Hiragana and Katakana Quiz

Hiragana vs katakana: what is the difference

Hiragana and katakana are both kana: two phonetic scripts that cover exactly the same 46 basic sounds. They are not two alphabets you choose between. Japanese uses both at once, and the difference is not what they sound like but what each one is for. Hiragana carries native Japanese words and all the grammar, and katakana marks words that come from somewhere else.

So あ and ア are both read a. Reading Japanese means knowing both, because a single sentence normally mixes them.

The same 46 sounds, side by side

Every sound below exists in both scripts. Read each cell as one sound written two ways, and the size of the job becomes clear: you are not learning 92 unrelated symbols, you are learning 46 sounds twice.

Indigo is hiragana, purple is katakana.

• a
  あ/ア
• i
  い/イ
• u
  う/ウ
• e
  え/エ
• o
  お/オ
• ka
  か/カ
• ki
  き/キ
• ku
  く/ク
• ke
  け/ケ
• ko
  こ/コ
• sa
  さ/サ
• shi
  し/シ
• su
  す/ス
• se
  せ/セ
• so
  そ/ソ
• ta
  た/タ
• chi
  ち/チ
• tsu
  つ/ツ
• te
  て/テ
• to
  と/ト
• na
  な/ナ
• ni
  に/ニ
• nu
  ぬ/ヌ
• ne
  ね/ネ
• no
  の/ノ
• ha
  は/ハ
• hi
  ひ/ヒ
• fu
  ふ/フ
• he
  へ/ヘ
• ho
  ほ/ホ
• ma
  ま/マ
• mi
  み/ミ
• mu
  む/ム
• me
  め/メ
• mo
  も/モ
• ya
  や/ヤ
• yu
  ゆ/ユ
• yo
  よ/ヨ
• ra
  ら/ラ
• ri
  り/リ
• ru
  る/ル
• re
  れ/レ
• ro
  ろ/ロ
• wa
  わ/ワ
• wo
  を/ヲ
• n
  ん/ン

How to tell them apart at a glance

Before you can name a single character you can usually tell which script you are looking at, because the two were built differently. Hiragana came from cursive kanji, so its strokes curve, loop and join: の, ぬ, あ, む. Katakana came from fragments of kanji, so its strokes are short and straight and rarely curve: ノ, ヌ, ア, ム.

A quick test on any Japanese text: the round, busy characters are hiragana, and the sharp, sparse ones standing out in the middle of a sentence are katakana. Those katakana runs are almost always a borrowed word.

One sentence using both

わたしはまいにちコーヒーをのみます。

"I drink coffee every day." The subject, the particles, the word for every day and the verb ending are all hiragana. Only コーヒー is katakana, because coffee is a borrowed word. That single highlighted run is katakana doing its whole job: telling you this word came from outside Japanese.

Look-alike kana that trip people up

Most kana mistakes are not memory failures, they are these specific pairs. Learn them as pairs and they stop being a problem.

Which should you learn first

Hiragana, without much debate. It carries the grammar, so it appears in nearly every sentence, and beginner textbooks and furigana are written in it. Learn hiragana and you can start reading real sentences. Learn katakana first and you can mostly read menus.

Katakana should follow immediately though, and it goes faster, because you already know all 46 sounds and are only attaching them to new shapes. Many learners stall here: katakana feels less urgent, then loanwords become the thing they cannot read. Do not leave the gap open.

How to practice the kana

Study the chart first to see each kana next to its romaji, then quiz yourself both ways: kana to romaji to build reading, and romaji to kana to build recall. Once the basic gojuon feels solid, add the dakuten (が, ざ, だ, ば, ぱ). Start with hiragana, since it appears more in beginner material and grammar, then move straight to katakana.

Short, repeated sessions beat one long cram. Most learners can read basic hiragana in a few days and katakana in another few with a few minutes of quizzing each day.