Japanese orthography summary

Characters

Kanji characters

Kanji characters are mostly derived from the Chinese Han script. They are commonly used for word roots and compound words.

静電気 — The compound word static electricity (seidenki), written with kanji.

Kanji characters are primarily constructed from characters that each represent a phonetic symbol. Some have pictographic origins that are still evident, whereas others have a more complicated structure.

In reforms in the mid 20th century, the Japanese repertoire was standardised on around 2,000 core characters, however standardised computer character sets support a few thousand more.

The Jōyō kanji character set (常用漢字) is intended as a literacy baseline for those who have completed compulsory education, as well as a list of permitted characters and readings for use in official government documentswjy.

A second list, called Jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字), is a supplementary list of 863 characters that can legally be used in registered personal names in Japan.wj

The number of characters in these lists changes from time to time. The Wikipedia articles for Jōyō and Jinmeiyō kanji provide useful timelines indicating changes over the years.

In addition to the basic lists, there are a number of variants and traditional forms that need to be considered. Note also that the jōyō character set only provides a baseline for the educational process. School leavers still have more characters to learn to achieve a working competency.

Show kanji characters in jōyō and jinmeiyō lists in 2020.

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Alternates	剥叱填頬	4
Jōyō traditional variant forms (not including 61 compatibility forms that normalise to other characters)	亞惡壓圍醫爲壹隱榮營衞驛圓鹽緣艷應歐毆櫻奧橫溫穩假價畫會繪壞懷槪擴殼覺學嶽樂渴罐卷陷勸寬關歡觀氣歸龜僞戲犧舊據擧虛峽挾狹鄕曉區驅勳薰徑莖惠揭溪經螢輕繼鷄藝擊缺硏縣儉劍險圈檢獻權顯驗嚴廣效恆黃鑛號國黑碎濟齋劑雜參棧蠶慘贊殘絲齒兒辭濕實寫舍釋壽收從澁獸縱肅處緖敍將稱涉燒證奬條狀乘淨剩疊繩壤孃讓釀觸囑眞寢愼盡圖粹醉穗隨髓樞數瀨聲齊靜竊攝絕專淺戰踐錢潛纖禪雙壯爭莊搜插巢曾瘦裝總騷增藏臟卽屬續墮對體帶滯臺瀧擇澤擔單膽團斷彈遲癡蟲晝鑄廳徵聽敕鎭遞鐵點轉傳燈當黨盜稻鬭德獨讀屆貳惱腦霸拜廢賣麥發髮拔晚蠻祕濱甁拂佛倂竝餠邊變辨瓣辯步寶豐襃沒飜每萬滿麵默彌譯藥與豫餘譽搖樣謠來賴亂覽龍兩獵綠淚壘禮勵戾靈齡曆歷戀鍊爐勞郞樓錄灣	305
The compatibility forms	逸謁禍悔海慨喝褐漢祈既器響勤謹穀殺祉視者煮臭祝暑署諸祥神節祖僧層贈贈嘆著懲塚都突難梅繁卑碑賓頻敏侮福塀勉墨免欄隆虜類練朗廊	61
Jinmeiyō kanji	丑丞乃之乎也云亘些亦亥亨亮仔伊伍伽佃佑伶侃侑俄俠俣俐倭俱倦倖偲傭儲允兎兜其冴凌凜凧凪凰凱函劉劫勁勺勿匁匡廿卜卯卿厨厩叉叡叢叶只吾吞吻哉哨啄哩喬喧喰喋嘩嘉嘗噌噂圃圭坐尭坦埴堰堺堵塙壕壬夷奄奎套娃姪姥娩嬉孟宏宋宕宥寅寓寵尖尤屑峨峻崚嵯嵩嶺巌巫已巳巴巷巽帖幌幡庄庇庚庵廟廻弘弛彗彦彪彬徠忽怜恢恰恕悌惟惚悉惇惹惺惣慧憐戊或戟托按挺挽掬捲捷捺捧掠揃摑摺撒撰撞播撫擢孜敦斐斡斧斯於旭昂昊昏昌昴晏晃晒晋晟晦晨智暉暢曙曝曳朋朔杏杖杜李杭杵杷枇柑柴柘柊柏柾柚桧栞桔桂栖桐栗梧梓梢梛梯桶梶椛梁棲椋椀楯楚楕椿楠楓椰楢楊榎樺榊榛槙槍槌樫槻樟樋橘樽橙檎檀櫂櫛櫓欣欽歎此殆毅毘毬汀汝汐汲沌沓沫洸洲洵洛浩浬淵淳渚淀淋渥渾湘湊湛溢滉溜漱漕漣澪濡瀕灘灸灼烏焰焚煌煤煉熙燕燎燦燭燿爾牒牟牡牽犀狼猪獅玖珂珈珊珀玲琢琉瑛琥琶琵琳瑚瑞瑶瑳瓜瓢甥甫畠畢疋疏皐皓眸瞥矩砦砥砧硯碓碗碩碧磐磯祇祢祐祷禄禎禽禾秦秤稀稔稟稜穣穹穿窄窪窺竣竪竺竿笈笹笙笠筈筑箕箔篇篠簞簾籾粥粟糊紘紗紐絃紬絆絢綺綜綴緋綾綸縞徽繫繡纂纏羚翔翠耀而耶耽聡肇肋肴胤胡脩腔脹膏臥舜舵芥芹芭芙芦苑茄苔苺茅茉茸茜莞荻莫莉菅菫菖萄菩萌萊菱葦葵萱葺萩董葡蓑蒔蒐蒼蒲蒙蓉蓮蔭蔣蔦蓬蔓蕎蕨蕉蕃蕪薙蕾蕗藁薩蘇蘭蝦蝶螺蟬蟹蠟衿袈袴裡裟裳襖訊訣註詢詫誼諏諄諒謂諺讃豹貰賑赳跨蹄蹟輔輯輿轟辰辻迂迄辿迪迦這逞逗逢遥遁遼邑祁郁鄭酉醇醐醍醬釉釘釧銑鋒鋸錘錐錆錫鍬鎧閃閏閤阿陀隈隼雀雁雛雫霞靖鞄鞍鞘鞠鞭頁頌頗顚颯饗馨馴馳駕駿驍魁魯鮎鯉鯛鰯鱒鱗鳩鳶鳳鴨鴻鵜鵬鷗鷲鷺鷹麒麟麿黎黛鼎	633
Jinmeiyō variants	亙凛巖堯晄檜槇渚猪琢禰祐禱祿禎穰萠遙	18

