Hiragana / Katakana / Romaji Converter
Convert between hiragana, katakana and romaji. Pick Hepburn or Kunrei-shiki and long-vowel style. Everything stays in your browser.
How to use
Type text — conversion runs live based on auto-detect or your chosen direction. Switch romanization and long-vowel style as needed.
Examples
- ありがとう → arigatou (Hepburn)
- フジサン → fujisan / huzisan
- gakkou → がっこう (double consonant kk → っ)
Hiragana, katakana and romaji
Japanese is written with two kana scripts — hiragana (ひらがな) for native words and grammar, katakana (カタカナ) for foreign loanwords and emphasis — that cover the same set of sounds. Romaji writes those same sounds in the Latin alphabet. This tool moves text between all three, so you can read a Japanese word aloud, type kana from romaji, or switch a word between hiragana and katakana.
Hepburn vs Kunrei-shiki romanization
There are two common ways to spell Japanese in Latin letters. Hepburn (shi, chi, tsu, fu) writes sounds the way an English speaker would read them, and is what you see on road signs, station boards and Japanese passports. Kunrei-shiki (si, ti, tu, hu) is more regular and is the system taught in Japanese elementary schools and used in some official standards. Both describe the same sounds — pick the one your context expects, and switch the long-vowel style (ou vs ō) to match.