting this together, Im sure this is many many hours of work and for that we are all very grateful.

Your website has amazing resources! Thank you so much for sharing all these with us! YOU ARE THE BEST!

You’re welcome! Thank you for the feedback – I’m so glad it’s helpful!

I love using yomujp.com for reading practice. Especially when I was at N5/N4 level it can be hard to find reading material at that level.

Thanks for the suggestion! I will check that site out. It’s hard to find interesting resources at the beginner levels for sure!

Resource Guide for Japanese Language Students: Essays

Short Stories
Translated Foreign Literature
Japanese and English
Comics with Furigana
Comics with no Furigana
Picture Books
Online Reading Materials
Apps, Sites, Extensions, and Podcasts
For Listening Practice: Read Aloud Picture Books
For Listening Practice: Children's Literature
For Listening Practice: Young Adults
Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)
Japanese Research & Bibliographic Methods for Undergraduates
Japan Studies This link opens in a new window
Guidebooks for Academic and Business Writing

About This Page

This page introduces the variety of essays written by popular contemporary authors. Unless noted, all are in Japanese.

The author, さくらももこ, is known for writing a comic titled 『ちびまる子ちゃん』. The comic is based on her own childhood experiences and depicts the everyday life of a girl with a nickname of Chibi Maruko-chan. The author has been constantly writing casual and humorous essays, often recollecting her childhood memories. We have both the『ちびまる子ちゃん』 comic series and other essays by the author.

To see a sample text in a new tab, please click on the cover image or the title .

中島らも(1952-2004) started his career as a copyrigher but changed his path to become a prolific writer, publishing novels, essays, drama scripts and rakugo stories. He became popular with his "twisted sense of humour." He is also active in the music industry when he formed his own band. He received the 13th Eiji Yoshikawa New Author Prize with his 『今夜、すべてのバーで』 and Mystery Writers of Japan Aaward with 『ガダラの豚』.

東海林（しょうじ）さだお

東海林さだお(1937-) is a well-known cartoonist, but he is also famous for his essays on food. His writing style is light and humorous and tends to pay particular attention toward regular food, such as bananas, miso soup, and eggd in udon noodles, rather than talk about gourmet meals. (added 5/2/2014)

Collection of Essays: 天声人語 = Vox Populi, Vox Deli (Bilingual)

A collection of essays which appear on the front page of Asahi Shinbun . Each essay is approx. 600 words. KU has collections published around 2000. Seach KU Online catalog with call number AC145 .T46 for more details.

To see a sample text, please click on the cover image or the title .

Other Essays

Online Essay

村上さんのところ "Mr. Murakami's Place" -- Haruki Murakami's Advice Column Part of Haruki Murakami's official site. He answers questions sent to this site. He will also take questions in English. Questions will be accepted until Jan. 31, 2015.

Search from KU Collection

If you are looking for essays in Japanese available at KU, use this search box. If you know the author, search by last name, then first name, such as "Sakura, Momoko." Make sure to select "Author" in the search field option.:

<< Previous: Level 4
Next: Short Stories >>
Last Updated: Feb 1, 2024 11:08 AM
URL: https://guides.lib.ku.edu/c.php?g=95189

Learn Japanese

Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text.

Here is a table of Hiragana and similar-sounding English consonant-vowel pronunciations. It is read up to down and right to left, which is how most Japanese books are written. In Japanese, writing the strokes in the correct order and direction is important, especially for Kanji. Because handwritten letters look slightly different from typed letters (just like how ‘a’ looks totally different when typed), you will want to use a resource that uses handwritten style fonts to show you how to write the characters (see below for links). I must also stress the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound. Since every word in Japanese is composed of these sounds, learning an incorrect pronunciation for a letter can severely damage the very foundation on which your pronunciation lies.

* = no longer used

You can listen to the pronunciation for each character by clicking on it in chart. If your browser doesn’t support audio, you can also download them at http://www.guidetojapanese.org/audio/basic_sounds.zip . There are also other free resources with audio samples.

Hiragana is not too tough to master or teach and as a result, there are a variety of web sites and free programs that are already available on the web. I also suggest recording yourself and comparing the sounds to make sure you’re getting it right.

When practicing writing Hiragana by hand, the important thing to remember is that the stroke order and direction of the strokes matter . There, I underlined, italicized, bolded, and highlighted it to boot. Trust me, you’ll eventually find out why when you read other people’s hasty notes that are nothing more than chicken scrawls. The only thing that will help you is that everybody writes in the same order and so the “flow” of the characters is fairly consistent. I strongly recommend that you pay close attention to stroke order from the beginning starting with Hiragana to avoid falling into bad habits. While there are many tools online that aim to help you learn Hiragana, the best way to learn how to write it is the old fashioned way: a piece of paper and pen/pencil. Below are handy PDFs for Hiragana writing practice.

Hiragana trace sheets
japanese-lesson.com

※ As an aside, an old Japanese poem called 「いろは」 was often used as the base for ordering of Hiragana until recent times. The poem contains every single Hiragana character except for 「ん」 which probably did not exist at the time it was written. You can check out this poem for yourself in this wikipedia article . As the article mentions, this order is still sometimes used in ordering lists so you may want to spend some time checking it out.

Except for 「し」、「ち」、「つ」、and 「ん」、you can get a sense of how each letter is pronounced by matching the consonant on the top row to the vowel. For example, 「き」 would become / ki / and 「ゆ」 would become / yu / and so on.
As you can see, not all sounds match the way our consonant system works. As written in the table, 「ち」 is pronounced “chi” and 「つ」 is pronounced “tsu”.
The / r / or / l / sound in Japanese is quite different from any sound in English. It involves more of a roll and a clip by hitting the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Pay careful attention to that whole column.
Pay careful attention to the difference between / tsu / and / su /.
The 「ん」 character is a special character because it is rarely used by itself and does not have a vowel sound. It is attached to another character to add a / n / sound. For example, 「かん」 becomes ‘kan’ instead of ‘ka’, 「まん」 becomes ‘man’ instead of ‘ma’, and so on and so forth.