々␣一␣丁␣七␣万␣下␣不␣与␣丑␣且␣世␣丘␣丙␣両␣並␣中␣丸␣丹␣主␣久␣乏␣乗␣乙␣九␣乱␣乳␣乾␣亀␣了␣予␣争␣事␣二␣互␣五␣井␣亜␣亡␣交␣亥␣亨␣享␣亭␣人␣仁␣今␣介␣仏␣仕␣他␣付␣仙␣代␣以␣仮␣仰␣仲␣件␣任␣企␣伊␣伏␣休␣会␣伝␣伯␣伴␣伸␣伺␣似␣但␣位␣佐␣体␣何␣余␣作␣佳␣併␣使␣例␣侍␣供␣依␣価␣侮␣侯␣侵␣便␣係␣促␣俊␣俗␣保␣信␣修␣俳␣俵␣俸␣俺␣倉␣個␣倍␣倒␣候␣借␣倣␣値␣倫␣倹␣偉␣偏␣停␣健␣側␣偶␣偽␣傍␣傑␣傘␣備␣催␣債␣傷␣傾␣働␣像␣僕␣僚␣僧␣儀␣億␣儒␣償␣優␣元␣兆␣先␣光␣克␣免␣兎␣児␣党␣入␣全␣八␣六␣共␣兵␣具␣典␣兼␣内␣円␣冊␣再␣冒␣冗␣写␣冠␣冬␣冷␣准␣凍␣凝␣凡␣処␣凶␣凸␣出␣刀␣刃␣分␣刈␣刊␣刑␣列␣初␣判␣別␣利␣到␣制␣券␣刺␣刻␣則␣削␣前␣剖␣剛␣剣␣剤␣副␣剰␣割␣創␣劇␣力␣功␣加␣劣␣助␣努␣励␣労␣効␣劾␣勅␣勇␣勉␣動␣勘␣務␣勝␣募␣勢␣勤␣勧␣勲␣勺␣匁␣包␣化␣北␣匠␣匹␣医␣匿␣十␣千␣升␣午␣半␣卑␣協␣南␣単␣博␣占␣卯␣危␣即␣卵␣卸␣厄␣厘␣厚␣原␣厳␣去␣参␣又␣及␣収␣叔␣取␣受␣叙␣口␣句␣叫␣召␣可␣台␣史␣右␣号␣司␣各␣合␣吉␣同␣向␣君␣吟␣否␣含␣吸␣吹␣呈␣告␣周␣味␣呼␣命␣和␣咲␣哀␣品␣員␣哲␣唆␣唇␣唐␣唯␣唱␣商␣問␣啓␣善␣喚␣喜␣喝␣喪␣喫␣営␣嗣␣嘆␣嘉␣嘱␣器␣噴␣嚇␣囚␣四␣回␣因␣団␣困␣囲␣図␣固␣国␣圏␣園␣土␣圧␣在␣地␣坂␣均␣坊␣坑␣坪␣垂␣型␣垣␣埋␣城␣域␣執␣培␣基␣埼␣堀␣堂␣堅␣堕␣堤␣堪␣報␣場␣塀␣塁␣塊␣塑␣塔␣塗␣塚␣塩␣塾␣境␣墓␣増␣墜␣墨␣墳␣墾␣壁␣壇␣壊␣壌␣士␣壬␣壮␣声␣売␣変␣夏␣夕␣外␣多␣夜␣夢␣大␣天␣夫␣央␣失␣奇␣奉␣奏␣契␣奔␣奥␣奨␣奪␣奮␣女␣奴␣好␣如␣妄␣妊␣妙␣妥␣妨␣妹␣妻␣姉␣始␣姓␣委␣姫␣姻␣姿␣威␣娘␣娠␣娯␣婆␣婚␣婦␣婿␣媒␣嫁␣嫌␣嫡␣嬢␣子␣孔␣字␣存␣孝␣季␣孤␣学␣孫␣宅␣宇␣安␣完␣宗␣定␣宜␣宝␣実␣客␣室␣宮␣宰␣害␣家␣容␣宿␣寂␣寄␣密␣富␣寒␣寛␣寝␣察␣寡␣寧␣審␣寮␣寸␣寺␣対␣寿␣封␣専␣射␣将␣尉␣尋␣導␣小␣少␣尚␣就␣尺␣尼␣局␣居␣屈␣届␣屋␣展␣属␣層␣履␣屯␣山␣岐␣岡␣岩␣岬␣岳␣岸␣峠␣峡␣峰␣島␣崇␣崎␣崩␣川␣州␣巡␣巣␣工␣巨␣差␣己␣巳␣巻␣市␣布␣帆␣希␣帝␣帥␣師␣席␣帯␣帰␣帳␣常␣帽␣幅␣幕␣幣␣干␣年␣幸␣幹␣幻␣幾␣庁␣広␣床␣序␣底␣店␣庚␣府␣度␣座␣庫␣庭␣庶␣庸␣廃␣廉␣廊␣延␣廷␣建␣弁␣弊␣式␣弐␣弓␣引␣弘␣弟␣弦␣弧␣弱␣張␣強␣弾␣当␣形␣彩␣彫␣彰␣影␣役␣彼␣往␣征␣径␣待␣律␣後␣徐␣徒␣従␣得␣御␣復␣循␣微␣徳␣徴␣徹␣心␣必␣忌␣忍␣志␣忙␣応␣忠␣快␣念␣怒␣怖␣思␣怠␣急␣性␣怪␣恋␣恐␣恒␣恥␣恨␣恩␣恭␣息␣恵␣悔␣悟␣悠␣患␣悦␣悩␣悪␣悲␣悼␣情␣惑␣惜␣惨␣惰␣想␣愁␣愉␣意␣愚␣愛␣感␣慈␣態␣慌␣慎␣慕␣慢␣慣␣慨␣慮␣慰␣慶␣憂␣憎␣憤␣憩␣憲␣憶␣憾␣懇␣懐␣懲␣懸␣戊␣戌␣成␣戒␣戦␣戯␣戸␣戻␣房␣所␣扇␣扉␣手␣才␣打␣払␣扱␣扶␣批␣承␣技␣抄␣把␣抑␣投␣抗␣折␣抜␣択␣披␣抱␣抵␣抹␣押␣抽␣担␣拍␣拐␣拒␣拓␣拘␣拙␣招␣拝␣拠␣拡␣括␣拷␣拾␣持␣指␣挑␣挙␣挟␣振␣挿␣捕␣捜␣捨␣据␣掃␣授␣掌␣排␣掘␣掛␣採␣探␣接␣控␣推␣措␣掲␣描␣提␣揚␣換␣握␣揮␣援␣揺␣損␣搬␣搭␣携␣搾␣摂␣摘␣摩␣撃␣撤␣撮␣撲␣擁␣操␣擦␣擬␣支␣改␣攻␣放␣政␣故␣敏␣救␣敗␣教␣敢␣散␣敬␣数␣整␣敵␣敷␣文␣斉␣斎␣斗␣料␣斜␣斤␣斥␣断␣新␣方␣施␣旅␣旋␣族␣旗␣既␣日␣旧␣早␣旬␣昆␣昇␣昌␣明␣易␣昔␣星␣映␣春␣昨␣昭␣是␣昼␣時␣晩␣普␣景␣晴␣晶␣暁␣暇␣暑␣暖␣暗␣暦␣暫␣暮␣暴␣曇␣曜␣曲␣更␣書␣曹␣替␣最␣月␣有␣服␣朕␣朗␣望␣朝␣期␣木␣未␣札␣朱␣朴␣机␣朽␣杉␣材␣村␣束␣条␣来␣杯␣東␣松␣板␣析␣林␣枚␣果␣枝␣枠␣枢␣枯␣架␣柄␣某␣染␣柔␣柱␣柳␣査␣栄␣栓␣校␣株␣核␣根␣格␣栽␣桃␣案␣桑␣桜␣桟␣梅␣械␣棄␣棋␣棒␣棚␣棟␣森␣棺␣植␣検␣業␣極␣楼␣楽␣概␣構␣様␣槽␣標␣模␣権␣横␣樹␣橋␣機␣欄␣欠␣次␣欧␣欲␣欺␣款␣歌␣歓␣止␣正␣武␣歩␣歯␣歳␣歴␣死␣殉␣残␣殖␣殴␣段␣殺␣殻␣殿␣母␣毎␣毒␣比␣毛␣氏␣民␣気␣水␣氷␣永␣汁␣求␣汎␣汗␣汚␣江␣池␣決␣汽␣沈␣沖␣没␣沢␣河␣沸␣油␣治␣沼␣沿␣況␣泉␣泊␣泌␣法␣泡␣泣␣泥␣注␣泰␣泳␣洋␣洗␣洞␣津␣洪␣活␣派␣流␣浄␣浅␣浜␣浦␣浪␣浮␣浴␣海␣浸␣消␣涙␣涯␣液␣涼␣淑␣淡␣深␣混␣添␣清␣渇␣渉␣渋␣渓␣減␣渡␣渦␣温␣測␣港␣湖␣湯␣湾␣満␣源␣準␣溝␣溶␣滅␣滋␣滑␣滝␣滞␣滴␣漁␣漂␣漆␣漏␣演␣漠␣漢␣漫␣漬␣漸␣潔␣潜␣潟␣潤␣潮␣澄␣激␣濁␣濃␣濫␣濯␣瀬␣火␣灯␣灰␣災␣炉␣炊␣炎␣炭␣点␣為␣烈␣無␣焦␣然␣焼␣煙␣照␣煩␣煮␣熟␣熱␣燃␣燥␣爆␣爵␣父␣片␣版␣牙␣牛␣牧␣物␣牲␣特␣犠␣犬␣犯␣状␣狂␣狩␣独␣狭␣猛␣猟␣猪␣猫␣献␣猶␣猿␣獄␣獣␣獲␣玄␣率␣玉␣王␣珍␣珠␣班␣現␣球␣理␣琴␣環␣璽␣瓶␣甘␣甚␣生␣産␣用␣田␣申␣男␣町␣画␣界␣畑␣畔␣留␣畜␣畝␣略␣番␣異␣畳␣疎␣疑␣疫␣疲␣疾␣病␣症␣痘␣痛␣痢␣痴␣療␣癒␣癖␣癸␣発␣登␣白␣百␣的␣皆␣皇␣皮␣皿␣盆␣益␣盗␣盛␣盟␣監␣盤␣目␣盲␣直␣相␣盾␣省␣看␣県␣真␣眠␣眺␣眼␣着␣睡␣督␣瞬␣矛␣矢␣知␣短␣矯␣石␣砂␣研␣砕␣砲␣破␣硝␣硫␣硬␣碁␣碑␣確␣磁␣磨␣礁␣礎␣示␣礼␣社␣祈␣祉␣祖␣祚␣祝␣神␣祥␣票␣祭␣禁␣禄␣禅␣禍␣福␣秀␣私␣秋␣科␣秒␣秘␣租␣秩␣称␣移␣程␣税␣稚␣種␣稲␣稼␣稿␣穀␣穂␣積␣穏␣穫␣穴␣究␣空␣突␣窃␣窒␣窓␣窮␣窯␣立␣竜␣章␣童␣端␣競␣竹␣笑␣笛␣符␣第␣筆␣等␣筋␣筒␣答␣策␣箇␣算␣管␣箱␣節␣範␣築␣篤␣簡␣簿␣籍␣米␣粉␣粋␣粒␣粗␣粘␣粛␣粧␣精␣糖␣糧␣糸␣系␣糾␣紀␣約␣紅␣紋␣納␣純␣紙␣紛␣素␣索␣紫␣累␣細␣紳␣紹␣紺␣終␣組␣経␣結␣絞␣絡␣給␣統␣絵␣絶␣絹␣継␣続␣維␣綱␣網␣綿␣緊␣総␣緑␣緒␣線␣締␣編␣緩␣緯␣練␣縁␣縄␣縛␣縦␣縫␣縮␣績␣繁␣繊␣織␣繕␣繭␣繰␣缶␣罪␣置␣罰␣署␣罷␣羅␣羊␣美␣群␣義␣羽␣翁␣翌␣習␣翻␣翼␣老␣考␣者␣耐␣耕␣耗␣耳␣聖␣聞␣聴␣職␣肉␣肌␣肖␣肝␣肢␣肥␣肩␣肪␣肯␣育␣肺␣胃␣胆␣背␣胎␣胞␣胴␣胸␣能␣脂␣脅␣脈␣脚␣脱␣脳␣脹␣腐␣腕␣腰␣腸␣腹␣膚␣膜␣膨␣臓␣臣␣臨␣自␣臭␣至␣致␣興␣舌␣舎␣舗␣舞␣舟␣航␣般␣舶␣船␣艇␣艦␣良␣色␣芋␣芝␣花␣芳␣芸␣芽␣苗␣若␣苦␣英␣茂␣茎␣茶␣草␣荒␣荘␣荷␣菊␣菌␣菓␣菜␣華␣落␣葉␣著␣葬␣蒸␣蓄␣蔵␣薄␣薦␣薪␣薬␣藤␣藩␣藻␣虎␣虐␣虚␣虜␣虞␣虫␣蚊␣蚕␣蛇␣蛍␣蛮␣融␣血␣衆␣行␣術␣街␣衛␣衝␣衡␣衣␣表␣衰␣衷␣袋␣被␣裁␣裂␣装␣裏␣裕␣補␣裸␣製␣複␣褐␣褒␣襟␣襲␣西␣要␣覆␣覇␣見␣規␣視␣覚␣覧␣親␣観␣角␣解␣触␣言␣訂␣計␣討␣訓␣託␣記␣訟␣訪␣設␣許␣訳␣訴␣診␣証␣詐␣詔␣評␣詞␣詠␣試␣詩␣詰␣詳␣誇␣誉␣誌␣認␣誓␣誕␣誘␣語␣誠␣誤␣説␣読␣誰␣課␣調␣談␣請␣論␣諭␣諮␣諸␣諾␣謀␣謁␣謄␣謙␣講␣謝␣謡␣謹␣識␣譜␣警␣議␣譲␣護␣谷␣豆␣豊␣豚␣象␣豪␣貝␣貞␣負␣貢␣貧␣販␣貫␣責␣貯␣貴␣買␣貸␣費␣貿␣賀␣賃␣賄␣資␣賊␣賓␣賛␣賜␣賞␣賠␣賢␣賦␣質␣購␣贈␣赤␣赦␣走␣赴␣起␣超␣越␣趣␣足␣距␣跡␣路␣跳␣践␣踊␣踏␣躍␣身␣車␣軌␣軍␣軒␣軟␣転␣軸␣軽␣較␣載␣輝␣輩␣輪␣輸␣轄␣辛␣辞␣辰␣農␣辺␣込␣迅␣迎␣近␣返␣迫␣迭␣述␣迷␣追␣退␣送␣逃␣逆␣透␣逐␣逓␣途␣通␣逝␣速␣造␣連␣逮␣週␣進␣逸␣遂␣遅␣遇␣遊␣運␣遍␣過␣道␣違␣遠␣遣␣適␣遭␣遮␣遵␣遷␣選␣遺␣避␣還␣邦␣邪␣邸␣郊␣郎␣郡␣部␣郭␣郵␣郷␣都␣酉␣酌␣配␣酒␣酔␣酢␣酪␣酬␣酵␣酷␣酸␣醜␣醸␣釈␣里␣量␣金␣針␣釣␣鈍␣鈴␣鉄␣鉛␣鉢␣鉱␣銀␣銃␣銅␣銑␣銘␣銭␣鋭␣鋳␣鋼␣錘␣錠␣錬␣錯␣録␣鍛␣鎖␣鎮␣鏡␣鐘␣鑑␣長␣門␣閉␣開␣閏␣閑␣間␣関␣閣␣閥␣閲␣闘␣阪␣防␣阻␣附␣降␣限␣陛␣院␣陥␣陪␣陰␣陳␣陵␣陶␣陸␣険␣陽␣隅␣隆␣隊␣階␣随␣隔␣際␣障␣隠␣隣␣隷␣隻␣雄␣雇␣雉␣雌␣雑␣離␣難␣雨␣雪␣雰␣雲␣零␣雷␣電␣需␣震␣霊␣霜␣霧␣露␣青␣静␣非␣面␣革␣靴␣韓␣音␣韻␣響␣頂␣頃␣項␣順␣預␣頒␣領␣頭␣頻␣頼␣題␣額␣顔␣顕␣願␣類␣顧␣風␣飛␣食␣飢␣飯␣飲␣飼␣飾␣養␣餓␣館␣首␣香␣馬␣駄␣駆␣駐␣騎␣騒␣験␣騰␣驚␣骨␣髄␣高␣髪␣鬼␣魂␣魅␣魔␣魚␣鮮␣鯨␣鳥␣鳴␣鶏␣鹿␣麗␣麦␣麻␣黄␣黒␣黙␣鼓␣鼠␣鼻␣齢␣叱␣剥␣填␣頬

