Katakana / Hiragana Converter
How to Use
Paste or type Japanese text into the input. Choose whether to convert katakana into hiragana or the other way around. Kanji, Latin letters, digits, punctuation, and any other characters are preserved exactly as-is — only the opposite kana class is touched. A character count breakdown shows how much of each kana is present so you can verify the conversion.
Katakana and Hiragana
Japanese uses two parallel syllabaries: hiragana (ひらがな) for native words, grammatical particles, and inflections, and katakana (カタカナ) for loanwords, foreign names, onomatopoeia, and emphasis. The two scripts cover the same set of 46 basic sounds plus modified forms, so a lossless one-to-one mapping exists between them in Unicode.
How the Conversion Works
Hiragana occupies the Unicode range U+3041..U+3096, and katakana occupies U+30A1..U+30F6. The two ranges are exact mirrors of each other, offset by 96 codepoints. Converting from katakana to hiragana subtracts 0x60 from each katakana codepoint; converting the other way adds 0x60. Every other character is passed through unchanged, so mixed text (kanji + kana + Latin) round-trips cleanly.
Common Use Cases
- Japanese-language learners switching text between the two kana systems to practice reading.
- Preparing text for applications that accept only one kana system (e.g., certain furigana displays).
- Normalizing user input where katakana and hiragana should be treated as the same token.
- Creating emphasis variants of existing words by converting hiragana loanword-style to katakana.
- Testing search or sort behavior by feeding the same text in both kana forms.
Tips
- The conversion preserves everything else — kanji, English, numbers, and punctuation stay untouched.
- Small kana (ぁぃぅぇぉっゃゅょ / ァィゥェォッャュョ) are converted correctly, as are dakuten and handakuten forms (がぱ / ガパ).
- Half-width katakana (ｱｲｳｴｵ) is NOT converted — use the full-width / half-width converter first if needed.
- Extended hiragana U+3099..U+309A (combining dakuten marks) is not remapped; it stays as-is.
- The tool is lossless: converting hiragana → katakana → hiragana returns the original text.
Privacy
All conversions happen in your browser. Your text is never sent to any server or stored anywhere.
FAQ
What happens to kanji and English text when I convert?
Only the targeted kana class is changed. Kanji, Latin letters, digits, and punctuation are passed through exactly as-is, so you can safely convert mixed Japanese sentences without losing any non-kana content.
Is the conversion lossless — can I convert back and forth?
Yes. Hiragana and katakana are exact one-to-one mirrors in Unicode, so converting hiragana to katakana and back returns the original text. Small kana, dakuten, and handakuten forms are all mapped correctly.
Does it convert half-width katakana like ｱｲｳ?
No. Only full-width kana (U+30A1–U+30F6 and U+3041–U+3096) are converted. If your text has half-width katakana, run it through a full-width / half-width converter first.
How does the conversion actually work under the hood?
It shifts each kana codepoint by 0x60 — subtracting it converts katakana to hiragana and adding it does the reverse. This is a pure character-level transform with no dictionary, so it does not reflect readings of kanji.
Is my text sent to a server during conversion?
No. Everything runs in your browser; your text is never uploaded or stored. A live per-kana character count is shown locally so you can verify the result.