Hiragana vs katakana

Same sounds, two scripts

Hiragana and katakana write the same 46 sounds. Hiragana grew from whole kanji written in cursive; katakana mostly from one part of a kanji, a few from a whole simple one. Counted on KanjiVG, the basic hiragana take 104 strokes and the basic katakana 108.

Where both come from the same kanji

For 31 of the 46 sounds, both scripts come from the same kanji:

• う ウ from 宇 (u)
• お オ from 於 (o)
• か カ from 加 (ka)
• き キ from 幾 (ki)
• く ク from 久 (ku)
• こ コ from 己 (ko)
• し シ from 之 (shi)
• せ セ from 世 (se)
• そ ソ from 曽 (so)
• つ ツ from 川 (tsu)
• て テ from 天 (te)
• と ト from 止 (to)
• な ナ from 奈 (na)
• ぬ ヌ from 奴 (nu)
• ね ネ from 祢 (ne)
• の ノ from 乃 (no)

Where they part

For 14 sounds the two scripts took different kanji:

• あ from 安, ア from 阿 (a)
• い from 以, イ from 伊 (i)
• え from 衣, エ from 江 (e)
• け from 計, ケ from 介 (ke)
• さ from 左, サ from 散 (sa)
• す from 寸, ス from 須 (su)
• た from 太, タ from 多 (ta)
• ち from 知, チ from 千 (chi)
• に from 仁, ニ from 二 (ni)
• は from 波, ハ from 八 (ha)
• み from 美, ミ from 三 (mi)
• む from 武, ム from 牟 (mu)
• る from 留, ル from 流 (ru)
• を from 遠, ヲ from 乎 (wo)

Which you will see more

In the readings of JMdict's common words, the most frequent hiragana are う ん い し く か き こ, and the most frequent katakana ン ス ト ル イ リ ラ ク. Hiragana carries grammar and native words; katakana carries loanwords, foreign names, emphasis and, in science, the names of plants and animals.

Look-alikes across the scripts

Some pairs are near twins, such as へ and ヘ, り and リ, か and カ; others share a sound but no shape, such as あ and ア.