CJK compatibility characters

The Jōyō traditional forms include 60 kanji shapes that Unicode includes in the CJK Compatibility Ideographs block. Normalisation operations (which in some systems may happen automatically, or during things such as cut & paste) convert them to characters in the main CJK block. This makes them unstable, and best avoided. The following list shows the compatibility character shape to the left, and the normalised shape to the right.

逸逸␣謁謁␣禍禍␣悔悔␣海海␣慨慨␣喝喝␣褐褐␣漢漢␣祈祈␣既既␣器器␣響響␣勤勤␣謹謹␣穀穀␣殺殺␣祉祉␣視視␣者者␣煮煮␣臭臭␣祝祝␣暑暑␣署署␣諸諸␣祥祥␣神神␣節節␣祖祖␣僧僧␣層層␣贈贈␣嘆嘆␣著著␣懲懲␣塚塚␣都都␣突突␣難難␣梅梅␣繁繁␣卑卑␣碑碑␣賓賓␣頻頻␣敏敏␣侮侮␣福福␣塀塀␣勉勉␣墨墨␣免免␣欄欄␣隆隆␣虜虜␣類類␣練練␣朗朗␣廊廊

Kana syllabaries

Japanese uses two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The vowel sounds u and i are often elided between non-voiced consonants, or at the end of a word.

Katakana characters are typically used for foreign loan words and names, such as the word 'text'. They are also used for things such as scientific names of plants and animals, onomatopoeic sounds, telegrams, and some female names.

テキスト — The word text, written with katakana syllables.

Hiragana is used for indigenous Japanese words, such as the verb 'to be'.

The word for to be desu, written with hiragana syllables.

It is also used for grammatical endings after a word root written using kanji characters.

集まります — The word for to collect atsumarimasu, with the verb root atsu written using a kanji character, and the remainder in hiragana expresssing the grammatical present-tense.

The basic syllabary includes 5 independent vowel sounds, one nasal sound, and the rest are consonant+vowel combinations. In these lists we show hiragana (first) and katakana (second) together.

あア␣いイ␣うウ␣えエ␣おオ␣かカ␣きキ␣くク␣けケ␣こコ␣さサ␣しシ␣すス␣せセ␣そソ␣たタ␣ちチ␣つツ␣てテ␣とト␣なナ␣にニ␣ぬヌ␣ねネ␣のノ␣はハ␣ひヒ␣ふフ␣へヘ␣ほホ␣まマ␣みミ␣むム␣めメ␣もモ␣やヤ␣ゆユ␣よヨ␣らラ␣りリ␣るル␣れレ␣ろロ␣わワ␣をヲ␣んン

Voiced consonants are indicated by attaching a dakuten mark (looks like a quote mark) to the unvoiced shape. Unicode provides precomposed code points for every combination of syllable+dakuten.

