The three Japanese scripts
Japanese is written with three scripts used together:
- Hiragana for Japanese words, grammar endings and words without common kanji.
- Katakana for words from other languages, such as コンビニ (convenience store) and バス (bus), and for emphasis.
- Kanji, characters that carry meaning, such as 駅 (station) and 水 (water).
Hiragana and katakana each have 46 basic characters with the same sounds, so learning one makes the other easier. Start with hiragana, then katakana.
How the chart is organised
- Basic. The five vowels あ い う え お, then rows that add a consonant: か き く け こ, さ し す せ そ, and so on. ん is the only character that is a consonant on its own.
- Voiced (゛ and ゜). Two small marks change the sound: か (ka) becomes が (ga), は (ha) becomes ば (ba) or ぱ (pa).
- Combined. A small ゃ, ゅ or ょ after an i-sound character makes one syllable: き + ゃ = きゃ (kya).
Tap any character to hear it, and switch between hiragana and katakana to compare the same sound in both scripts.
Small details that matter
- A small っ doubles the next consonant: きって (kitte, stamp).
- In katakana a long dash ー stretches a vowel: スーパー (supermarket).
- A few characters look alike: シ (shi) and ツ (tsu), ソ (so) and ン (n). Look at the direction of the strokes.
From kana to the JFT-Basic
The JFT-Basic uses all three scripts, and the script and vocabulary section checks that you can read words correctly. Once the kana are familiar, practise with full questions in the test format.