Hiragana Chart: All 46 Characters with Romaji

Hiragana is the basic Japanese syllabary. There are 46 basic characters, each one a syllable: a vowel on its own (あ a), a consonant plus a vowel (か ka), or ん (n). These are all 46, in the traditional gojūon order, from the Japanese Hiragana deck.

How the chart is organised

The order goes vowel by vowel within each consonant row: a, i, u, e, o, then ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, and so on. A few readings don't follow the row's pattern: し is shi, ち is chi, つ is tsu and ふ is fu. を (wo) is used almost only as a particle and is usually pronounced o.

How to learn hiragana with flashcards

• One row at a time. Learning five characters a day works for most people. All 46 are done in under two weeks, and spaced repetition keeps the early rows coming back while you add new ones.
• Say the sound aloud. Each card in the app has audio. Saying the sound as you flip ties the shape to the sound rather than to the romaji letters.
• Move on to words quickly. Once you recognise most characters, reading real words is the best practice. The Japanese Core 2000 deck writes the reading of every kanji in hiragana.

What's not in the 46

The basic chart leaves out the voiced forms (が ga, ば ba and the rest, written with two small marks), the p-sounds (ぱ pa) and the combined sounds (きゃ kya). Those are built from the 46 characters, so they come quickly once the basics are learned.