がガ␣ぎギ␣ぐグ␣げゲ␣ごゴ␣ざザ␣じジ␣ずズ␣ぜゼ␣ぞゾ␣だダ␣ぢヂ␣づヅ␣でデ␣どド␣ばバ␣びビ␣ぶブ␣べベ␣ぼボ␣ヴ␣ヷ␣ヺ

The ‘p’ sound is indicated in a similar way by the use of a han-dakuten (half-dakuten).

ぱパ␣ぴピ␣ぷプ␣ぺペ␣ぽポ

The Unicode hiragana block does contain separate code points for dakuten combining marks and modifiers, but these are not normally used in text. However, if Unicode NFD normalisation is applied to text, the dakuten and han-dakuten are split from the base and the combining marks are used.

゙␣゚␣゛␣゜

Long vowels

あ␣い␣う␣え␣お␣ー

Various strategies are used to represent long vowels, and they tend to differ between hiragana and katakana. This elongation is phonemically significant.

In hiragana, the long vowels aː, iː, uː, and eː are written by adding a corresponding vowel.

おかあさん

おにいさん

すうがく

おねえさん

In words of Chinese origin eː may be written 'ei'.

ていねい

The long oː is usually written 'ou', but is sometimes written 'oo'.

おはよう

おおきい

In katakana, long vowels are indicated using ー. This character is used predominantly with katakana, but occasionally also with hiragana.uk,720

ビール

ボール

エスカレーター

In a few exceptions, katakana uses a similar approach to hiragana.

スペイン

Particles

The more common grammatical particles are spelled in an idiosynchratic way. The topic marker wa is written using は. The object marker o is written using を. And the location marker e is written using へ.

Small kana

The basic set of kana syllables is completed by a number of small forms used for medial glides, foreign sounds, and gemination, and a vowel lengthener.

ぁァ␣ぃィ␣ぅゥ␣ぇェ␣ぉォ␣ゃャ␣ゅュ␣ょョ␣ゎヮ␣っッ

Small versions of や, ゆ, and よ are used to form syllables such as きゃ kya kʲa きゅ kya kʲu きょ kyo kʲo

っ and ッ are used to lengthen a following consonant sound.

ちょっと

It is also used to represent a glottal stop in a broken-off word.

あっ

The small vowel syllables shown above are typically used for transcribing unusual sounds, such as lengthening a preceding vowel, or transliterating foreign sounds, without creating a new syllable.

ふぁん

シフォン

ティー

はぁぁ

Yotsugana

Over time, certain voiced sounds have merged in several important dialects, as shown in fig_yotsugana.

	ぢ	じ	づ	ず
Tokyo (standard)	d͡ʑi~ʑi		d͡zɯᵝ~zɯᵝ
South Tohoku	d͡zɯᵝ
Kōchi (Hata, Tosa)	di~d͡zi	ʑi	dɯᵝ~d͡zɯᵝ	zɯᵝ
Kagoshima	d͡ʑi	ʑi	d͡zɯᵝ	zɯᵝ
Okinawa	d͡ʑi

Yotsugana pronunciation around Japan. (source wy.)

The orthographic reform shortly after World War 2 recommended the use of only じ and ず, except in circumstances where an unvoiced sound has become voiced because of:wy

compounding (rendaku), eg. 神無月 which combines かん, な, and つき, would be written in hiragana as かんなづき
repetition, eg. 続 is written in hiragana asつづく

Archaic characters

A number of characters in the kana blocks are no longer used in modern text, except in counter styles (see lists).

These characters were dropped by an orthographic reform shortly after World War 2.

ゐヰ␣ゑヱ␣ヸ␣ヹ

Halfwidth katakana

Unicode has a set of halfwidth katakana forms for legacy encoding roundtrips. In principle, these characters should not be used. The normal, fullsized characters should be used instead.

･␣ｦ␣ｧ␣ｨ␣ｩ␣ｪ␣ｫ␣ｬ␣ｭ␣ｮ␣ｯ␣ｰ␣ｱ␣ｲ␣ｳ␣ｴ␣ｵ␣ｶ␣ｷ␣ｸ␣ｹ␣ｺ␣ｻ␣ｼ␣ｽ␣ｾ␣ｿ␣ﾀ␣ﾁ␣ﾂ␣ﾃ␣ﾄ␣ﾅ␣ﾆ␣ﾇ␣ﾈ␣ﾉ␣ﾊ␣ﾋ␣ﾌ␣ﾍ␣ﾎ␣ﾏ␣ﾐ␣ﾑ␣ﾒ␣ﾓ␣ﾔ␣ﾕ␣ﾖ␣ﾗ␣ﾘ␣ﾙ␣ﾚ␣ﾛ␣ﾜ␣ﾝ␣ﾞ␣ﾟ

Glyph shaping & positioning

Experiment with examples using the Japanese character app.

The Japanese scripts are not cursive, and when using precomposed kana (which is the norm) involve no context-based shaping or positioning.

The orthography has no case distinction.

By default, all kanji, hiragana, katakana, and punctuation characters are drawn inside a character frame that is square and the same size for all characters. The box containing the actual symbol is called the letter face, and there should be some space left between the letter face and the character frame. There may be variations, particularly for small kana, punctuation, etc., in the size of the letter face.

Because of the regularity of the character frame size, it can be used to measure the size of the text area or other parts of a page (horizontally or vertically).

In principle, Japanese characters are set solid, ie. with no space between the character frames. However, text alignment and justification can make adjustments to the placement of characters in the direction of the line flow. See justification and letterspace.

Font styles

The kanji characters are derived from Han characters originally used in Chinese. Many of the Japanese and Chinese characters are unified to the same code point in the Unicode repertoire, however over time small but systematic, language-related changes have appeared in the glyph shapes of some characters compared to their Chinese equivalents. It is important to choose fonts that present the user with the correct glyphs. fig_ja_zh_fonts provides some examples.

The same code points, displayed with a Japanese font (top) and Chinese font (bottom).

Besides the need to choose fallback fonts that match the language of the text, Japanese also has some recognisable font styles. Two well-known font styles are often called Mincho and Gothic. The former has strokes with fine gradations of stroke width, whereas the latter has darker strokes with little gradation. For fallback on the Web, these styles are usually equated with serif and sans-serif, respectively, although serifs are not actually involved.

尊厳と権利とについて平等である — The same text displayed using the Hiragino Mincho Pro font (top) and the Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro font (bottom).

Another useful type of font style relates to the endings of Gothic font strokes, which can be flat or rounded.

すべての人間は — A typical Gothic font has strokes with squared-off endings (top), but sometimes a font with rounded stroke endings is preferred (bottom).

Context-based shaping & positioning

Horizontal vs. vertical transformation. Characters such as small kana and punctuation occupy different locations within the character frame in horizontal and vertical text.

Positioning of small ょ and the full stop in horizontal and vertical character frames.

fig_small_kana shows how in horizontal text small kana are centred horizontally in the character frame but are vertically below centre; in vertical text they are centred vertically, but aligned right.

The full stop also switches from bottom-left in horizontal text, to top-right in vertical.

These are differences that cannot be produced by rotating glyphs, but require special glyphs in the font which are applied when the directional context is detected.

Positioning of decomposed diacritics. When kana use a dakuten or han-dakuten there can be significant overlap with the base character. See fig_kerning_nfd.

デドヴペバ — Syllabic characters where the dakuten or han-dakuten overlaps the base.

This overlap needs to be unchanged whether the diacritics are part of a single glyph or are separate code points in decomposed text. In the latter case, careful positioning of the diacritics is required.

Shaping of punctuation. Many punctuation marks need to have different shapes for Japanese and non-Japanese text. Often these differences are due to the fact that punctuation for Japanese is based on the em-box, rather than the Latin baseline, cap-height, or x-height. A description of many such differences can be found in Ken Lunde's Proposal to add standardized variation sequences.

Transforming characters

Japanese kanji and kana is a monocameral orthography, and no transforms are needed to convert between different case forms for a given letter. However, romaji characters are cased.

Other transforms may be applied to convert between half-width and full-width characters. This can be useful for converting to and from fullwidth Latin and punctuation, and is sometimes useful for converting small kana characters to full-sized versions.

The latter transformation is common for ruby text (see inlinenotes), where small kana are converted visually to full-sized to aid with readability of the text, given that ruby text is written in small character sizes.

To achieve this in web pages use the text-transform CSS property@CSS Text specification,https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#transforming in your style sheet with the following values.

full-width (Not yet supported by browsers.)@CSS Text specification,https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#transforming: Transforms all ASCII characters into fullwidth forms.
full-size-kana (Not yet supported by browsers.)@CSS Text specification,https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#transforming: Converts all small Kana characters to the equivalent full-size Kana.

