Hiragana Chart, Katakana Chart, Ready For Download

by 41 Comments

Over at TextFugu (Tofugu’s Online Japanese Textbook), I get to make all kinds of worksheets, cheatsheets, etc., that go along with the Japanese lessons, some of which might be useful to you. I figure hiragana and katakana charts are the kinds of things people go out and search for on the interwebs when they aren’t distracted by LOLcats.

Although the hiragana and katakana charts were designed to use with TextFugu, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t use it with any other Japanese learning resource out there. Share it with friends, family, teachers, students, colleagues, classmates, online communities, torrent sites, whatever. You can take these charts and do what you will with them, as long as it doesn’t get weird (I know you love how curvaceous the hiragana is, Gakuranman). Anyways, just click on the images to go to the download page.

Hiragana Chart

hiragana chart

Katakana Chart

katakana chart

Enjoy these charts – put them on your wall, write on them, lick them… whatever needs to be done. And, of course, if you have no idea what any of these wild and crazy symbols mean, you should check out TextFugu. In fact, the hiragana chapters are in the free zone, which means no excuses!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    I am glad that you altered the sa and the ki on the Hiragana chart, but the stroke order is missing, and that was an important part of it for me. Could you please leave the other chart up on Textfugu as well (not that i need it, i printed it out, but for others to see) since you yourself said that the stroke order is important to learn now, and it will somehow help out with Kanji later on. Tnx =D

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Good idea – I might make a separate sheet for stroke order. For now, just use Smart.fm to see the stroke order until I can finish this. Thnx!

  • wese

    Thanks for sharing this.
    I really dig the clean layout you used. ;)

  • http://www.facebook.com/jeremydomasian Jeremy Rosario Domasian

    It still says “Combo Hiragana” on the top left of the katakana chart. :D

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    whoopsies, thanks, fixing it now.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    And now there is a hiragana stroke-order chart on the hiragana page. Thanks for the suggestion – enjoy!

    http://www.textfugu.com/cheat-sheets/hiragana-c…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    thanks much! =D

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    i just thought of something.. ur killing 2 birds with 1 stone with this =P! u r making a blog post out of a textfugu update, AND u dont have to pay bounty money for all the fixed mistakes, way to go man ^^ (not sarcastic, cause i think this MIGHT be take in a sarcastic way… at least I would have if someone posted this on my blog XD)

  • Joel H

    Hey Koichi, you should give out a couple of free scholarships for Textfugu, make a contest or something. Also post a video on youtube, twitter, etc. it will send a lot of people to your site (most likely you know what to do already). In return for this please give me a scholarship for all seasons. sounds fair. just helping you out.

  • http://twitter.com/ImaginaryJapan Joe Munro

    Oh man. Someone should totally set up a LOLcats picture which corresponds to the sound (or shape?) of each symbol.

  • http://twitter.com/liamgarvey liamgarvey

    Hi Koichi,

    Nice hat! How about some of the newer katakana combos, like ヴィ? I know there are lot of em but you do see them about the place every now and then. Then again, if you know the basic combos, you can infer the rest perhaps?

    Nice work though. You could sell these printed double sided, credit card sized and laminated. I would have bought one when I was learning the kanas for sure.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    that actually sounds like a great idea =D

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    huh… that's not a terrible idea… haha.

  • getsuyoubi

    Isn't ぢ pronounced ji and づ pronounced zu?

  • FeelYourUFO

    This is how おばあさん explained ten ten to me:
    Each group of あいうえお(AIUEO) has a letter attached to it, and when you add ten ten, that letter changes.
    ち belongs to the “t” group, and when you add ten ten to the “t” group “t” becomes “d”. So
    ta chi tsu te to becomes da di du de do.
    Same goes for “s” group.
    sa shi su se so becomes za ji zu ze zo

    So for your question ぢ is di. じ is ji. づ is du. ず is zu.

    You can always just type the hiragana using a roman alphabet keyboard to double check.

    Hope I helped!

  • http://stlinusjapanese.blogspot.com/ Christine

    Hey, you know what you could do … use the actual letter when I'm providing the representative word for the vowel sounds. I think it's simpler. Uma Therman could represent the u sound rather than a word with double oo in it. Who doesn't like to say Uma? <whisper to self> uma, uma, uma </whisper to self>
    Other examples:
    a as in arigatou (most people know that one. if they don't, shame!)
    i as in igloo (brr!)
    u as in Uma Thurman (uma, uma, uma)
    e as in edge (I like that one – it's got style)
    o as in ohio (ya got two perfectly good O's in there)
    Peace,
    Christine

  • getsuyoubi

    Isn't ぢ pronounced ji and づ pronounced zu?

