Japanese Writing System
Letters
Sample hiragana
Basic hiragana vowel and consonant-vowel signs.
- あ
- い
- う
- え
- お
- か
- き
- く
- け
- こ
- さ
- し
- す
- せ
- そ
Sample katakana
Basic katakana signs used for many loanwords and names.
- ア
- イ
- ウ
- エ
- オ
- カ
- キ
- ク
- ケ
- コ
- サ
- シ
- ス
- セ
- ソ
Sample kanji
A few common kanji examples.
- 日
- 本
- 語
- 人
- 山
- 川
- 水
- 火
Key facts
- Writing type
- Mixed system
- Major components
- Hiragana, katakana, kanji
- Hiragana and katakana
- Syllabaries
- Kanji
- Logographic characters adapted from Chinese
- Writing direction
- Horizontal left to right or vertical top to bottom
- Additional script
- Latin letters used occasionally
- Cursive
- Historical cursive script (sōsho) exists for kanji and as the origin of hiragana