Eg. the following converts the visual appearance (only) of small kana in ruby text to fullwidth characters, except in headings (where the characters are larger):
rt { font-size: 50%; text-transform: full-size-kana; } :is(h1, h2, h3, h4) rt { text-transform: none; /* unset for large text*/ }

Punctuation & inline features

Phrase & section boundaries

Japanese uses the following separators at the sentence level and below.j,#differences_in_vertical_and_horizontal_composition_in_use_of_punctuation_marks Some of the punctuation looks like that for Latin (eg. parentheses, commas, and full stops), but the width of the punctuation is likely to include significant amounts of white space, so that punctuation characters occupy the same space as han characters.

		H	V
phrase	，
	、
	：
	；
sentence	。
sentence	．
exclamation	！
question	？

、 and 。 are the norm for vertical text, however two alternative conventions as applied to horizontal text: especially in books that mix Japanese and western text, such as books on science and technology, the former may be replaced by ， and ．. Often, however, the ideographic full stop is retained, since it is more visible and looks better (this convention has been adopted for Japanese official publications).j,#differences_in_vertical_and_horizontal_composition_in_use_of_punctuation_marks

As the table shows, these punctuation marks require dedicated glyphs in the font, and cannot be achieved by simply rotating the glyph.

Japanese also uses the following doubled exclamation/question marks. They remain upright in vertical text.

‼
⁇
⁈
⁉

Other punctuation used to separate phrases or items includes:

	H	V
⸺
——

If EM DASH characters are used, they are used in pairs.

Bracketed text

For general parentheses and bracketing in text, Japanese uses:

		H	V
（	）
［	］		-
〔	〕	-

〔 and its closing partner are the vertical equivalent of ［, which is used in horizontal text.

Although there are a number of other bracket characters (listed just below), they are less commonly used.

【␣】␣〖␣〗␣｛␣｝

Quotations & citations

Japanese uses different quote marks for horizontal and vertical writing. The default quote marks are:

		H	V
“	”		-
「	」
〝	〟	-

When an additional quote is embedded within the first, the quote marks are:

		H	V
‘	’		-
『	』	-

Emphasis

Japanese sometimes uses katakana characters to create visual emphasis. uk,720

もうダメだ moː dame da it's too late!

Japanese Layout Requirements lists the following ways of showing emphasis in Japanese.

Select a different typeface (eg. a Gothic font in Mincho text).
Use 「 and 」 or 〈 and 〉.
Change the colour.
Underline. (See also text_decoration)
Boten marks (also known as emphasis marks).

Note that this list doesn't include italicisation or bolding of text. (1) and (2) are popular approaches. (5) is not as common, but is a traditional approach with some value attached.

Different boten marks are used in horizontal and vertical text. Typically, bullets are used above characters in horizontal text, and sesame dots are used to the right of characters in vertical text.j,#composition_of_emphasis_dots

The boten mark is centre-aligned with the base characters in horizontal text, and middle-aligned in vertical text, and doesn't normally appear alongside full stops, commas, or brackets.j,#composition_of_emphasis_dots

Horizontal text and boten marks. — Boten marks used for emphasis in horizontal and vertical text. (source)

Embedded text in other languages would have boten marks displayed on the same side as for Japanese.

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

tbd

Abbreviation

ヶ␣〆␣ゟ␣ヿ␣〼

Japanese has a number of logograms used as abbreviations.

ヶ is a reasonably common shorthand for the character 箇, which is a counter for months, places or provisions. It is pronounced ka or ko, and is not related to the larger kana ケ, which is pronounced ke. See also @Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_ke.

三ヶ月

３ヶ

〆 is primarily used as a short form of ʃime from the verb 閉める. For example, it can be used as follows in place of the word 締切.@Wiktionary,https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/〆#Japanese

〆切

ゟ is a ligature of the word より.

ヿ is a shorthand for the word 事.

〼 is derived from a semi-pictogram for a small wooden measuring box called masu. It then moved on to represent a shorthand for the grammatical ending for the present tense verb, which has the same sound.

Repetition

々␣〻␣ゝ␣ゞ␣ヽ␣ヾ

Japanese has a number of iteration marks that repeat the previous syllable or word. The repeated sound may differ slightly due to rendaku sound changes.

々 and 〻 are used to repeat kanji characters; the former for horizontal text, and the latter (rare) for vertical text.

人々島〻

There are separate marks for hiragana and katakana, and within that division there are separate marks for syllables that begin with a voiced stop. ゝ and ゞ are used to denote hiragana ordinary and voiced stop repetitions, respectively. The katakana equivalents are ヽ and ヾ.

かゝしたゞしバナヽ

It is not common, but it is possible to find horizontal text that repeats the iteration mark in order to repeat multiple characters.

馬鹿々々しい

See also @Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration_mark#Japanese.

〱␣〲␣〳␣〴␣〵

Japanese also has a set of graphemes to indicate repetition of multiple characters, although they are mostly obsolete these days.@Wikipedia,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration_mark#Japanese They are only used in vertical text, and they take up 2 character spaces.

The Unicode Standard also provides half forms, which can be combined to span the 2 character distance.

いろ〳〵 — Iterators for multiple syllables in vertical text. The last item uses 2 half glyphs.

離れ〲 — Iterators for multiple syllables in vertical text. The last item uses 2 half glyphs.

Inline notes & annotations

Japanese has a few ways of representing inline notes and annotations.

Ruby

Various ways of arranging inter-linear annotations alongside text fall under the rubrique of ruby (named from the British print size originally used for the annotations). These include mono-ruby, jukugo-ruby, and group-ruby, and they are described in detail below.

Ruby is commonly used to indicate the pronunciation of ideographic characters used in Japanese, as it cannot usually be guessed and so can pose difficulties for those learning the language. For these cases, mono-ruby is most commonly used, however a variant, jukugo-ruby, is sometimes applied to compound nouns (which are called jukugo in Japanese).

Where sequences of kanji characters do not have the same pronunciation as the sum of their parts (called jukuji), such as the following two words, group ruby is used to represent the sound.j,#h-note-109

Click on the words to see their composition.

田舎今日

Ruby annotations are also used to provide brief indications of the meaning of words or characters. These annotations typically use the group-ruby approach. The most typical example of this is attaching ruby text to a kanji compound word to indicate a corresponding loan word in katakana (see fig_group_ruby).j,#id221 Group ruby is also used to indicate the reading or the meaning of a Western word used in base text, or where a synonymous Western word in Latin characters is attached as a ruby annotation to a Japanese word (see Figure 112).

The rest of this section describes features that are generally common to all forms of ruby, before we move on to examine the differences in following subsections.

All annotations appear within the standard inter-line space for the page, and don't create extra line height if they only appear on a single line. The inter-line space is usually set at an appropriate size to accommodate annotations.

Unlike Chinese, it is common to find annotations applied just to specific words, rather than annotating the whole text.

Ruby annotations normally appear above horizontal lines of text, and to the right of vertical lines. Occasionally, both phonetic and semantic annotations are applied to the same base text, in which case the annotations appear on both sides of the base. A typical scenario in these cases would be to have mono-ruby above/right of the base, and group-ruby below/left.j,#choice_of_sides_for_ruby_with_respect_to_base_characters

The character frame of kana annotations is usually half that of the base character. Occasionally, annotations are compressed in one direction (depending of direction of writing) so that 3 fit over a single base character.j,#fig2_3_10 In large text (12pt or more), such as headings, the size of the annotation may be less that half that of the base.j,#fig2_3_11

Mono-ruby

Usually applied to kanji base characters, each base character is associated individually with an annotation.

Annotations are normally centred over the base character in horizontal text, and with the middle of the base character in vertical text. (called nakatsuki). An alternative, used only in vertical text, is to align the annotation with the top of the character frame of the base character (katatsuki)j,#id227, as in the righthand example in fig_jukugo.

推/すい/理/り/小/しょう/説/せつ (detective novel) — Mono-ruby for detective novel, in horizontal and vertical text (colouring added for illustrative purposes).

推/すい/理/り/小/しょう/説/せつ (detective novel) vertical — Mono-ruby for detective novel, in horizontal and vertical text (colouring added for illustrative purposes).

Since the annotation characters are usually 1/2 the size of the base characters, 3-character annotations require more space that the underlying kanji. Internally to the sequence, this will produce a gap between the base characters, since annotations cannot overlap (see fig_mono_ruby).