  • FeelYourUFO

    This is how おばあさん explained ten ten to me:
    Each group of あいうえお(AIUEO) has a letter attached to it, and when you add ten ten, that letter changes.
    ち belongs to the “t” group, and when you add ten ten to the “t” group “t” becomes “d”. So
    ta chi tsu te to becomes da di du de do.
    Same goes for “s” group.
    sa shi su se so becomes za ji zu ze zo

    So for your question ぢ is di. じ is ji. づ is du. ず is zu.

    You can always just type the hiragana using a roman alphabet keyboard to double check.

    Hope I helped!

  • http://stlinusjapanese.blogspot.com/ Christine

    Hey, you know what you could do … use the actual letter when I'm providing the representative word for the vowel sounds. I think it's simpler. Uma Therman could represent the u sound rather than a word with double oo in it. Who doesn't like to say Uma? <whisper to self> uma, uma, uma </whisper to self>
    Other examples:
    a as in arigatou (most people know that one. if they don't, shame!)
    i as in igloo (brr!)
    u as in Uma Thurman (uma, uma, uma)
    e as in edge (I like that one – it's got style)
    o as in ohio (ya got two perfectly good O's in there)
    Peace,
    Christine

  • Vash Steed

    Hmmm…… chart's great, but…… it could use some rare hira/katakana. You know, the stuff that rarely creeps up, or that other similar charts don't have, like づ (Okay, I know づ isn't that rare, but I'm bad at giving examples). I've also seen some kana that look like they're made up of two characters (imagine あ and そ fused together, or something like that). They might be interesting to add to the chart.
    Also, the chart needs more ninja monkeys. Everything's better when you have ninja monkeys.

    They're always watching….maybe from behind that banana…..or behind that fruit tree……but they're always watching…….and waiting
    Vash

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  • Ken Takahashi

    thanks this is really helpful!! good job

  • Ken Takahashi

    thanks this is really helpful!! good job

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    And now there is a hiragana stroke-order chart on the hiragana page. Thanks for the suggestion – enjoy!

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    Anyways, just click on the images to go to the download page.

  • susanne

    Actually, I was looking for a Katakana stroke order chart even I understand.  There are tons of such available for Hiragana, but most Katakana sheets I found had no stroke order, or each single thingie has to be clicked online (tennis elbow inclusive) or it wasn’t easy to figure out for me which was the direction of the stroke.

    Wikipedia was really really helpful to begin with, I found a Katakana picture with little arrows for the  stroke order, that’s relly helpful. Well, I just guessed the hiragana one and it exists :-D
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Table_katakana.svg
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Table_hiragana.svg

    I also like the learning sheets from Hiroshi & Sakura to practice the first steps writing Katakana or Hiragana using the correct stroke order inside of helpful lining – it remembers me of first grade, when I learnt writing the letters:
    http://happyfu-fu.com/hiroshiandsakura/ls_katakana_stroke.html
    http://happyfu-fu.com/hiroshiandsakura/ls_hiragana_stroke.html

    Well, I had to install some Adobe fonts in order to use those sheets, but it was really easy. I got automatically on the Adobe page to download japanese fonts plus start the installation program, well, I had to close Firefox in between and now its working.

    Häppy writing

  • Ananixnk

    Thanks now I can get to work on this! :)

  • Ananixnk

    Thanks now I can get to work on this! :)

  • Nomitzki_16

    Koichi will you  pls. make stroke order also for the katakana characters. :) Thanks!

  • http://www.lizmagikera.info/ Lizzie

    I cant download the katakana chart. It’s not loading. Getting error.

  • will bee done

    thanks so muacccch

  • Yuni Indah Safitri

    Hello Koichi, i just happen to see this after a while and been wondering why the stroke order is different from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Table_hiragana.svg&page=1 for hiragana も and や?

  • urika rai

    YEAHH~!!!! I GOT ITTT !!!

  • urika rai

    hEY!!! kOICHI… LET MEH know how easily we read and write Hiragana ANd katakana… let me know plzzz.
    :)
    :)

  • urika rai

    Lets learn it… Try it more!!

  • urika rai

    :p