- Hiragana
- にほんご を べんきょう します
- Katakana
- ニホンゴ ヲ ベンキョウ シマス
- Romaji
- nihongo wo benkyou shimasu
Replace the example with your own text. The three lines update as you type.
How the converter reads romaji
Japanese kana are syllables, so the converter reads your romaji one syllable at a time: ni-ho-n-go becomes に ほ ん ご. Three spelling rules cover most of what goes wrong.
| You type | Hiragana | Katakana | Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| kitte | きって | キッテ | A doubled consonant is a small っ. |
| matcha | まっちゃ | マッチャ | Before ch, write tch (or cch). |
| sensei | せんせい | センセイ | n before a consonant is ん. |
| kin'en | きんえん | キンエン | n plus an apostrophe is ん before a vowel. |
| kinen | きねん | キネン | Without the apostrophe, n joins the vowel: ね. |
| toukyou | とうきょう | トウキョウ | Long o is usually written ou. |
| tōkyō | とうきょう | トウキョウ | A macron is read as the long vowel. |
| ko-hi- | こーひー | コーヒー | A hyphen is the long-vowel mark ー used in katakana words. |
Romaji spellings it accepts
Textbooks mostly use Hepburn romaji. Japanese schools and keyboards also use Kunrei spellings, which follow the kana rows more closely. Both give the same kana here.
| Kana | Hepburn | Kunrei or keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| し シ | shi | si |
| ち チ | chi | ti |
| つ ツ | tsu | tu |
| ふ フ | fu | hu |
| じ ジ | ji | zi |
| しゃ シャ | sha | sya |
| ちゃ チャ | cha | tya |
| じゃ ジャ | ja | zya |
| を ヲ | wo | wo (o when you only write the sound) |
| ん ン | n, or n' before a vowel or y | nn |
| っ ッ | double the next consonant | xtsu or ltu for the small kana alone |
What a converter cannot do
- Particles. The particles は, へ and を sound like wa, e and o. Type ha, he and wo to get the kana a Japanese sentence uses.
- Kanji. Kanji stay as they are. Use the Japanese text analyzer for readings, or read what furigana is.
- Word choice between scripts. The tool shows both hiragana and katakana for everything. Which one a word uses is a spelling fact you learn with the word: すし is written in hiragana or kanji, テレビ in katakana. Hiragana vs katakana explains when each is used.
Practice instead of converting
Romaji is useful for typing and for the first days of study, and most courses drop it after that. Two ways to get there: the hiragana quiz and katakana quiz test each character against its romaji, and the My Senpai Crossword has you type answers in romaji and shows them in hiragana, so you see the kana for every word you spell.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert romaji to hiragana?
Type or paste the romaji into the box at the top of this page. The hiragana appears on the first line as you type, with katakana and standard Hepburn romaji under it. Each line has a Copy button. Nothing is sent to a server; the conversion runs in your browser.
How do I type a small tsu (っ) in romaji?
Double the consonant that follows it: kitte gives きって, gakkou gives がっこう and zasshi gives ざっし. Before ch, write tch or cch: matcha gives まっちゃ. To get a small っ on its own, type xtsu.
How do I type ん before a vowel or y?
Type n and an apostrophe, or nn. kin’en gives きんえん (no smoking), while kinen gives きねん (commemoration). Before any other consonant, or at the end of a word, a single n is enough: sensei gives せんせい and hon gives ほん.
Why did wa come out as わ when the word is written は?
The particles は, へ and を are pronounced wa, e and o but written with the kana for ha, he and wo. A converter cannot tell a particle from part of a word, so type ha, he and wo when you mean the particles: watashi ha gives わたし は.
Can it convert kanji to hiragana?
No. A kanji can have several readings, and the right one depends on the word. This converter leaves kanji as they are. To get readings for a sentence that has kanji, paste it into the Japanese text analyzer, which adds furigana from a dictionary.
Which romaji system does it use?
It accepts Hepburn (shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji), Kunrei and Nihon-shiki (si, ti, tu, hu, zi) and the spellings Japanese keyboards use (nn, xtsu). When it writes romaji it uses Hepburn, the system used in most textbooks and on signs in Japan, and keeps long vowels as they are written in kana: とうきょう becomes toukyou.