The Muddied Sounds

Once you memorize all the characters in Hiragana, there are still some additional sounds left to be learned. There are five more consonant sounds that are written by either affixing two tiny lines similar to a double quotation mark called dakuten （濁点） or a tiny circle called handakuten （半濁点）. This essentially creates a “muddy” or less clipped version of the consonant (technically called a voiced consonant or 「濁り」, which literally means to become muddy).

All the voiced consonant sounds are shown in the table below.

Notice that 「ぢ」 sounds essentially identical to 「じ」 and both are pronounced as / ji /, while 「づ」 is pronounced like / dzu /.

The Small 「や」、「ゆ」、and 「よ」

You can also combine a consonant with a / ya / yu / yo / sound by attaching a small 「や」、「ゆ」、or 「よ」 to the / i / vowel character of each consonant.

The above table is the same as before. Match the top consonants to the vowel sound on the right. Ex: きゃ = kya.
Also note that since 「じ」 is pronounced / ji /, all the small 「や」、「ゆ」、「よ」 sounds are also based off of that, namely: / jya / jyu / jyo /.
The same thing also applies to 「ち」 which becomes / cha / chu / cho / and 「し」 which becomes / sha / shu / sho /. (Though arguably, you can still think of it as / sya / syu / syo /.)

The Small 「つ」

A small 「つ」 is inserted between two characters to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. For example, if you inserted a small 「つ」 between 「び」 and 「く」 to make 「びっく」, the / k / consonant sound is carried back to the end of the first character to produce “bikku”. Similarly, 「はっぱ」 becomes “happa”, 「ろっく」 becomes “rokku” and so on and so forth.

A small 「つ」 is used to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. Ex: 「がっき」 = “ga k ki”.
The addition of another consonant almost always creates the characteristic clipping sound. But make sure you’re clipping with the right consonant (the consonant of the second character).

The Long Vowel Sound

Whew! You’re almost done. In this last portion, we will go over the long vowel sound which is simply extending the duration of a vowel sound. You can extend the vowel sound of a character by adding either 「あ」、「い」、or 「う」 depending on the vowel in accordance to the following chart.

For example, if you wanted to create an extended vowel sound from 「か」, you would add 「あ」 to create 「かあ」. Other examples would include: 「き → きい」, 「く → くう」, 「け → けい」, 「こ → こう」, 「さ → さあ」 and so on. The reasoning for this is quite simple. Try saying 「か」 and 「あ」 separately. Then say them in succession as fast as you can. You’ll notice that soon enough, it sounds like you’re dragging out the / ka / for a longer duration than just saying / ka / by itself. When pronouncing long vowel sounds, try to remember that they are really two sounds merged together.

It’s important to make sure you hold the vowel sound long enough because you can be saying things like “here” （ここ） instead of “high school” （こうこう） or “middle-aged lady” （おばさん） instead of “grandmother” （おばあさん） if you don’t stretch it out correctly!

There are rare exceptions where an / e / vowel sound is extended by adding 「え」 or an / o / vowel sound is extended by 「お」. Some examples of this include 「おねえさん」、「おおい」、and 「おおきい」. Pay careful attention to these exceptions but don’t worry, there aren’t too many of them.

Your Step-by-Step Jikoshoukai Guide Learn the basics, practice, and create an advanced Japanese self-introduction

October 11, 2016 • words written by Mami Suzuki and Michael Richey • Art by Aya Francisco

Viewing under The Tofugu JET Program Guide

When you start learning Japanese or are visiting Japan for the first time , there are few words to learn right away:

Once you've mastered those three, you need to learn your jikoshoukai.

Jikoshoukai 自己紹介（じこしょうかい） is the Japanese word for "self-introduction." In theory, this is similar to how you would introduce yourself in your own culture. Say hello, say your name, tell a little about yourself. But in practice, there are cultural differences and set procedures you should stick to. You only get one first impression, so it's important to learn how to do it right.

We'll start by teaching you the basic Japanese self-introduction, then cultural subtleties, and finally a ton of extra grammar and vocabulary you can use to talk about yourself with your new Japanese friends.

Jikoshoukai Vocabulary

Writing your jikoshoukai, 1. first name and family name, 2. occupation, 3. don't talk about yourself too much, 4. bowing vs. handshake, 5. holding your hands behind your back, 6. don't bow while talking, business cards, "nice to meet you", "please be kind to me", where you are from, your school, where you live, hobbies and proficiencies, plans for the future, only the beginning, how to jikoshoukai.

Going to Japan, but don't know Japanese? Don't worry. You can jikoshoukai. The Japanese self-intro has a standard order and set phrases, so even beginners can meet and greet in Japanese.

How do you do?

The set phrase hajimemashite 初めまして（はじ　　　　） either comes from the verb hajimeru 始める（はじ　　） , which means "to start," or it's a shortened form of 初めて（はじ　　）お目（め）にかかりまして. Though etymologists aren't sure of the word's true origin, hajimemashite implies beginning or doing something for the first time . Most people think of it as saying "How do you do?" or "Nice to meet you."

私（わたし）は [name] と申します（もう　　　）。
My name is [name].

The breakdown of this sentence is easier than it looks. It has three parts:

私（わたし）は - The first word 私 means "I" or "me." It's followed by the particle は which indicates the topic of the sentence. In this case, 私 is the topic.
[name] - Your name.
と申します（もう　　　） - One meaning of the verb 申す is "to be called." It's paired with the particle と and conjugated to 申します。 This is a polite phrase, so it's safe to use in almost any situation.