At either end of the sequence, either a gap is opened up between the base character with the long annotation and its neighbour (see fig_overhang), or the annotation may overhang the neighbouring base characters. Simpler implementations produce gaps, but allow annotations to overhang any blank parts of adjacent fullwidth punctuation characters. More sophisticated applications may allow overlap of kana or other characters, though never kanjij,#232, but may also have to deal more complicated algorithms, such as balancing space on either side of the ruby sequence, or deciding what can and cannot be overlapped, and to what extent.j,#id229 j,#adjustments_of_ruby_with_length_longer_than_that_of_the_base_characters

Alternative ways of dealing with potential overhang either side of the ruby sequence.

At line start or line end, long annotations do not protrude past the line edge – meaning that there will be a gap between the base character and the line edge.

Gaps produced at line end and line start by wide annotations.

Lines can be broken in the middle of a sequence of mono-ruby annotations, since an associated base and annotation are kept together.

Group ruby

Applies when the base is a sequence of characters, mapped to a single annotation. The base can be a sequence of either kanji or other characters, as can be the annotation.

When the annotation is shorter than the base, and the annotation is composed of kana or kanji characters, they are typically spread out with two units of equal spacing between each character and one at either end. The end space should never exceed half the width of a base character.j,#positioning_of_groupruby_with_respect_to_base_characters

When the base is shorter than the annotation, the inverse applies.

顧客/クライアント — 模型 mokei model and 顧客 kokjaku client with katakana group-ruby annotations indicating loan word alternatives.

模型/モデル — 模型 mokei model and 顧客 kokjaku client with katakana group-ruby annotations indicating loan word alternatives.

If the annotation or the base is not kanji or kana, the text is set solid and centred relative to the other component (see fig_latin_ruby).

編集者/editor — Group-ruby involving non-Japanese text.

editor/エデイター — Group-ruby involving non-Japanese text.

Overhang behaviour is the same as described for mono-ruby, as is the handling at line ends when the annotation is longer than the base.

Unlike a sequence of mono-ruby, there is no line-break opportunity inside a group-ruby.

Jukugo-ruby

Where compound nouns (jukugo) occur, special rules for arrangement of annotation characters (so-called jukugo-ruby) can make it appear that they are evenly distributed across the word (see the lefthand example in fig_jukugo), but there are rules about how much and what type of overhang are allowed, which sometimes lead to gaps (see the righthand example of fig_jukugo).

橋頭堡/きようとうほ (beachhead) — Two examples of distributed annotations in jukugo-ruby. On the right, a gap appears in the annotation because of the rules about overhang.

思春期/ししゅんき (puberty) — Two examples of distributed annotations in jukugo-ruby. On the right, a gap appears in the annotation because of the rules about overhang.

An important feature of jukugo-ruby is that where the full compound noun doesn't fit at the end of a line the base characters wrap one-by-one in the normal way, taking with them the appropriate annotations. The annotation for a single base character is never split across a line break.

It is up to the author whether a word that is actually a sequence or 2 compound nouns is treated as a single jukugo ruby, or as two separate ones.

There are numerous options for overhang and arrangement of jukugo-ruby annotations. They are discussed in detail in JLReq.

Inline ruby

Where text sizes are too small for ruby characters to be easily read, the ruby annotation is typically rendered after the base text, in parentheses.

Inline annotations should normally correspond to full words, even if the sequence of base characters would otherwise be represented using mono-ruby. For example, the inline representation of the word 東京 should be displayed inline as 東京（とうきょう） and not 東（とう）京（きょう）

Warichu

Warichu is a method of adding notes right alongside the relevant text, used particularly in study guides, travel guides, reference books, encyclopedias and manuals. It is generally only used in vertical text, although it is occasionally used in horizontal text for study guides and encyclopedias.

The note is usually surrounded by parentheses (or rarely just spaces), and the text of the note is half the size of the main text and arranged in two parallel lines. The two parallel lines are usually set with no inter-line spacing.

The warichu lines should be as close to equal in length as possible, given the normal wrapping rules, and if there is a difference, the initial line (right side) should be the longer.

In the rare event that the warichu text breaks across more than one line (see fig_warichu on the right), both lines of the warichu on the first line of the main text should be read completely before continuing to the remainder of the note. The characters in memory follow the normal reading sequence (and use normal characters, too), but the application needs to rearrange the visual order around the line break.

Text decoration & other inline features

Text decoration

Underlines may be used to emphasise words or phrases. (Emphasis can also be indicated in other ways, such as using dots alongside the line – see Emphasis. This section focuses on the practical mechanics of underlining.)

When lines or other text decoration are used, they normally appear below horizontal text, and to the left of vertical text.

If a line of Japanese text contains some text in another language and orthography, the position of any text decoration should follow the Japanese conventions.

Other punctuation

Observation: This section needs to be edited. Some punctuation marks should be discussed in other sections, and more explanations are needed for those items that remain.

CLDR 31 lists the following punctuation characters for Japanese. First the fullwidth forms of normal characters.

－␣，␣、␣；␣：␣！␣？␣．␣＇␣＂␣（␣）␣［␣］␣｛␣｝␣＠␣＊␣／␣＼␣＆␣＃␣％

Then the halfwidth forms.

･␣、␣､␣。␣｡␣｢␣｣

And finally, the other punctuation.

-␣‐␣—␣―␣〜␣,␣、␣;␣:␣!␣?␣.␣‥␣…␣。␣‘␣’␣"␣“␣”␣(␣)␣[␣]␣{␣}␣〈␣〉␣《␣》␣「␣」␣『␣』␣【␣】␣〔␣〕␣‖␣§␣¶␣@␣*␣/␣\␣&␣#␣%␣‰␣†␣‡␣′␣″␣〃␣※

The katakana block contains two additional punctuation marks.

・␣゠

・ is used to separate words when writing non-Japanese phrases.uk,720

゠ is a delimiter occasionally used in analyzed Katakana or Hiragana textual material.

The hiragana block contains some combining and modifier characters used to represent dakuten and han-dakuten for compatibility with older systems.

゙␣゚␣゛␣゜

The kana blocks each have two marks that are used to indicate repetition of a syllable – one for syllables with unvoiced consonants and another for voiced. The table below shows the hiragana first, then the katakana. In both cases there is a character for repetition of ordinary syllables, and one for repetition of syllables with dakuten.

ゝ␣ゞ␣ヽ␣ヾ

Unicode also has 3000 for occasions where it is needed.

Line & paragraph layout

Line breaking & hyphenation

Lines are normally wrapped between characters – word boundaries usually have no significance for the wrapping. However, occasionally there is a preference to wrap text at word boundaries, eg. to better balance headings.

Line start/end rules

Kanji characters have the ID line-break property, which means that lines can ordinarily break before and after and between pairs of ideographic characters. Note that this class also includes characters other than Han ideographs.

Kinsoku rules. Japanese should also take into account a few rules (called kinsoku rules) which dictate what characters cannot appear at the end or start of a line. The set of characters affected by these rules varies slightly from application to application, but fig_kinsoku_start and fig_kinsoku_start show examples of the kinds of punctuation involved.

’ ” ）》〉】〗〕］｝
。．、，・：；？！ヽヾゝゞ々 % º

Characters typically not permitted at the start of a line.

‘ “ （［〔《〈【｛
¥ $ £

Characters typically not permitted at the end of a line.

Show (default) line-breaking properties for non-kanji characters in the Japanese orthography described here.

There are a number of ways to handle these characters:

Wrap the previous character to the next line with the punctuation.
Leave the punctuation character protruding into the margin (if there is one).
Ignore the kinsoku rules.

Where a gap appears at the end of a line, full justification is usually restored by adding space across the line (see justification).

Small kana. These kinsoku rules may also be used to prevent small kana characters appearing alone at the start of a line. However, this is much more likely to reflect the preferences of the author. For example, the rule may be ignored in narrow newspaper columns.

人間は、理性と良心とを授けられており互いに同胞の精神をもって行動しなければならない — Kinsoku rules used to prevent a small kana character appearing alone at the start of a line.

Hyphenation

There is no hyphenation at line-breaks for Japanese text.

Text alignment & justification

The preferred arrangement of characters on a line is solid set, ie. each character frame immediately follows the previous one, each with the same width. In principle, in books where the width of the text area on a page is set by counting characters and fixed, paragraphs composed of kanji and kana characters don't need to be justified. Lines break as soon as the line is full of characters, and the whole paragraph has grid lines vertically and horizontally between the characters.

However, a number of factors may introduce a need to introduce justification, from time to time. One such would be punctuation that pulls the last character of the previous line with it to the next line, so that it doesn't begin a line on its own. Another would be web-based text where windows can be stretched, resulting in a situation where the width of a line no longer exactly corresponds to the sum of the width of all the characters on that line. Other situations include lines where proportionally-spaced romaji text breaks the grid effect.

