Furigana and romaji converter
Paste any Japanese text — a sentence from a textbook, a sign, a song title, a message from a friend. You get furigana over every kanji, the whole line in hiragana, and romaji in two spellings. Then listen to it and, if you like, say it: the recorder scores every word and every mora.
- Furigana, hiragana and Hepburn romaji for up to 500 characters
- Word-by-word readings, with the words the dictionary does not know flagged
- Listen, then record yourself — free, no account
How the converter reads kanji
A kanji does not have one reading. 生 is read せい in 先生, なま in 生ビール, う in 生まれる and い in 生きる. So the converter does not look characters up one by one: it splits your text into words with a morphological dictionary of Japanese (IPADIC) and takes each word's reading as a whole. 今日 comes back as きょう, not こんにち, because that is how the word is read in a sentence.
That gets ordinary prose right almost every time. It goes wrong where Japanese itself is ambiguous: personal and place names (中田 can be なかた or なかだ), numbers and counters, and words with two accepted readings. A word the dictionary does not know at all is marked in amber instead of guessed.
Hepburn romaji or kana-for-kana romaji?
There are two spellings because they answer two different questions. Hepburn writes what you say: long vowels get a line over them (Tōkyō, gakkō), the particles は, へ and を are written wa, e and o, and ん before a vowel gets an apostrophe so 禁煙 (kin'en) is not confused with 記念 (kinen). It is the romaji of most textbooks, maps and dictionaries.
Kana-for-kana romaji writes what is spelled, one kana at a time: toukyou, gakkou, watashi ha, hon wo. It looks clumsy, but it is exactly what you type on a Japanese keyboard to get the right kana, so it is the one to copy when you want to type a word you cannot write yet.
| Japanese | Hepburn | Kana for kana | Why they differ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 東京 | Tōkyō | toukyou | Long o: one vowel held for two beats |
| お母さん | okāsan | okaasan | Long a, written with two kana |
| 先生 | sensei | sensei | えい stays ei in Hepburn |
| 私は | watashi wa | watashi ha | The topic particle は is said wa |
| 本を | hon o | hon wo | を is said o |
| 切符 | kippu | kippu | Small っ doubles the next consonant |
| 禁煙 | kin'en | kin'en | ん before a vowel |
Read the furigana, not the romaji
Romaji is useful for the first week and harmful after that. It hides the two things that make Japanese sound Japanese: length and rhythm. In romaji, おばさん (aunt) and おばあさん (grandmother), or きて (come) and きって (stamp), differ by one letter that English readers skip. In kana the extra beat is a whole character you cannot miss.
So use the furigana line as soon as you know hiragana, and keep the romaji for checking. Every kana is one beat, called a mora: 東京 is four beats, と-う-きょ-う, and 切符 is three, き-っ-ぷ, with a silent beat in the middle.
Say it and get scored
Listening is only half of it. Tap Record myself under the readings and say the text: you get a 0–100 score for every word and every mora, and the weakest sound is named. It is the same recorder as the Japanese pronunciation practice page, which takes any text you type and keeps your recent takes.
The score covers the sounds and their timing — vowel length, the small っ, ん, the r-flap, つ — not pitch accent. If pitch is what you are after, the Japanese pitch accent page shows each word's dictionary pattern and draws your own pitch line over it. For a quick read on your overall accent, take the five-word Japanese accent test.
Furigana converter: questions
Is the furigana converter free?+
Yes. Converting text is free and unlimited and needs no account or microphone. Recording yourself is free too, up to a daily number of scored takes.
How accurate are the readings?+
For everyday prose, nearly every word comes back right, because each word is read in context rather than character by character. Names, numbers, counters and rare readings are where it can be wrong; words the dictionary does not know are flagged, not guessed.
Can I convert kanji to hiragana only?+
Yes. The Hiragana line replaces every kanji with its reading and leaves kana, Latin letters and punctuation as you typed them. Copy it with one tap.
Which romaji system does it use?+
Modified Hepburn with macrons (Tōkyō, okāsan) for reading, and kana-for-kana romaji (toukyou, okaasan) for typing on a Japanese keyboard.
Does the recorder check my pitch accent?+
No. It scores every word and every mora — the sounds and their timing. Pitch accent is not scored; the pitch accent page shows it as a picture instead.
Practise Japanese out loud every day
The TonePerfect app gives you short daily speaking sessions in Japanese, with a score on every word and every mora.
Readings: IPADIC morphological dictionary (via kuromoji). Romaji: modified Hepburn rules. Audio: your device's Japanese voice.