When you put them all together, you get something along the lines of "I am called [name]" or "My name is [name]."

よろしくお願い（ねが　）します。
Please be kind to me.

The final piece of the puzzle is よろしくお願い（ねが　）します. It doesn't translate well to English, which is why we wrote a whole article about it . In a self-intro situation, it means something like "Please be kind to me." It's often translated as "Nice to meet you." This isn't technically correct, though it carries a similar feeling.

Now that you've got the basic building blocks down, it's time to put it together. At its simplest, the jikoshoukai sequence is:

はじめまして。私（わたし）は (name) と申（もう）します。よろしくお願（ねが）いします。
How do you do? My name is (name). Please be kind to me.

See? Not so hard. When you're getting ready to meet Japanese people for the first time, write this out and practice until it flows. If you're a beginner at Japanese , you don't need any more than this.

Jikoshoukai Etiquette

It's great to know the words to say when introducing yourself in Japanese, but how you say those words will make or break your jikoshoukai.

There are cultural differences to be aware of. They're subtle, so if you miss them it probably won't be counted against you. But paying attention to details like these can give you an extra social edge when you first meet a new Japanese friend.

In English, people usually introduce themselves by their first names or full names. When you give your full name, the first name comes first and the family name afterward.

In Japanese, people usually introduce themselves by their family names or full names. When they introduce their full name, the family name comes first and the first name comes second.

Revealing one or two of your strengths is fine, but listing all your amazing abilities will annoy others and make you seem over-confident.

In English, when you asked what you do for work, you give a brief summary of your job, or the name of your profession.

In Japan, it's common to answer only, " 会社員（かいしゃいん）です。" (I'm an office worker./I work for a company./I'm a salaryman.)

However, if you introduce yourself to someone in a business setting, mention your company in your self-intro. For example:

Tofuguのコウイチと申します（もう　　　）。
I'm Koichi from Tofugu.

This concept goes along with our next point…

Japanese people sometimes say lightly self-deprecating things as a form of humility, but it's usually followed by something positive (or the positivity is implied). For example:

至らない点が多いかもしれませんが、頑張りますので、よろしくお願い（ねが　）します
I might have many flaws, but I'll do my best so please be kind to me.

You don't have to say anything like this (in fact, we advise you don't), but the point is this: Japanese people usually keep their strengths on the down-low.

So try not to show off too much. Revealing one or two of your strengths is fine, but listing all your amazing abilities will annoy others and make you seem over-confident.

In the West, if you're meeting someone one-on-one, you shake hands.

In Japan, don't move in for the handshake, especially if your status is the same or lower than the person you're meeting. In Japan, handshakes are for equals, so if you try to shake hands with the Emperor, it would be considered rude. Bow instead, and do so at the beginning and end of your jikoshoukai.

In Japan, holding your hands behind your back signals importance, so it may make you look full of yourself. Put your hands in front of you (the left hand on top of the right), or put your hands beside you.

This is a no-no from our Japanese bowing guide . Do your bowing after giving your self-introduction. Make sure to finish saying "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and then bow.

Business cards in Japan are called meishi 名刺（めいし） , and are an important part of Japanese culture. Even outside of the business world, Japanese people sometimes have personal meishi made (meishi means "name card" after all).

We covered meishi etiquette in our article about Japanese work customs , but here are the rules again in a jikoshoukai context.

Orient your card toward the recipient. Give and receive meishi with two hands.

Put meishi in a carrying case: You can buy business card carrying cases online or at any department store in Japan. If you don't have a case, you can carefully put the meishi in your purse or wallet after you've received it. Just don't put it in your pocket.

Use two hands: Orient your card toward the recipient when presenting. Hold the top edge with both hands. When they offer their card, accept it with two hands. Try not to cover any words with your fingers either. Some Japanese people are taught that a meishi is the "face" of the person giving it, so you don't want to cover theirs or your own.

When you and your new friend offer each other meishi at the same time: Present your card with your right hand, while simultaneously receiving theirs with your left.

Read meishi you receive: Read the person's name and title on the card before you put it away. Make sure to show interest in what they do. Act at least a little bit impressed with their job title.

When exchanging meishi in a group, give to the most senior person first: Start by giving your business card to the shachou, then fukushachou, and so on down the chain of command .

Treat meishi with respect: Use common sense and treat meishi like you would a gift. Don't toss or write on them.

Expanding the Basic Jikoshoukai

video game level up screen showing jikoshoukai advancement

Maybe you've been doing your Japanese self-intro for years, repeating the same three set phrases over and over. Maybe you've read this guide before and have the basics down pat. You're ready to level up!

Below are example sentences you can mix into your standard jikoshoukai to give it more flavor, and make your self-intro a memorable one.

Earlier we learned how to use はじめまして (nice to meet you, how do you do). Here's a few ways to add to this set phrase.

こんにちは。はじめまして。
Hello. Nice to meet you.
みなさん、はじめまして。
Nice to meet you, everyone.
みなさん、こんにちは。はじめまして。
Hello everyone. Nice to meet you.

For a formal situation, you should say both your first and last names. In a casual situation, it's common to say only your family name for Japanese people.

If you're an English teacher on something like the JET Program , your school might want you to give your first name when you introduce yourself to the students. Ask your supervisor what's appropriate for the situation.

Below are several ways to introduce your name, organized by politeness in ascending order.

私（わたし）の名前（なまえ）はマイケルですが、みんなにはマイクって呼ばれて（よ　　　）います。
My name is Michael, but most people call me Mike.
I'm Michael.

