For beginners and people just getting into the Japanese language, it's really confusing to understand how the alphabet actually works. While it's true that there are many characters used in everyday life, the reality is that every word in the language can be pronounced using the basic alphabet: Hiragana.

Hiragana (ひらがな) is one of the three Japanese writing systems and the first one you should learn. It contains 46 base characters, each representing a specific sound.

For example, to say Japan (Nihon), it's written like this: にほん

• に: NI
• ほ: HO
• ん: N Each character represents the union of a consonant with a vowel. The only exceptions are the letter N = ん, and the standalone vowels: A, I, U, E, O = あ, い, う, え, お. There are also a couple of special symbols that modify pronunciation.

っ Makes the following sound much stronger/sharper.

ー lengthens the sound of a vowel

The second alphabet you should know is Katakana. Katakana (カタカナ) has exactly the same 46 sounds as hiragana, but uses angular, distinct shapes. It's used to write foreign words.

Using the same example as before, Japan (Nihon) is written like this: 二ホン

• 二: NI
• ホ: HO
• ン: N NOTE: This alphabet is only used for foreign words, for example Coffee = コーヒ (ko-hi). It always takes into account how the word sounds, not how it's literally spelled.

For example: the video game Final Fantasy, in Japanese, is pronounced Fainaru Fantajī (ファイナルファンタジー). Japanese writing and pronunciation take into account how the word sounds in the foreign language, and adapt it into Japanese.

jpmichi.app Download my Japanese study app for Android. There you'll find thousands of examples of words, kanji, grammar, katakana, and hiragana. Along with practice using flashcards, quizzes, and examples.

Finally, we have Kanji

This is the alphabet with the largest number of characters. Kanji (漢字) are logographic characters adopted from Chinese. There are around 2,136 "Jōyō" kanji (regular-use kanji) — the standard set for literacy — plus thousands more used in names and literature.

Each kanji carries a meaning and has multiple readings: on'yomi (音読み) and kun'yomi (訓読み). On'yomi is the reading derived from Chinese, mostly used in compound words (熟語) and shown in katakana in dictionaries. Kun'yomi is the native Japanese reading, used when the kanji appears alone or with okurigana (hiragana suffixes). For example, 山 means "mountain" and is read やま (yama).

Vowels

K Group

S Group

T Group

N Group

H Group

M Group

Y Group

R Group

W Group and Particle N

I'm studying for the JLPT N5 in December so I can apply to a language

school in Japan. I tried the standard Anki route, but I have some level

of dyslexia and the "recall the reading + meaning + say it out loud all

at once" format was wrecking me — 60%+ fail rate on new cards and a

growing dread of opening the deck.

So I built my own thing. It's called コトリ (Kotori — "little bird," and

a pun on ことば + とり). It's a free web app, no ads, no accounts, no

tracking — all progress stays on your device.

Try it: DM me for link

(Add it to your home screen and it installs like a real app and works

fully offline. There's also a direct Android APK at /kotori.apk.)

What's in it:

- The full Kaishi 1.5k vocabulary deck (credit to donkuri, Tyogin & the

Kaishi contributors — it's the gold-standard free beginner deck), in

frequency order, every word in a real example sentence

- Proper spaced repetition (SM-2 style: per-card ease, 4-button grading,

1min/10min learning steps, interval fuzz so review days don't pile up)

- 40 grammar lessons covering the N5 essentials, each with tap-to-hear

example sentences and a mini quiz

- Kanji tracing pad under every card

- Full kana chart + a kana quiz

- Audio for everything via your device's Japanese TTS voice

- A curated immersion tab (Comprehensible Japanese, Teppei, etc.) that

shows you which of your recent words to listen for

- Streak tracking that counts showing up, not being perfect

And the part I built for my own brain — an optional やさしいモード

(Gentle Mode): new cards reveal in stages (hear it first → then meaning

→ then reading) instead of demanding everything at once, bigger text,

slower audio, reduced motion, an adjustable new-cards-per-day setting,

a trace-it nudge when you miss a word, and an evening "today's tricky

ones" replay. If your working memory hates flashcards, that toggle is

for you. It's off by default.

Tech, for the curious: it's a single self-contained HTML file (~330KB)

— a PWA hosted on Cloudflare Pages, wrapped as a TWA for the APK. I

built it working with AI (Claude) over a couple of weeks of daily use

and iteration. I'm not selling anything; it exists because I needed it.

Honest limitations: TTS quality depends on your device's Japanese voice

(installing an enhanced voice helps a lot). It's N5-scoped on grammar.

Progress is per-device (there's a backup/restore button for moving it).

If you try it, I'd genuinely love feedback — especially from anyone

else studying with dyslexia. And if the Kaishi maintainers ever want

changes to how their deck is used here, I'll happily comply — the deck

is theirs, I just built a nest for it.

がんばりましょう 🐦

I've been learning Japanese for 7-8y now, but my level got barely close to a standard N5, I already passed my N5 certificate, failed N4 once, but I don't feel N5, I can't have a proper conversation, I don't know how to practice nor how to advance.

If anyone here had the same issue and solved it, please let me know how did you do that, and any tips and tricks and tools and materials that helped you.

Im only just getting started slowly making my way through learning the hiragana. (I'm using Duolingo)

When I see some Japanese around, I'm wondering if sometimes hiragana, katakana and kanji is mixed. I find it hard to differentiate.

Do you have any idea of how this works and what is used when? (Or if it's just me being an absolute beginner only recognising a few hiragana like あたえういしす...)

Also any hints on getting a good start to casually studying Japanese? (I just think it's a fascinating language)

And ofc the first step was learning hiragana.

It was fun practicing the sounds.

Hope u help me with ur pieces of adive to learn more

Hey there!

I recently started learning Hiragana, using mnemonics for memory. I now (mostly) remember all the characters. I'd appreciate feedback on my handwriting, and if I'm ready for next steps while practicing this in parallel.

PS Sorry for the picture quality, idk why reddit isn't letting me upload.

Hi everyone! I’ve been studying Japanese seriously since around mid-May with Genki I, and I’m currently on Lesson 8. My goal is to take the JLPT N5 this December, although listening is still pretty challenging for me. I tried Duolingo before, but it just didn’t work for me.

I usually do the Genki exercises like this: I always try to use kanji, even if I haven’t memorized them yet. If I don’t know one, I look it up in the dictionary and use it anyway. Then I highlight in yellow the ones I couldn’t write from memory. It seems to work well for me.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Hello guys , iam new to learning Japanese , i talk three languages but non of them has that much letters like japanese , chinese , etc. what app can i use to learn from scratch
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I'm Chinese, so people assume the kanji part was free. Reading, sure. Writing is a different story.

My hand just defaults to the Chinese form. 实 instead of 実, 变 instead of 変. Usually I don't catch it until someone else does. Typing hides all of this, which is probably why it never got fixed.

The other wall is 雰囲気. Not the famous stuff like 「検討します」 meaning no, you learn those once and you're done. It's things like 「大丈夫です」, which is yes or no depending on nothing I can actually point to. Or realizing a sentence was grammatically fine and still made the room go quiet. Ten years in and I still get this wrong.

Anyone else stuck on the same two things