Type Hiragana and Katakana online — switch scripts, add voiced consonants and small kana, then copy or download your text. Free, no installation required.
A Japanese virtual keyboard is an on-screen keyboard that lets you type Hiragana and Katakana characters by clicking or tapping — without a physical Japanese keyboard or an Input Method Editor (IME). This tool is organized around the traditional gojūon (五十音, "fifty sounds") grid: ten rows of up to five syllables each, arranged by consonant row (か行, さ行…) and vowel column (a, i, u, e, o).
This online Japanese keyboard covers the full gojūon for both Hiragana (あいうえお…) and Katakana (アイウエオ…), all voiced and semi-voiced consonants (dakuten ゛ and handakuten ゜ variants), small kana (ぁぃぅぇぉゃゅょっ), the prolongation mark ー, and common Japanese punctuation including the Japanese period (。), Japanese comma (、) and corner brackets (「」).
Three script layers are available via the buttons above the keyboard:
Click or tap any key to insert the character at the current cursor position in the text area. You can click inside the text area at any point to reposition the cursor and continue adding characters there. The Backspace key removes the character before the cursor; Space inserts a full-width space. Use the action buttons — Copy, Download .txt or Clear — to manage your text.
Both Hiragana and Katakana represent exactly the same set of 46 base syllables plus variants. The choice of script is determined by context, not pronunciation:
In practice, most Japanese sentences mix kanji, hiragana and katakana. Because this tool does not include an IME for kanji conversion, it is best suited for writing kana-only text, testing font rendering with Japanese characters, and composing short phrases that do not require kanji.
Japanese has two diacritic marks that modify consonant sounds:
Switch to the Voiced layer to access all precomposed dakuten and handakuten characters in a single view. For voiced Katakana (ガ, ザ, ダ, バ, パ…), switch to the Katakana layer — voiced Katakana variants are used just as frequently as their Hiragana counterparts in Japanese text.
Type こんにちは (konnichiwa, "hello") in the Hiragana layer: click こ → ん → に → ち → は. For a double consonant like きって (stamp), use the small っ key from the small kana row before the second consonant.
Switch to Katakana and type コーヒー (kōhī, "coffee"): コ → ー → ヒ → ー. The prolongation mark ー is always in the last row. For コンピューター (computer): コ → ン → ピ → ュ → ー → タ → ー.
Mix Hiragana, Katakana and punctuation to build a realistic Japanese sentence. Copy the result and paste into your app, design tool or code editor to verify Japanese font support and line-wrap behaviour.
No. Kanji input requires an IME (Input Method Editor) that converts romaji or kana sequences into the correct kanji based on context — a conversion layer that cannot be implemented as a simple virtual keyboard. This tool focuses on Hiragana, Katakana, small kana and punctuation, which are sufficient for kana-only writing, loanword composition and CJK rendering tests.
The gojūon (五十音, "fifty sounds") is the traditional ordering of Japanese syllables in a 10×5 grid, grouped by consonant row (あ行, か行, さ行…) and vowel column (a, i, u, e, o). This layout is used here instead of a QWERTY romaji mapping because it shows every kana character explicitly — you click the character you want rather than typing its romaji transliteration. It is also the layout used by Japanese mobile phone keyboards.
The ya-row (や行) only has three active sounds — ya, yu, yo — because the yi and ye positions became obsolete in modern Japanese. The wa-row (わ行) similarly has only wa (わ), wo (を) and n (ん); the archaic wi (ゐ) and we (ゑ) characters are excluded. Empty positions are shown as blank keys to preserve the visual grid structure and help learners understand the gojūon pattern.
The katakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark (ー, U+30FC) extends the preceding vowel by one mora. It is used almost exclusively in Katakana loanwords: コーヒー (kōhī, coffee), ビール (bīru, beer), スーパー (sūpā, supermarket). Occasionally it appears in informal Hiragana writing for stylistic effect. The ー key is in the bottom row of this keyboard for easy access from any script layer.
Small kana (小文字) are reduced-size versions of certain characters: ぁ ぃ ぅ ぇ ぉ ゃ ゅ ょ ゎ っ (and their Katakana equivalents). They are not standalone syllables — they combine with the preceding character to modify its sound. Common examples: き + ゃ = きゃ (kya); つ → small っ doubles the following consonant (きって, kitte). Click the small kana from the dedicated row and they insert at the cursor position just like any other character.
Yes. Click inside the text area to focus it, then use your physical keyboard to type any characters including Latin letters and numbers. The virtual keyboard inserts at the current cursor position, so you can freely mix physical and on-screen input within the same text area.
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser — no text is sent to any server. Closing or refreshing the page clears the text area permanently.
Yes. Click "Download .txt" to save your text as a UTF-8 encoded plain text file named japanese-text.txt. UTF-8 is the standard encoding for Japanese text and is supported by all modern text editors including Notepad (Windows 10+), TextEdit (macOS) and VS Code.