Very Formal:

マイケルと申します（もう　　　）。

Very Formal/Business:

Tofuguのマイケルと申します（もう　　　）。
I'm Michael from Tofugu.

When you end your jikoshoukai, you'll use a phrase that means "Please be kind to me" or "Remember me favorably." But once you've got a handle on the standard " yoroshiku onegaishimasu ," you can move on to more casual or more formal variations. Below we've organized them by politeness level in ascending order.

Polite/Business:

どうぞ、よろしくお願い（ねが　）します。
よろしくお願い（ねが　）致します（いた　　　）。

Very Polite/Business:

どうぞ、よろしくお願い（ねが　）致します（いた　　　）。

Formal/Business:

よろしくお願い（ねが　）申し上げます（もう　あ　　　）。
どうぞ、よろしくお願い（ねが　）申し上げます（もう　あ　　　）。

Custom Jikoshoukai Modification

From here we get into the fun stuff. After expanding on the initial three pieces of the Japanese self-introduction, you can start adding information about yourself, short sentences that explain where you're from, what you like to do, and so on.

These jikoshoukai modifications will help people get to know you faster when you first introduce yourself. This is especially important as you start to make more Japanese friends, go on dates, or have job interviews.

Telling where you're from is always a good addition to a self-intro. Even if you don't use it during the initial jikoshoukai, your new Japanese friend will probably ask you anyway, so memorizing a few of these phrases is extra useful.

Two quick vocabulary usage notes: First, the word shusshin 出身（しゅっしん） mean's "person's origin," and refers more to the place you were born or grew up than where you currently live. It's often used for specific places like a city, state, or prefecture, rather than a country. For example, Mami was born in Osaka, and now lives in Canada. But she spent most of her life in Nara, so she says " 奈良県（ならけん）の出身（しゅっしん）です。" or " 出身（しゅっしん）は奈良県（ならけん）です。"

Second, the verb mairu 参る（まいる） is a more humble form of kuru 来る（く　） or iku 行く（い　） . So when 参る（まい　） is used to talk about where you came from in "アメリカから参りました（まい　　　） ," it's much more humble, so use it in appropriate situations.

アメリカの出身（しゅっしん）です。
I'm from America.
アメリカから来ました（き　　　）。
アメリカから参りました（まい　　　　）。
オレゴン州（しゅう）のポートランドから来ました（き　　　）。生まれ（う　　）も育ち（そだ　）もポートランドです。
I'm from Portland, Oregon. Born and raised.
生まれ（う　　）は大阪（おおさか）ですが、育ち（そだ　）は東京（とうきょう）です。
I was born in Osaka, but grew up in Tokyo.
育ち（そだ　）はニューヨークです。
I grew up in New York.
田舎（いなか）で育ちました（そだ　　　　）。
I grew up in the countryside.
生まれ（う　　）は東京（とうきょう）ですが、十歳（じゅうさい）の時（とき）に大阪（おおさか）に引っ越しました（ひ　こ　　　　）。そして、大学（だいがく）に入る（はい　）時（とき）に、名古屋（なごや）に引っ越して（ひ　こ　　）来ました（き　　　）。
I was born in Tokyo, but moved to Osaka when I was ten, and lived there until I entered university, which is when I came to Nagoya.
小さい（ちい　　）時（とき）、家族（かぞく）が何度も（なんど　）引っ越した（ひ　こ　　）ので、私（わたし）には育った（そだ　　）場所（ばしょ）というのはないんです。
My family moved a lot when I was little, so I'm not really from anywhere.

School, from elementary up through university , is a big part of Japanese life. Be prepared to have people ask alma mater and what you studied. Or cut them off at the pass by including the information in your jikoshoukai.

オレゴン大学（だいがく）で、二年間（にねんかん）東（ひがし）アジアの歴史（れきし）を専攻（せんこう）していました。
I studied East Asian history at Oregon university for two years.

Occupation is a common conversation topic when meeting someone new. If you're doing business in Japan (or want to), you'd better learn at least one of these phrases.

A quick grammar usage note: some of these jikoshoukai example sentences use the continuous state conjugation of suru する（） which is shiteimasu しています（） . If you want to get extra polite with any of these sentences, swap out しています with shiteorimasu しております（） . One easy switch and you're ready to tell CEOs and presidents about your work situation.

Tofuguで編集長（へんしゅうちょう）をしています。
I'm the chief editor of Tofugu.
トヨタで営業（えいぎょう）を担当（たんとう）しています。
I'm working in sales at Toyota.
会計課（かいけいか）に配属（はいぞく）になりました、佐藤（さとう）です。
I'm Satou , assigned to the accounts department.
私（わたし）は会社員（かいしゃいん）です。
I'm an office worker.
私（わたし）は英語（えいご）の教師（きょうし）です。
I'm an English teacher.
私（わたし）は英語（えいご）を教えています（おし　　　　　）。
I teach English.
私（わたし）はこの学校（がっこう）で英語（えいご）を教えます（おし　　　）。
I'm going to teach English at this school.
私（わたし）は東（ひがし）フグ小学校（しょうがっこう）で働いて（はたら　　）います。
I'm working at East Fugu Elementary School.
私（わたし）は東（ひがし）フグ小学校（しょうがっこう）に勤めて（つと　　）います。
I'm working for East Fugu Elementary School.

"You live around here?" is a common question no matter the culture. Be ready to answer questions about your living situation with these sentences.

東京（とうきょう）に住んで（す　　）います。
I live in Tokyo.
東京（とうきょう）駅（えき）の近く（ちか　）に住んで（す　　）います。
I live near Tokyo station.
東京（とうきょう）駅（えき）の近く（ちか　）のマンションに住んで（す　　）います。
I live in an apartment near Tokyo station.

