Hiragana Katakana Converter

How to use

1. 1Pick a direction at the top: Romaji to Japanese for typing in Latin letters, Japanese to Romaji for pasting kana, or Hiragana and Katakana for swapping between the two scripts.
2. 2Type or paste your text into the input field. Modified Hepburn rules are assumed (shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji, sha, cho, ryu, and so on).
3. 3Read the live output panel. Romaji to Japanese shows hiragana and katakana side by side. Japanese to Romaji shows Hepburn romaji with macrons for long vowels.
4. 4Use the Copy buttons on each output panel to copy the result, or load the sample text to see how doubled consonants, long vowels, and foreign sounds are handled.
5. 5Open the reference chart at the bottom to study the 46 basic gojuon syllables in both scripts with their romaji.

About this tool

Hiragana Katakana Converter is a three-way transliterator between Latin-alphabet romaji and the two Japanese phonetic syllabaries. Type romaji like konnichiwa, watashi, or tokyo and see both the hiragana and the katakana forms appear in parallel, so beginners can compare the two scripts at a glance and writers can pick the one their context demands (hiragana for native Japanese words and grammatical particles, katakana for loanwords, foreign names, scientific terms, and stylistic emphasis). Switch direction to paste hiragana or katakana and read it back as modified Hepburn romaji, the romanization used by Japanese passports, road signs, and the majority of textbooks. A third mode swaps a kana string directly between hiragana and katakana by Unicode shift, which is exactly what you need when transcribing a foreign loanword that was written in hiragana on a menu, or when shifting a Japanese first name into katakana for emphasis on a poster. The converter covers the full set of standard syllables: the 46 basic gojuon monographs, the dakuten and handakuten voiced and semi-voiced series (ga, za, da, ba, pa, and so on), the yo-on digraphs (kya, sha, cho, ryu, gyo, ja, byo, pyu, and the rest), the small tsu sokuon for doubled consonants so kk, tt, pp, ss become tsu plus the consonant, the chouonpu long vowel mark in katakana so oo and ou become an extended o with a bar, and macrons (a-bar, i-bar, u-bar, e-bar, o-bar) when going back from katakana to romaji. Foreign-sound katakana digraphs that beginners run into in product names and city signs are mapped too: fa, fi, fe, fo, va, vi, vu, ve, vo, ti, di, du, tu, she, che, je, and the tsu series tsa, tsi, tse, tso. A toggleable gojuon reference chart shows the 46 basic syllables in both scripts with their romaji underneath so the converter doubles as a study tool. Useful for Japanese language learners working through Genki, Minna no Nihongo, or Tobira; for tattoo and calligraphy commissions where the source needs to be unambiguous; for game, anime, and manga fans converting character names; for designers laying out Japanese-themed posters and album art; for travelers preparing place names and station signs before a trip; for product copy editors writing katakana versions of foreign brand names; and for writers preparing romaji subtitles for a hiragana script. Conversion runs entirely in your browser. Nothing about your text leaves the device.

Free to use. Works in your browser. No signup, no login.