How to Learn Hiragana Fast: The Best Way to Learn Hiragana and Memorize the Chart

So you want to learn Japanese hiragana fast? Good news: it's totally doable. I've seen people memorize all 46 characters in a single day, and honestly, with the right approach, you can too. The key is using mnemonics and actually practicing recall instead of just staring at a chart hoping the characters will magically stick. In this guide, I'll walk you through the fastest method to get hiragana down solid, usually within a few hours to a couple days max. No months of grinding required.😉

But first, what is hiragana

Hiragana is one of three writing systems used in Japanese. Think of it as the fundamental alphabet you absolutely need to know before diving into anything else. There are 46 basic characters, and each one represents a sound (mostly syllables like "ka", "ki", "ku", rather than individual letters).

Here's the thing: hiragana is actually pretty logical compared to English spelling. Each character makes one consistent sound. No weird exceptions like "tough" vs "though". Once you know that あ makes an "ah" sound, it always makes that sound. Pretty straightforward.

The hiragana chart and how it's organized

Before jumping into memorization techniques, you need to understand how hiragana is structured. The characters are organized into rows based on their consonant sounds, with five vowel columns.

The vowels: あ, い, う, え, お

The five basic vowels are: あ (a), い (i), う (u), え (e), お (o). These are your foundation. Every other row follows the same vowel pattern but adds a consonant at the start.

The ka row and others: か, き, く, け, こ

The ka row goes: か (ka), き (ki), く (ku), け (ke), こ (ko). See the pattern? Same vowel sounds, just with a "k" sound added.

You've got the sa row, ta row, na row, ha row, ma row, ya row, ra row, and wa row. Plus the standalone ん (n). The ya row only has three characters because Japanese doesn't use "yi" or "ye" sounds in hiragana.

Understanding this grid structure helps because you're not memorizing 46 random characters. You're learning a logical system with repeating patterns.

Mnemonic stories to learn hiragana fast

Here's where the magic happens. Instead of drilling characters through repetition, you create vivid mental images that link each character's shape to its sound. These stick in your memory instantly.

Let me give you some examples.

You don't have to use my mnemonics. In fact, creating your own often works better because they're personal to you. The goal is making each character memorable through association, not just visual repetition.

Some characters are trickier than others. For つ (tsu), which is a tough sound for English speakers anyway, you might imagine a tsunami wave. The character has that curved shape, and "tsu" is the start of "tsunami".

Spend about 2-3 minutes on each character, creating and visualizing your mnemonic. Then immediately test yourself. Can you recall the sound when you see the character? Can you write the character when you hear the sound?

How to memorize and practice hiragana chart systematically

The process is simple but requires focus.

Here's a timeline that works well:

Make use of extra quiz practice

Mnemonics get the characters into your brain, but quizzes cement them there. This combination is the best way to learn hiragana. You need active recall practice where you're forced to retrieve the information, not just recognize it passively.

Worksheets are useful for handwriting practice, though honestly, you can memorize hiragana without writing them by hand if you want. Reading recognition is more immediately useful. But if you do use worksheets, focus on stroke order. Japanese characters have a specific order for drawing each stroke, and following it makes writing faster and more natural.

Mix up your quiz formats. Use flashcard apps, online games, worksheets, and even try reading simple Japanese words you find online. Variety keeps your brain engaged and tests your knowledge from different angles.

Dakuten and handakuten marks in Japanese language

Once you've got the basic 46 characters down, you need to learn dakuten and handakuten. These are small marks that modify certain characters to create new sounds.

Dakuten looks like two small quotation marks (゛) in the upper right of a character. It voices the consonant. So か (ka) becomes が (ga), さ (sa) becomes ざ (za), and so on. This applies to the ka, sa, ta, and ha rows.

Handakuten is a small circle (゜) that only applies to the ha row, turning it into the pa row. So は (ha) becomes ぱ (pa).

These aren't separate characters to memorize from scratch. You already know the base character, so you just need to remember that the marks change the sound in a predictable way. Spend maybe 30 minutes practicing these variations, and you'll have them down.

Learn to read combination characters (youon)

Combination characters let you create sounds like "kya", "shu", and "cho". They're made by pairing a character from the i-column (Like き, し, ち) with a smaller version of や (ya), ゆ (yu), or よ (yo).

For example, き (ki) plus small ゃ (ya) becomes きゃ (kya). し (shi) plus small ゅ (yu) becomes しゅ (shu).

There are about 33 of these combinations, but again, you're not learning totally new characters. You're just combining ones you already know. Practice reading words that use these combinations, and they'll become second nature pretty quickly.

Learning katakana fast alongside the set of hiragana

Should you learn katakana at the same time as hiragana? Honestly, I'd say finish hiragana first. Trying to learn both simultaneously can cause confusion because some characters look similar but represent different sounds.

That said, once you've got hiragana solid (Give it a week of practice), jump into katakana using the exact same mnemonic method. Katakana follows the same organizational structure as hiragana, so you already understand the system. You're just learning new shapes.

Katakana is used for foreign loanwords, onomatopoeia, and emphasis. You'll need it pretty quickly once you start consuming Japanese content. Words like コーヒー (koohii, coffee) and レストラン (resutoran, restaurant) are everywhere.

The good news is that learning katakana goes faster than hiragana did because you've already trained your brain on the kana learning process.

Resources and tools that help you remember hiragana: Tofugu and others

You don't need to spend money to learn hiragana. There are plenty of free resources that work great.

Anyway, once you've got hiragana down and you're ready to start immersing in actual Japanese content, Migaku's browser extension and app let you hover over words for instant definitions while watching shows or reading articles. Makes the jump from learning kana to consuming real content way smoother. There's a 10-day free trial if you want to check it out.

FAQs

Hiragana and katakana are the very first barrier to overcome in Japanese learning...

Hiragana is just your first step. Getting it done in a few days means you can move on to the actually challenging parts of Japanese without wasting time on the writing system. The difficult part of the writing system is kanji and its pronunciation. Yet, media consumption can gradually train your brain to memorize these characters and sounds.

Don't give up on your first try!🫵