Hobbies are super important part of life in Japan. Japanese junior high and high school students take school club activities seriously ( sometimes more than academics ) and this passion often continues into adult life. If you have a hobby, that is your "thing." Even if you don't think of your interests as "hobbies," describe them as such anyway. It will help people understand you better . Alternatively, you can say what you like and don't like.

趣味（しゅみ）は[____]です。
My hobby is [____].
趣味（しゅみ）は[____]することです。
My hobby is to do [____]
[____]が趣味（しゅみ）です。
[____]することが趣味（しゅみ）です。
私（わたし）は[____]が好き（す　）です。
I like [____]
[____]も好き（す　）です。
I also like [____]
[____]は好き（す　）ではありません。
I don't like [____]
私（わたし）は[____]することが好き（す　）です。
I like to do [____]
私（わたし）は[____]が得意（とくい）です。
I'm good at [____].
私（わたし）は[____]することが得意（とくい）です。
I'm good at doing [____].
私（わたし）は[____]が苦手（にがて）です。
I'm not good at/I don't like [____](noun)
私（わたし）は[____]することが苦手（にがて）です。
I'm not good at doing [____].

What do you want to be when you grow up? What new skills are you trying to develop? What are you going to eat for lunch tomorrow? Answer these questions and more with the example sentences below.

Grammar usage note: the noun tsumori つもり（） is used to tell what you plan to do. It's most commonly used in situations where you've already made up your mind. It's definite. Don't use it for instances where you're kind of maybe thinking about something, but you're not sure yet.

[____]ようと考えて（かんが　　）います。
I'm thinking about doing [____].
[____]したいと思って（おも　　）います。
I'd like to do [____].
[____]つもりです。
私（わたし）の目標（もくひょう）は[____]です。
My object is [____].
[____]に挑戦（ちょうせん）したいと思って（おも　　）います。
I'd like to challenge [____].

Now you know what it takes to put together a stellar jikoshoukai in Japanese. Put the pieces together, mind the cultural differences, and practice till its second nature.

With a solid self-intro on your side, you're poised to start your relationships right. Just don't forget your business cards.

学校 ( = gakkou) : School related Japanese

「何か、文句ありますか？」

=Nanka (or Nanika) monku arimasu ka?

= “Any objection?”

I think many of you have taken Japanese or other language classes. Perhaps some of you have had experiences teaching English or other languages in Japan.

But I, Maggie-sensei, am your teacher here!! So please respect me!

So today we’ll learn about school related Japanese vocabulary.

• 学校 ( = gakkou) school

• 語学学校 ( = gogaku gakkou) language school

cf. 英会話スクール ( = eikaiwa sukuuru) English school

• 専門学校 ( = senmon gakkou) professional training/ career college

Ex. 私は、語学学校に通っています。

= Watashi wa gogaku gakkou ni kayotte imasu.

= I go to a language school.

• 保育園 ( = hoikuen) nursery school

• 幼稚園 ( = youchien) kindergarten

• 小学校 ( = shougakkou) elementary school

• 中学校 ( = chuugakkou) junior high school

• 高校 ( = koukou) high school

• 大学 ( = daigaku) university

• 短期大学 ( = tanki daigaku) junior colldege, 2 year colldege

→ short form 短大 ( = tandai)

• 4年制大学 ( = yonensei daigaku) 4 year colldege, university

• 大学院 ( = daigakuin) graduate school

• 学位 ( = gakui) diploma

• 学士 ( = gakushi) bachelor

• 学士号 ( = gakushi gou) bachelor degree

• 修士 ( = shuushi) master

• 修士号 ( = shuushi gou) master degree

• 修士号を取る ( = shuushi gou wo toru.) to get a master degree

• 博士号 ( = hakase gou) Doctor of Philosophy degree

義務教育 ( = gimu kyouiku) compulsory education :

→• 6 years in elementary school (from age 6 to 12 years)

→• 3 years in junior high school (from age 13 to 15 years)

• 3 years in high school (from age 16 to 18)

• 2 years in junior college　or

• 4 years in university

• 予備校 ( = yobikou) cram school for university

• 塾 ( = juku)（学習塾 =gakushuu juku） cram school

• 公立 ( = kouritsu) public

Ex . 公立高校 ( = kouritsu koukou) public high school

• 私立 ( = shiritsu/watakushiritsu) private

• 男女共学 ( = danjo kyougaku) co-education or 共学 ( = kyougaku)

• 男子校 ( = danshikou) boy’s school

• 女子校 ( = joshikou) girl’s school

• 中高一貫教育 ( = chuukou ikkan kyouiku) unified school programs（continuous study from junior high school to high school)

• 教育 ( = kyoiku) education

• 語学教育 ( = gogaku kyouiku) language education

• 幼児教育 ( = youji kyouiku) child education

• 先生 ( = sensei) teacher

Note 1): We always address teachers with their name + 先生.

Ex . マギー先生 ( = Maggie sensei) They never call teacher with さん（ = san） like マギーさん ( = Maggie san) “Miss Maggie” )

Also some other occupations could be called 先生 ( = sensei) such as doctors, lawyers, politicians,novelists and artists, etc.

Note 2): If you are a techer, you are not supposed to address yourself to others ” 先生” because the word sensei has feeling of respect and we don’t use honorific expression for yourself.　So you say or you write in a document 教師 ( = kyoushi) instead of 先生 for your occupation . But we do hear in daily conversation people addressing yourself 先生.

