Kanji to Hiragana Converter

Paste any Japanese text above and it comes back in hiragana — every kanji replaced with its reading in context. The conversion runs on a full morphological dictionary, the same kind of analysis Japanese input systems use, so it picks readings by looking at the words around them rather than guessing character by character.

Why kanji can't be read one character at a time

Most kanji have several readings, and the correct one depends entirely on context. The character 生 has more than ten: sei in 学生 (student), nama in 生ビール (draft beer), u in 生まれる (to be born), i in 生きる (to live). A lookup table that maps one kanji to one reading will get ordinary sentences wrong constantly.

That is why this tool doesn't work character by character. It first cuts the sentence into words, decides what each word is doing grammatically, and only then assigns readings. 今日 becomes kyō as a word, not ima + hi as two characters.

What powers the conversion

The analysis uses kuromoji, an open-source Japanese morphological analyzer, with a dictionary of several hundred thousand entries. It is the same family of technology that Japanese search engines and input methods are built on. We run it entirely in your browser: the dictionary is downloaded once (a few megabytes), and after that everything happens on your machine.

Where it can be wrong — read this before trusting it

Two honest limits:

• Personal names. Japanese name readings are genuinely undecidable from the characters alone — 裕子 can be Yūko or Hiroko, and only the person who owns the name knows which. Any tool that outputs a name reading with confidence is bluffing. Treat name readings from this page as one possibility, not the answer.
• Rare words and slang. Words that aren't in the dictionary get split into pieces and read piece by piece, which sometimes produces a reading no Japanese person would use.

If a specific reading matters to you — a tattoo, a gift, anything permanent — ask us and a native speaker will check it. It costs nothing.

Hiragana, romaji, or katakana — which do you need?

• Hiragana (this page) — if you are learning Japanese and want to read the text the way Japanese children do, before they know the kanji.
• Romaji — if you can't read kana at all and need the pronunciation in Latin letters. Use the kanji to romaji converter.
• Katakana — if what you actually want is your own name written in Japanese, that is a different task: try the English to katakana converter.

FAQ

Is this the same as furigana?

Almost. Furigana is small hiragana printed above kanji as a reading aid; this tool gives you the same readings, but as a full replacement text rather than annotations. For learning, some people prefer keeping the kanji visible with furigana — for quick comprehension or pronunciation, full conversion is faster.

Does my text get uploaded anywhere?

No. The dictionary is downloaded to your browser, and your text is analyzed locally. Nothing you paste here reaches our server.

Why does the first conversion take a few seconds?

The dictionary (a few megabytes) loads on first use. After that, conversion is instant, and the dictionary stays cached for your next visit.