Japanese justifies text using a complex set of rules which adjust the space between characters on a line. Some characters are adjusted before others. Typically in character-based justification, rules are applied to different types of character in successive waves. For example, the algorithm may attempt to reduce the spacing around punctuation first, and only when more adjustment is needed turn to adjusting the spacing between ideographs.

In situations where a set of lines each contains self-contained text, the line content may be stretched to fit the line width, for example in table cells. In this case it is typical to set the first and last characters at the line start and end, respectively, and then apply equal amounts of spacing between all remaining characters. This can result in large gaps, including lines where the two characters are arranged at opposite line ends with nothing between. See fig_distributed_spacing.

Distributed spacing example. — Evenly distributed spaces across a line in a table. Source`j,#id25`

Paragraph alignment

It is common for the start of a paragraph in Japanese text to be indicated by indenting the first line, rather than adding inter-paragraph leading. The indentation is generally one full character width, although there are complications when a line begins with certain characters, such as brackets or parentheses.

Text spacing

This section looks at ways in which spacing is applied between characters over and above that which is introduced during basic justification. That said, the text spacing techniques described here may also be used or folded in when creating a fully justified paragraph.

Inter-character letter-spacing

Letter-spacing is used to achieve balance between items with large and small numbers of characters, such as headings, running heads, and captions. When expanding text, equal amounts of space are added between the character frames of the item with the smaller number of characters.

Examples of headings where letter spacing has been applied.

Reducing inter-character spacing. Although solid set text is normally best for readability, in large print sizes, such as for magazine headings, it may be desirable to reduce the distance between certain characters. This is typically done by reducing the distance between adjacent letter faces.

Sometimes, text may also be kerned by overlapping the character frames by a regular amount across a whole line.

Spacing around alphabetic or numeric phrases

When a run of romaji or ASCII numerals appears in text, it is often set off from the surrounding kanji/kana letters by a small space.

The amount of spacing can vary. JLREQj,#id209 suggests a ¼em space, but sometimes other spaces may be appropriate, such as ⅙em.gh

A Japanese paragraph where text-spacing has and has not been applied. (source)

Such spacing is not needed when the phrase is followed or preceded by punctuation that already has built in space. It also doesn't appear at the line start/end.

To achieve this in web pages use the text-autospace CSS property in your style sheet; don't use space characters. For full details of the options available see the CSS spec.

By default, the browser should insert a gap automatically between runs of ideographs and runs of both non-ideographic letters/numerals. The size of the gap is dependent on the browser, however the CSS spec suggests 1/8 of the width of an ideographic character.

There are 2 ways in which CSS can add gaps. If the text already contains gaps produced using ordinary space characters the CSS will, by default, only add gaps where there are no spaces. If, on the other hand, you want to reduce the width of the those space-based gaps, or apply even spacing throughout, then use the replace value. text-autospace:ideograph-alpha ideograph-numeric replace; will remove any space characters and replace them with a standard width gap, while also creating gaps where the space character hadn't been used.

To remove all synthesised gaps (but leave any manually-typed space characters in place) use text-autospace:no-autospace.

The other values can be used to tweak the results as follows.

normal (Not yet supported by browsers.)§: Restores the default setting of the browser, ie. it creates a gap between runs of ideographs and runs of non-ideographic letters or numerals., but only inserts a gap where an ordinary space has not been used.
ideograph-alpha or ideograph-numeric (Not yet supported by browsers.)§: These 2 values can be used individually to exclude the other option..
auto (Not yet supported by browsers.)§: Gives over control of autospace behaviour to the browser, assuming that the browser has implemented special rules that differ from the normal case. Note that if you use this value your text may look different from browser to browser.

Most of the time you will probably want to use the following:
text-autospace: ideograph-alpha ideograph-numeric replace;

Spacing around punctuation

Punctuation such as full stop, comma, parentheses, etc. normally has built-in space associated with it because the ink takes up only a part of the em square. However, in some situations, the blank space is not appropriate.

When text is arranged on a strict grid pattern, none of this space removal applies.

Sequences of punctuation. One such example is when multiple punctuation marks appear side by side. fig_text_space_adjacent shows how space can be removed between a fullwidth comma and fullwidth bracket to reduce large blank spaces. It shouldn't be necessary to use halfwidth characters for this; you should use normal characters and the application should remove the appropriate amount of space automatically.

Space has been removed on the left to make the text more readable.

It is not yet possible to control this in web pages, but the CSS Text spec proposes a way forward using the text-spacing CSS property^§. The relevant property values are:

trim-adjacent (Not yet supported by browsers.): Collapses spacing between punctuation glyphs.
space-adjacent (Not yet supported by browsers.): Keeps the space before fullwidth opening punctuation when not at the start of the line. Keeps the space after fullwidth closing punctuation when not at the end of the line.

Eg. the following collapses spaces between punctuation marks:
text-spacing: trim-adjacent;

Line-initial punctuation. Similarly, space may be removed from punctuation at the start or the end of a line. If we use a bracket as an example, the ink of the bracket should be flush with the line start when that bracket occurs inside a paragraph. Where paragraphs are separated by a blank line, the bracket at the start of the first line should also be flush with the left edge of the text.

It is common, however, to have no blank line before a Japanese paragraph, but instead indent the paragraph's first line. Usually this indent is the width of one fullwidth character. If the line begins with a punctuation such as a bracket, the empty space that usually precedes a fullwidth bracket is still dropped, but the line is set so that the glyph hangs into the indent (which, visually, looks like it is preceded by a half-width space). fig_text_space_para shows examples of this.

Space is removed from a bracket at the start of a line, but not at the beginning of a paragraph. (source)

It is not yet possible to achieve this in web pages, but the CSS Text spec proposes a way forward using the text-spacing CSS property^§.

A typical way of setting styling for indented paragraphs would therefore include something like this

p {
  margin: 0;
  text-indent: 1em;
  text-spacing: trim-start;
  hanging-punctuation: first;
  }

The relevant property values are:

text-space: trim-start (Not yet supported by browsers.): Sets fullwidth opening punctuation flush (ie. removes the leading space from fullwidth glyphs) at the start of each line.
text-space: space-start (Not yet supported by browsers.): Keeps the space before all fullwidth opening punctuation at the beginning of every line (ie. full-width glyphs).
text-indent: 1em: Indents the first line of a paragraph by 1 character space.
hanging-punctuation: first (Not yet supported by browsers.): An opening bracket or quote at the start of the first formatted line of an element hangs. This applies to all characters in the Unicode categories Ps, Pf, Pi plus the ASCII quote marks ' U+0027 APOSTROPHE and " U+0022 QUOTATION MARK.

In some cases, the paragraph-start line indentation has been achieved by adding a fullwidth bracket at the start of the paragraph (rather than indentation), while removing the leading space from other brackets in the paragraph. Indentations for lines that don't begin with a bracket-like punctuation will typically use an ideographic space character rather than styling to create the indent (because line indentation doesn't behave differently depending on whether a line starts with a bracket). This approach is not recommended, because it impedes the ability of authors to change behaviour simply through changing the styling, but to provide a workaround for legacy text in this situation, CSS proposes another value:

space-first (Not yet supported by browsers, and not recommended for normal use.): Behaves as space-start on the first line the block container and each line after a forced line break but as trim-start on all other lines.

Line-final punctuation. It is often useful to remove trailing space from a fullwidth punctuation glyph if it allows that character to fit at the end of a line (rather than wrapping it to the next line).

Again, it is not yet possible to achieve this in web pages, but the CSS Text spec proposes a way forward using the text-spacing CSS property^§. The relevant property values are:

allow-end (Not yet supported by browsers.): Removes trailing space from fullwidth closing punctuation at the end of each line if it does not otherwise fit prior to justification; otherwise set the punctuation with full-width glyphs. .
trim-end (Not yet supported by browsers.): Removes trailing space from fullwidth closing punctuation at the end of every line.
space-end (Not yet supported by browsers.): Keeps the space after all fullwidth closing punctuation at the end of every line (ie. full-width glyphs).

Baselines, line height, etc.

The standard baseline for kanji and kana characters is slightly lower than the alphabetic baseline used for Latin characters. Mixed script text needs to align baselines correctly.

fig_baselines shows metrics for the Hiragino Mincho Pro font. In this font the maximum height of the Japanese letters reaches slightly higher than the Latin ascenders, but not as low as the Latin descenders.

qhx国的性もと — Font metrics for text in the Hiragino Mincho Pro font.

Japanese characters have no ascenders or descenders, but occupy the square space described earlier. Some characters use more of the square space than others, as can be seen in fig_baselines.

Counters, lists, etc.

You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.

Japanese text uses a number of different counter styles. Some of the more common include full-width European numbers, which in vertical text stand upright. Unicode has various sets of numbers that can be useful here.