(Ex. If you deal with children, you call yourself, your name+ 先生）

• 担任 ( = tannin) teacher in charge/homeroom teacher

←担任の先生 ( = tannin no sensei) homeroom teacher

• 教授 ( = kyouju) professor

• 助教授 ( = jokyouju) associate (assistant) professor

• 講師 ( = koushi) an instructor

• 校長（先生） ( = kouchou (sensei)) principal

• 教頭（先生） (=kyoutou (sensei)) vice principal

• 学長 ( = gakuchou) president of the university

• 学部長 ( = gakubuchou) dean

• 学生 ( = gakusei) student

• 生徒 ( = seito) student

• 小学生 ( = shougaku sei) elementary school student

• 中学生 ( = chuugaku sei) junior high school studen t

• 高校生 ( = koukou sei) high school student

• 大学生 ( = daigaku sei) university student

• 大学院生 ( = daigakuin sei) graduate school student

• 予備校生 ( = yobikou sei) preparatory school student

• 塾生 ( = juku sei) cram school student

• １年生 ( = ichi nen sei) first year grade, first-year student, freshman

• ２年生 ( = ni nen sei) second grader, second-year student, sophomore

Ex. 「彼は高校２年生です。」

= kare wa koukou ni nen sei desu.

= “He is a second-grader in high school.”

• ３年生 ( = san nen sei) third grader, third-year student, junior

• ４年生 ( = yo nen sei) fourth grader, fourth-year student, senior

• 留年 ( = ryuunen) to repeat a year (the same grade)

• 留年する ( = ryuunen suru)

• 浪人生 ( = rounin sei) a student who failed an entrance examination for university

• 浪人 ( = rounin) originally a samurai who doesn’t have their masters and wander around, now refers to students between high school and university — who are studying in order to pass university exams.

Ex. 彼の息子は浪人している。 ( = kare no musuko wa rounin shiteiru.)

• 一浪 ( = ichi rou) first year after you failed 、２浪 ( = ni rou) 2nd years after you failed..

Ex. 一浪する。 ( = ich rou suru.)

• クラスメート ( = kurasu meeto) classmate

• 同級生 ( = doukyuu sei) classmate

• 先輩 ( = senpai) senior, It refers to an older grade student

• 後輩 ( = kouhai) junior It refers to an younger grade student

Cultural note: Traditionally they have to show respect to older people in Japan. They have built this senpai-kouhai (superior-inferior, older-younger) relations in schools, companies and society in Japan. Sometimes it is very strict especially in sports clubs in schools. Kouhai (juniors) have to obey their senpai, seniors.

• 入学 ( = nyuugaku) entrance、enter a school

• 卒業 ( = sotsugyou) graduate

Ex. マギーは「ワンワン小学校」をやっと卒業した。

= Maggie wa “Wanwan shougakkou” wo yatto sotsugyou shita

= “Maggie finally graduated “ bowwow elementary school.”

• 入学式 ( = nyuugaku shiki) entrance ceremony

• 卒業式 ( = sotsugyou shiki) graduation ceremony

Culture note : In Japan, they sing as graduation songs, 「蛍の光」 ( = Hotaru no hikari) (“Auld Lang Syne”,a Scottish folk song) or 「仰げば尊し」 ( = Aogeba toutoshi, which shows gratitude and respect to your teachers.) in graduation ceremonies. They also play 「蛍の光」 ( = Hotaru no hikari) (“Auld Lang Syne” ) when they close department stores.

• 大学卒 ( = daigaku sotsu) college graduate

• 高卒 ( = kousotsu) high school graduate

= Kanojo wa kousotsu da.

= She is high school graduate.

• 中卒 ( = chuusotsu) junior-high graduate • 首席 ( = shuseki) summa cum laude、top of the class

Ex. 首席で卒業する

= shuseki de sotsugyou suru.

= to graduate summa cum laude

Ex. 彼は〜大学を優秀な成績で卒業しました。

=Kare wa ~ daigaku wo yuushuu na seiseki de sotsugyou shimashita.

= He graduated ~ University with excellent grades.

• 教室 ( = kyoushitsu) classroom

• 黒板 ( = kokuban) black board

• ホワイトボード ( = howaito boodo) white board

• 机 ( = tsukue) desk

• 椅子 ( = isu) chair

• ロッカー ( = rokkaa) locker

• クラス ( = kurasu) class

• レッスン ( = ressun) lesson

• 科目（ = kamoku) <Subjects>

• 国語 ( = kokugo) Japanese study

• 算数 ( = sansuu) arithmetic

• 数学 ( = suugaku) math

• 理科 ( = rika) science

• 化学 ( = kagaku) chemistry

• 科学 ( = kagaku) science

• 社会科 ( = shakaika) social studies

• 体育 ( = taiiku) gymnastics

• ゼミ ( = zemi)　 seminar (Usually you have to make a group under a professor to study or research something in University.

• 専攻 ( = senkou) major

Ex. 「専攻は何ですか？」

= Senkou wa nan desu ka?

= “What is your major?”

• 学部 ( = gakubu) faculty, department

Ex. 文学部 ( = bungakubu) faculty of letters

Ex. 医学部 ( = igakubu) faculty of medicine

Ex. 法学部 ( = hougakubu) faculty of law

Ex. 経営部 ( = keieigakubu) faculty of business administration

• 文系 ( = bunkei) humanities

• 理系 ( = rikei) science course

= Kare wa rikei da

= He is in the science ( and engineering) majors

• 遠足 ( = ensoku) excursion

• 修学旅行 ( = shuugaku ryokou) school trip

• 運動会 ( = undoukai) athletics meets, sports festival

• 体育祭 ( = taiku sai) athletics meets, sports festival

• 学芸会 ( = gakugeikai) school play

• 文化祭 ( = bunka sai) cultural festival

• 大学祭 ( = daigaku sai)（学祭 =gakusai） school festivals in university

• 研修旅行 ( = kenshuu ryokou) study/research tour

• 父兄参観日 ( = fukei sankan bi) the day when parents can observe the class.

