Japanese Hiragana Symbols

What are Hiragana Symbols?

Hiragana (ひらがな) is the first script most Japanese learners pick up, and for good reason. Each of the 46 basic characters maps to a specific sound, so once you learn them you can read any Hiragana text out loud, even before you understand the meaning. It is a purely phonetic system with no hidden meanings attached to the characters themselves.

In everyday Japanese writing, Hiragana handles native Japanese words, grammatical particles like は (wa), が (ga), and を (wo), and the endings that attach to verbs and adjectives. Children's books are written almost entirely in Hiragana, which makes them a great starting point for beginners.

Hiragana Character Groups

The 46 base characters are arranged into vowel rows (a, i, u, e, o) and consonant groups. On top of those, voiced sounds are created by adding a small dakuten mark (゛): か (ka) becomes が (ga), for example. Semi-voiced sounds use a handakuten (゜): は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa).

Three characters sit outside the regular pattern. を (wo/o) appears almost exclusively as a grammatical particle. ん (n) is the only Hiragana that stands alone as a consonant. And っ (small tsu) tells you to double the consonant that follows it.

Common Hiragana Words

These everyday words are a good way to start recognizing Hiragana characters in real context:

• こんにちは  Konnichiwa (Hello)
• ありがとう  Arigatou (Thank you)
• おはよう  Ohayou (Good morning)
• さようなら  Sayounara (Goodbye)
• すみません  Sumimasen (Excuse me)

How to Use These Hiragana Symbols

Click any character above to copy it. You can paste it into documents, messages, social media, or use it for Japanese typing practice. All Hiragana characters are standard Unicode and work across every modern app and browser.