Kana Converter
Kana Converter turns Japanese text into hiragana, katakana or Hepburn romaji. You do not have to retype anything β all three results appear together so you can compare them and take the one you need.
All three conversions appear at once as you type. Multi-line text works too.
Results
Nothing to convert yet β type in the box above and each row fills in.
- All hiragana
- All katakana
- Romaji (Hepburn)
What is Kana Converter?
Type or paste text into the box and three converted versions appear underneath at once.
You do not have to choose a direction first β you see them all, then decide.
Press Copy next to the one you want and it goes straight to your clipboard!
When a kana converter helps
- π Filling in the furigana field on a Japanese form, which usually wants katakana
- π€ Cleaning up a name list where the readings mix hiragana and katakana
- βοΈ Checking how a name or place name is spelled in romaji
- π€ Looking up the spelling used for romaji input
- π Normalising a column of readings to hiragana so it sorts and searches consistently
- π Opening katakana out into hiragana to soften the tone of a sentence
β¨ What makes this converter different
- All three conversions at once, with nothing to selectThere is no direction to pick. Hiragana, katakana and romaji appear side by side, so when you want katakana but also need to check the romaji spelling, both are already in front of you.
- Doubled consonants, syllabic n and long vowels follow HepburnRomaji is more than a lookup table. The small tsu doubles the next consonant and becomes t before ch (matcha), syllabic n becomes m before b, m and p (shimbun) and takes an apostrophe before a vowel (shin'ichi), and a long vowel mark repeats the vowel in front of it (ramen is spelled raamen).
- Half-width kana and decomposed voiced marks are handled for youHalf-width kana is widened before conversion, so you can paste from anywhere without worrying about character width. Voiced marks that arrive decomposed from macOS are recombined first, so a voiced kana is never read as its unvoiced counterpart.
- Kanji and Latin letters pass through intactOnly hiragana and katakana are changed here. Kanji, letters, digits and emoji survive every conversion untouched, so a sentence that mixes scripts keeps everything except the kana exactly as it was.
- Your text never leaves the browserEvery conversion runs locally in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to our servers or stored on your device, so closing the page leaves nothing behind.
π How to use it
- Type into the "Text to convert" box, or paste the text you want to change.
- Three converted versions appear underneath and update as you type.
- Press the Copy button next to the version you want to put it on your clipboard.
- Press "Clear input" to empty the box and start again.
- Only hiragana and katakana are converted. Kanji, letters, digits and emoji are left as they are β the tool does not read kanji aloud.
- Half-width kana is converted to full-width first, so the width of the input never changes the result. The punctuation that shares the half-width kana block is widened along with it.
- γ·, γΈ, γΉ and γΊ have no hiragana counterpart and are left as they are.
- Romaji follows the Hepburn system. The long vowel mark γΌ repeats the vowel before it (γ©γΌγ‘γ³ becomes raamen).
- There is no way to tell whether γ is a particle, so it is always written wo.
- Up to 2,000 characters can be converted at a time.
- Nothing you type is saved; it disappears when you leave the page.
- For the full conditions of use, please see our Terms of Service.
β Frequently asked questions
- Is the kana converter free?
- Yes. There is no account to create and nothing to install. Open the page, type, and the conversions appear immediately.
- Which conversions are available?
- Three in total: all hiragana, all katakana and Hepburn romaji, shown at the same time. Text that mixes hiragana and katakana comes out in a single script on each row.
- Can it add readings to kanji?
- No. This tool changes hiragana and katakana into one another, and it does not guess how kanji is read, so kanji is passed through unchanged. To get a reading, type the word in kana and convert that.
- Can I paste half-width kana?
- Yes. Half-width kana is widened before conversion, so typing ο½± gives you γ, γ’ and a. If you need half-width kana as the result instead, use our Width Converter.
- Which romaji system is used?
- Hepburn, so you get shi, tsu and fu rather than si, tu and hu. The small tsu doubles the following consonant (kitto) and turns into t before ch (matcha). Syllabic n becomes m before b, m and p (shimbun) and takes an apostrophe before a vowel (shin'ichi).
- Is my text sent anywhere?
- No. The conversion happens entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to our servers and nothing is stored on your device.