• 給食 ( = kyuushoku) school lunch (Mainly for elementary school.)

• 学食 ( = gakushoku) school cafeteria

In Japanese schools (besides universities and cram schools), usually students stand up, bow and sit down beginning of the class all together for . A student on a daily duty is called 日直 ( = nicchoku) and he/she say the followings:

• 「起立」 ( = kiritsu) “All rise!”

• 「礼」 ( =rei) “Bow!”

• 「着席」 ( = chakuseki) “Sit down!”

Ex. 「着席して下さい。」

= Chakuseki shite kudasai.-

= “Please sit down!”

• 放課 ( = houka) break time

• 放課後 ( = houka go) after school

• 職員室 ( = shokuin shitsu) teachers’ room

• チャイム ( = chaimu) bell

Ex. チャイムが鳴る ( = chaimu) ring the bell

(In many Japanese schools, when class starts or ends, you hear the bell.)

• 成績 ( = seiseki) grades

Ex. よい成績を取る ( = yoi seiseki wo toru) to get a good grade

Ex. 成績が悪い ( = seiseki ga warui) bad grade

• オール５ ( = ooru go) A+

(Note: 5 is the best grade in Japanese elementary s c hool. )

• A+ = エープラ ( = ei purasu or ei pura)

<Exams>

• 試験 ( = shiken) e xams

• テスト ( = tesuto) test

• 期末テスト ( = kimatsu tesuto) end-of-term exam

• 中間テスト ( = chuukan tesuto)　 mid-term exam

• 小テスト ( = shou tesuto) quiz

• 抜き打ちテスト ( = nukiuchi tesuto) pop quiz

• 追試 ( = tsuishi) make-up exam

• 入学試験 ( = nyuugaku shiken)（入試 = nyuushi short form ）

• 卒業試験 ( = sotugyou shiken) graduation exam

• 受験する ( = juken suru) to take an (entrance) exam.

• 受験勉強 ( = juken benkyou) studying for entrance exam.

• 受験戦争 ( = juken sensou) entrance exam war、 race

• 受験地獄 ( = juken zikoku) examination hell

:jjj: Cultural note:

The competicion for entrance exams has been very severe in Japan. If you get in a good high school, there is more chance to get in a good university and get a good job in future. It has spreaded to even preschool ages. 「お受験」 ( =ojuken) is a word for those children who are forced to take an entrance exams for a good elementary school. There is a special school for those lower aged children to pass the exam and they teach social manners and specific knowledges to get in a good elementary schools.

• 合格 ( = goukaku) to pass (the exam)

• 合格する ( = goukaku suru) to pass (the exam)

• 受かる ( = ukaru)　 to pass

• 有名高校に受かった。 ( = Yuumei koukou ni ukatta.) “I have passed a famous high school.”

Also パスする ( = pasu suru) to pass

• 試験にパスする ( = Shiken ni pasu suru.) to pass the exam.

• 不合格 ( = fugoukaku) to fail

• 落ちる ( = ochiru) to fail

Ex. 試験に落ちる ( = shiken ni ochiru) to fail the exam.

• 単位 ( = tan-i) credit

Ex. 単位を取る ( = tan-i wo toru) to get courses credit

Ex. 単位が足らない ( = tan-i ga tarinai) not earn sufficient credits

Ex. 単位を落とす ( = tan-i wo otosu) to fail a class

• レポート ( = repooto) report

• 作文 ( = sakubun) composition

• 論文 ( = ronbun) thesis

• 卒業論文 ( = sotsugyou ronbun) graduation thesis

• 宿題 ( = shukudai) homework

• 予習 ( = yoshuu) prep

• 復習 ( = fukushuu) review

• 研究 ( = kenkyuu)　 study, research

• 研究する ( = kenkyuu suru) to study, to research

• リサーチ ( = resaachi) research

• 出席する ( = shusseki suru) to attend

• 欠席する ( = kesseki suru) to be absent

• ずる休み ( = zuru yasumi) play hooky

• 「さあ、今日のレッスンを始めましょう。」

=”Saa, kyou no ressun wo hajimemashou.”

= “OK, let’s start today’s lesson”

• 「それでは出席を取ります。」

=”Soredewa shusseki wo torimasu.

= “OK, I’ll have a roll call.”

• 「〜さんは今日は欠席ですか？」

=~san wa kyou wa kesseki desu ka?

= Oyasumi desu ka?

= Is ~ absent today?”

• 「プリントを配ります。」

= Purinto wo kubari masu.

= “I’ll pass out the handouts!”

• 「繰り返して言って下さい。」

= Kurikaeshite itte kudasai.

= “Please repeat!”

• 「後について言って下さい。」

= Ato ni tsuite itte kudasai.

= “Repeat after me!”

• 「〜は日本語（〜語）で何と言いますか？」

= ~ wa nihongo (~ go) de nanto iimasu ka?

= “How do you say ~ in Japanese (other language)?”

~ 語 ( = ~go) language

フランス語 ( = furansu go ) French 、スペイン語 ( = supein go ) Spanish 、英語 ( = ei go ) English 、中国語 ( = chuugoku go ) Chinese 、韓国語 ( = kankoku go ) Korean 、オランダ語 =oranda go ) Dutch 、ドイツ語 ( = doitsu go ) German

• 「合っています。」

= Atte imasu.

= “It’s correct.”

• 「間違っています。」

= Machigatte imasu.

= “It’s not correct.”

= Mite kudasai.

= ”Please look!”

• 「聞いて下さい。」

= Kiite kudasai.

= “Please listen!”

• 「言って下さい。」

= Itte kudasai.

= “Please say/speak”

• 「読んで下さい。」

= Yonde kudasai.

