Hiragana Practice: Complete Drills for All 46 Characters

Hiragana is the foundation of Japanese literacy. All Japanese text uses hiragana for grammar particles, verb endings, and words without kanji. You cannot read Japanese — or use a grammar checker, dictionary, or any learning tool — without it.

This page covers all 46 base characters, 25 voiced sounds (dakuten), 33 combination characters (youon), and 8 reading exercises using real sentences. Work through each section in order.

How to use this page

1. For each character: read the hiragana, say the romaji aloud, then trace or write the character.
2. Cover the romaji column and read the hiragana only — this is true reading practice.
3. Once you know all 46, read the sentence exercises at the bottom without looking at romaji.
4. Write sentences in hiragana and check them with the grammar checker to build reading fluency in both directions.

Part 1: The 46 base hiragana (gojuuon)

The gojuuon (五十音, “fifty sounds”) is the standard ordering. Learn row by row. Each character has one sound — hiragana is a true syllabary.

Part 2: Voiced sounds — dakuten (濁点) and handakuten

Adding ゛(dakuten) to か、さ、た、は rows voices the consonant. Adding ゜(handakuten) to the は row creates the P sounds. There are 25 additional sounds created this way.

Part 3: Combination characters — youon (拗音)

A large hiragana followed by a small や、ゆ、or よ creates a single combined sound. The small kana is written smaller — this is not a typo.

Part 4: Sentence reading exercises

Read each sentence in hiragana before looking at the romaji or English. This is the most important hiragana practice — reading in context, not isolated characters.

Tips for memorising hiragana fast

• Write, don't just read. Writing each character 10 times by hand creates muscle memory that pure visual review does not.
• Learn stroke order from the start. Correct stroke order makes your handwriting recognisable and speeds up writing. Wrong stroke order is hard to unlearn.
• Read hiragana in real words immediately. As soon as you know あいう, read あいうえお and words like あめ, いぬ, うみ. Context anchors memory.
• Common confusables: ぬ vs め (nu vs me), る vs ろ (ru vs ro), は vs ほ (ha vs ho), り vs り (ri — consistent but tricky to write neatly).
• Use spaced repetition. Review characters right before you would forget them — apps like Anki do this automatically. Without spacing, you will relearn the same characters 5+ times.

After hiragana: practise writing Japanese sentences

Once you can read all 46 characters, start writing full sentences in Japanese. Use ZISTICA MOJIIQ's free Japanese grammar checker to check your hiragana sentences for grammar errors — you get corrections in both Japanese and plain English, so you learn why each fix is right.

The full hiragana chart (printable, with stroke order) is available on the hiragana chart page.

Frequently asked questions