Kanji to Hiragana: How to Find the Reading of Any Kanji

Short answer: to turn kanji into hiragana you need its reading in that word, not just the kanji’s list of readings. Look the whole word up in a dictionary, or use a furigana tool and check its guesses, because many words have readings a converter can get wrong.

Why “kanji to hiragana” is not a one-to-one swap

A kanji does not have one fixed hiragana spelling. 生 (life) is read せい in 先生 (sensei, teacher), しょう in 一生 (isshō, a lifetime), い in 生きる (ikiru, to live) and う in 生まれる (umareru, to be born), and it has more readings besides. Which one is right depends on the word.

That is why the useful question is “how is this word read?”, not “what is this kanji in hiragana?”. See onyomi vs kunyomi for why kanji have several readings.

Three ways to get the hiragana

1. Look up the word in a dictionary. Copy or type the whole word, not a single kanji, into a Japanese–English dictionary such as Jisho.org. The entry shows the reading in kana. If the word is not found, try a shorter piece.

2. Use a furigana tool, then check it. Some websites and browser extensions add furigana to Japanese text automatically. They are handy for long texts, but they guess from context. Treat the output as a draft.

3. Learn the reading with the kanji. For the kanji you meet often, learning one or two common words per kanji is faster in the long run than looking them up each time. Every kanji page in Kanji Guide lists on and kun readings in kana with example words; for example 日 lists ニチ, ジツ, ひ and か, with example words.

Words converters often get wrong

Some words have a special reading for the whole word, which you cannot build from the readings of each kanji:

Word	Reading	Meaning	What a naive guess might give
今日	きょう	today	こんにち (a real but different reading, in こんにちは)
明日	あした	tomorrow	みょうにち (formal)
大人	おとな	adult	だいじん / たいじん
一人	ひとり	one person	いちにん
二人	ふたり	two people	ににん
一日	ついたち / いちにち	1st of the month / one day	depends on meaning

Names are even harder: the same kanji in a family or place name can have readings found nowhere else. If a name matters, ask the person or check an official source.

Small spelling details

When you write a word in hiragana, keep these in mind:

• Okurigana stay. In 食べる (taberu) only 食 changes; the result is たべる.
• Sound changes. Some compounds voice the second part: 人々 is ひとびと, not ひとひと.
• Long vowels follow kana rules. 東京 is とうきょう (Tōkyō), with う marking the long o.

For the hiragana themselves, see the hiragana chart.

When you should, and should not, write in hiragana

Writing a word in hiragana is normal when the kanji is rare or when you write for children. For everyday words, though, kanji make text easier to read, not harder, because they show where words begin. See does kanji make Japanese harder to read. For the words Japanese writers put in hiragana even though a kanji exists, such as こと and ていく, see why use hiragana instead of kanji.

If your goal is to read Japanese, the long-term fix is to know the common kanji and their readings, so you need converters less and less. A good next step is how to read kanji without furigana.

Learn the readings that matter

Start with the 81 kanji in the JLPT N5 list, each with its readings in kana. In Kanji Guide every kanji has a picture story for the meaning, plus readings and example words; open the study app or the iPhone app. For which readings to learn first, see which kanji readings to learn first.