= “Please read!”

• 「しっかり勉強してきて下さい。」

= Shikkari benkyou shitekite kudasai.

= “Please study hard!”

• 「もう少し大きな声で言って下さい。」

= Mou sukoshi ookina koe de itte kudasai.

= “Please speak a bit louder.”

• 「はっきり発音して下さい。」

= Hakkiri hatsuon shite kudasai.”

= “Please pronounce clearly.” “Please enunciate!”

• 「必ず復習をして来て下さい。」

= Kanarazu fukushuu wo shitekite kudasai.

= “Please be sure to review!”

• 「宿題は３４ページです。/３４ページをやって来て下さい。」

= Shukudai wa sanjuu yon peiji wo yatte kite kudasai.

= Please study p.34 for homework.”

• 「何か質問はありますか？」（ありませんか？」）

= Nani ka shitsumon wa arimasuka?) (arimasenka?)

= “Do you have any questions?”

• 「先週のところで何か質問はありませんか？」

= Senshuu no tokoro de nanika shitsumon wa arimasenka?)

= “Do you have any questions about last week class?”

• 「これで終わります。」

= Kore de owari masu.)

= “Let’s finish here.”

:w: Useful phrases for students:

• 遅刻 ( = chikoku) to be late

Ex. 「遅刻してすみません。」

= Chikoku shite sumimasen.

=　 “I am sorry I am late.”

• 早退 (=soutai) to leave early

Ex. 「今日は、早退させて下さい。」

= “Kyou wa soutai sasete kudasai.

= “Please let me leave early today.”

• 「綴り（スペル）が違っています。」

= Tsuzuri (or superu) ga chigatte imasu.

= “The spelling is wrong.”

• 「綴り（スペル）を教えて下さい。」

= Tsuzuri (or superu) wo oshiete kudasai.)

= “Please tell me how to spell ~.”

• 「綴り（スペル）はどう書けばいいですか？」

= Tsuzuri (or superu) wa dou kakeba ii desu ka?

= “How do you spell ~?”

• 「〜はどういう意味ですか？」

= ~ wa douiu imi desu ka?

= 〜はどういう意味か、教えて頂けますでしょうか？ more polite

= ~ wa douiu imi ka oshiete itadakemasu de shouka?

= “What does ~ mean?” (“Could you tell me the meaning of ~, please?”)

• 「〜の意味を教えて下さい。」

= ~ no imi wo oshiete kudasai.

= 〜の意味を教えて頂けますでしょうか? more polite

= ~no imi wo oshiete itadakemasu de shouka?

“Please give me the meaning of ~. ” (“Could you~ tell me the meaning of ~, please?”)

• 「〜について教えて下さい。」

= ~ni tsuite oshiete kudasai.

•〜について教えて頂けますでしょうか？） more polite

= ~ni tsuite oshiete itadakemasu deshouka?

= “Please teach me about ~” (“Could you~”)

• 「今週の宿題は何ですか？」

= Konshuu no shukudai wa nan desu ka?

= “What is this week homework?”

• 「どこからどこまでが宿題でしょうか？」

= Dokokara dokomade ga shukudai de shou ka?

= “From where to where is our homework? ” • 「すみません。宿題を忘れました。」

= Sumimasen. Shukudai wo wasure mashita.

= “Excuse me. I forgot my homework.”

• 「ノートを忘れました。」

= Nouto wo wasure mashita.

= “I left /forgot my note book”

• 「先生、質問があります。」

= Sensei, shitsumon ga arimasu

= “Mr. /Ms. ~, I have a question! “

• 「質問してもいいですか？」

= Shitumon shitemo iidesu ka?

= “Can I ask you a question? “

• 「質問してもよろしいでしょうか？」

= Shitsumon shitemo yoroshii deshou ka?

= “May I ask you a question?”

• 「発音をもう一度教えて下さい。」

= Hatsuon wo mou ichido oshiete kudasai.

= “Please teach me/us the pronunciation again.”

• 「〜の意味がよくわかりません。」

= ~ no imi ga wakarimasen.

= “I don’t understand the meaning of ~ “

• 「すみません。全くわかりません。もう一度教えて頂けますか？」

= Sumimasen,. Mattaku wakarimasen. Mou ichido oshiete itadakemasu ka?

= ”Excuse me. I don’t understand at all. Could you teach me again?”

:maggie-small: says in the picture above:

「何か文句ありますか？」

= Nanka (or Nanika) monku arimasu ka?

= “Any objection?” “Any complaints?” ” Do you have something to say?”

文句 ( = monku) complaints

Ex. 文句がある。（ =Monku ga aru.) I have a bone to pick.

Ex. 彼女はいつも文句ばかり言っている。

= Kanojo wa itsumo monku bakari it te iru.

= She is always complaining (bitching).

それでは今日のレッスンはこれで終わります。何か質問はありませんか？

えっ？「マギー先生は何でそんなに美しいのですか」って？それは自分でもわかりません。自然にこうなんです。

= Soredewa kyou no ressun wa kore de owarimasu. Nanika shitsumon wa arimasen ka?

Eh? Maggie sensei wa nande sonnani utsukushii no desu ka tte? Sore wa jibun demo wakarimasen. Shizen ni kou nan desu.

= OK, we will finish today’s lesson now. Any questions? What? How come Maggie-sensei is so beautiful? Well, I don’t know the answer myself. That’s the way I am….

!heart3! Thank you for being my Patreon.

I REALLY appreciate your support! サポートありがとう！ !CHECKHEART!

My supporters can access an audio file for this lesson on my Pateron page and some mini lessons and quiz.

Translation of “essay” in Japanese

Word of the day: sneakers · スニーカー

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COMMENTS

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