For the dotted-decimal numeric style Unicode provides precomposed characters from 1 to 20.

⒈␣⒉␣⒊␣⒋␣⒌␣⒍␣⒎␣⒏␣⒐␣⒑␣⒒␣⒓␣⒔␣⒕␣⒖␣⒗␣⒘␣⒙␣⒚␣⒛

For the circled-decimal numeric style Unicode provides characters from 1 to 50.

⓪␣①␣②␣③␣④␣⑤␣⑥␣⑦␣⑧␣⑨␣⑩␣⑪␣⑫␣⑬␣⑭␣⑮␣⑯␣⑰␣⑱␣⑲␣⑳␣㉑␣㉒␣㉓␣㉔␣㉕␣㉖␣㉗␣㉘␣㉙␣㉚␣㉛␣㉜␣㉝␣㉞␣㉟␣㊱␣㊲␣㊳␣㊴␣㊵␣㊶␣㊷␣㊸␣㊹␣㊺␣㊻␣㊼␣㊽␣㊾␣㊿

The Japanese orthography also uses kanji or kana characters to create 1 fixed, 4 alphabetic, and 2 additive styles.

Fixed

The circled-katakana fixed style uses the following letters. The suffix is a space, and the numbers run from 1 to 47.

㋐␣㋑␣㋒␣㋓␣㋔␣㋕␣㋖␣㋗␣㋘␣㋙␣㋚␣㋛␣㋜␣㋝␣㋞␣㋟␣㋠␣㋡␣㋢␣㋣␣㋤␣㋥␣㋦␣㋧␣㋨␣㋩␣㋪␣㋫␣㋬␣㋭␣㋮␣㋯␣㋰␣㋱␣㋲␣㋳␣㋴␣㋵␣㋶␣㋷␣㋸␣㋹␣㋺␣㋻␣㋼␣㋽␣㋾

Alphabetic

The alphabetic styles all use 、 as a suffix (with no following space). The iroha style ordering is based on the order of characters in a pangram poem dating from the Heian era (794–1179).

The hiragana alphabetic style uses these 48 hiragana characters in the order in which they are typically arranged.

あ␣い␣う␣え␣お␣か␣き␣く␣け␣こ␣さ␣し␣す␣せ␣そ␣た␣ち␣つ␣て␣と␣な␣に␣ぬ␣ね␣の␣は␣ひ␣ふ␣へ␣ほ␣ま␣み␣む␣め␣も␣や␣ゆ␣よ␣ら␣り␣る␣れ␣ろ␣わ␣ゐ␣ゑ␣を␣ん

Examples:

あ␣い␣う␣え␣さ␣に␣む␣わ␣いそ␣えほ␣かゐ␣けし

The hiragana-iroha alphabetic style uses 47 hiragana characters in the order shown just below.

い␣ろ␣は␣に␣ほ␣へ␣と␣ち␣り␣ぬ␣る␣を␣わ␣か␣よ␣た␣れ␣そ␣つ␣ね␣な␣ら␣む␣う␣ゐ␣の␣お␣く␣や␣ま␣け␣ふ␣こ␣え␣て␣あ␣さ␣き␣ゆ␣め␣み␣し␣ゑ␣ひ␣も␣せ␣す

Examples:

い␣ろ␣は␣に␣る␣ら␣こ␣ひ␣ろれ␣にえ␣とに␣りな

The katakana alphabetic style uses these 48 hiragana characters in the order in which they are typically arranged.

ア␣イ␣ウ␣エ␣オ␣カ␣キ␣ク␣ケ␣コ␣サ␣シ␣ス␣セ␣ソ␣タ␣チ␣ツ␣テ␣ト␣ナ␣ニ␣ヌ␣ネ␣ノ␣ハ␣ヒ␣フ␣ヘ␣ホ␣マ␣ミ␣ム␣メ␣モ␣ヤ␣ユ␣ヨ␣ラ␣リ␣ル␣レ␣ロ␣ワ␣ヰ␣ヱ␣ヲ␣ン

Examples:

ア␣イ␣ウ␣エ␣サ␣ニ␣ム␣ワ␣イソ␣エホ␣カヰ␣ケシ

The katakana-iroha alphabetic style uses 47 hiragana characters in the order shown just below.

イ␣ロ␣ハ␣ニ␣ホ␣ヘ␣ト␣チ␣リ␣ヌ␣ル␣ヲ␣ワ␣カ␣ヨ␣タ␣レ␣ソ␣ツ␣ネ␣ナ␣ラ␣ム␣ウ␣ヰ␣ノ␣オ␣ク␣ヤ␣マ␣ケ␣フ␣コ␣エ␣テ␣ア␣サ␣キ␣ユ␣メ␣ミ␣シ␣ヱ␣ヒ␣モ␣セ␣ス

Examples:

イ␣ロ␣ハ␣ニ␣ル␣ラ␣コ␣ヒ␣ロレ␣ニエ␣トニ␣リナ

Additive

The Japanese additive styles have a range -9,999 to 9,999 and use kanji characters only. The suffix is 、, and negative numbers are preceded by マイナス.

The japanese-informal additive style uses these letters.

九千␣八千␣七千␣六千␣五千␣四千␣三千␣二千␣千␣九百␣八百␣七百␣六百␣五百␣四百␣三百␣二百␣百␣九十␣八十␣七十␣六十␣五十␣四十␣三十␣二十␣十␣九␣八␣七␣六␣五␣四␣三␣二␣一␣〇

Examples:

一␣二␣三␣四␣十一␣二十二␣三十三␣四十四␣百十一␣二百二十二␣三百三十三␣四百四十四

The japanese-formal additive style uses these letters.

九阡␣八阡␣七阡␣六阡␣伍阡␣四阡␣参阡␣弐阡␣壱阡␣九百␣八百␣七百␣六百␣伍百␣四百␣参百␣弐百␣壱百␣九拾␣八拾␣七拾␣六拾␣伍拾␣四拾␣参拾␣弐拾␣壱拾␣九␣八␣七␣六␣伍␣四␣参␣弐␣壱␣零

Examples:

壱␣弐␣参␣四␣壱拾壱␣弐拾弐␣参拾参␣四拾四␣壱百壱拾壱␣弐百弐拾弐␣参百参拾参␣四百四拾四

Prefixes and suffixes

The most common suffix is 、. The fixed styles have no prefix/suffix.

Examples:

一、二、三、四、五、

あ、い、う、え、お、

Separator for Japanese list counters.

Styling initials

Large paragraph-initial characters can easily be found in Japanese content. The character typically fills a box that is the height (or width, in vertically-set text) of 2-4 lines.

An enlarged initial character at the beginning of a paragraph.

Notes, footnotes, etc

See inlinenotes for purely inline annotations, such as ruby or warichu. This section is about annotation systems that separate the reference marks and the content of the notes.

※ can be used in text to set up a footnote reference, and in the footnotes themselves. It can be followed by a number when there are multiple notes, eg. ※1, ※2, etc.

Wikipedia provides the following example.

・・・、動物の性にはオスとメスがある※。・・・\・・・。\※ただし両性の動物も存在する。 — Footnote reference mark.

	labial	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p b	t d			k ɡ
affricate		t͡s d͡z	t͡ɕ d͡ʑ
fricative	ɸ	s z	ɕ ʑ	ç			h
nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
approximant	w			j
trill/flap		r

Japanese

Sample

Usage & history

Basic features

Character index

Letters

Kana

Modifier letters

CJK compatibility characters

Half-width katakana

Other

Combining marks

Punctuation

ASCII

Numbers

Symbols

Other

Phonology

Vowel sounds

Plain vowels

Consonant sounds

Tone

Structure

Characters

Kanji characters

CJK compatibility characters

Kana syllabaries

Long vowels

Particles

Small kana

Yotsugana

Archaic characters

Halfwidth katakana

Text direction

Glyph shaping & positioning

Font styles

Context-based shaping & positioning

Transforming characters

Typographic units

Word boundaries

Graphemes

Codepoint order

Punctuation & inline features

Phrase & section boundaries

Bracketed text

Quotations & citations

Emphasis

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

Abbreviation

Repetition

Inline notes & annotations

Ruby

Mono-ruby

Group ruby

Jukugo-ruby

Inline ruby

Warichu

Text decoration & other inline features

Text decoration

Other punctuation

Line & paragraph layout

Line breaking & hyphenation

Line start/end rules

Hyphenation

Text alignment & justification

Paragraph alignment

Text spacing

Inter-character letter-spacing

Spacing around alphabetic or numeric phrases

Spacing around punctuation

Baselines, line height, etc.

Counters, lists, etc.

Fixed

Alphabetic

Additive

Prefixes and suffixes

Styling initials

Page & book layout

General page layout & progression

Book binding & reading direction