Printable Japanese Writing Sheets: Hiragana, Katakana and N5 Kanji

Handwriting is not old-fashioned when it comes to Japanese — it is the fastest way to stop mixing up characters that look alike. Here you can generate hiragana and katakana practice sheets, N5 kanji worksheets and full alphabet charts, then print them on A4 and fill them in with a pen or a marker. It is all free, and the sheets match the stroke-order animations and lessons in the rest of the app.

Open the app Free, no account. Works offline too.

What you can print and how the sheets look

There are two kinds of material here. First, printable hiragana writing practice sheets: a model character followed by empty boxes where you copy it. You print them straight from the browser, or save them as a PDF from the print dialog. You can pick the box size — 8 mm for a pen, 15 mm for a marker — and the page orientation, portrait or landscape. Second, colour-coded alphabet charts — a hiragana chart and a katakana chart, both sized for A4, with every character grouped by vowel row, the kind of thing you tape to the wall next to your desk. The printable N5 kanji practice sheets follow the same layout, with a large model character and room to repeat it. Everything is built for A4, with generous margins so you do not lose the outer boxes.

The order to learn in, so you do not get stuck

Start with hiragana, not with both syllabaries at once. Take one row per day: the vowels あいうえお first, then かきくけこ, then さしすせそ, and so on. Five characters a day means you have the reading and writing basics in two or three weeks. Only once you recognise hiragana without thinking should you move to katakana — otherwise the two sets blur together, because several characters are nearly identical. Katakana then goes faster, since the sounds are the same and only the shapes change. Kanji comes last, after you read kana fluently, or the readings will not stick. For each new row, print one sheet, fill it completely, then test yourself with the on-screen writing exercise in the app. If a character comes out wrong three times, print another sheet just for that one.

Stroke order and the mistakes everyone makes

Stroke order is not a teacher's whim. The basic rules — top to bottom, left to right, horizontal before the vertical that crosses it — make the character come out balanced and later help you read someone else's handwriting. Every character in the app has a stroke-order animation, so you can watch the movement before you put pen to paper. The usual mistakes: ね, れ and わ get mixed up, since they differ only in the tail on the right; in katakana, シ versus ツ and ソ versus ン, where the angle of the short strokes matters more than their position; and さ and ち are mirror images of each other. Another trap is size — do not write small. Fill the box so you can see the proportions clearly. And do not lift the pen where the stroke is continuous; it shows in the final shape.

How long it takes and how to use the sheets well

Ten to fifteen minutes a day is enough, as long as it is every day. One sheet done carefully beats five filled in on autopilot — by the third row your hand writes by itself and your brain has left the room. A routine that works: write the new row while looking at the model, then cover the model and write it from memory, then check yourself. At the end, note the characters that gave you trouble. The spaced repetition system brings back whatever you get wrong anyway, but a list on paper tells you what to print tomorrow. Pair writing with listening: every dictionary word has a recorded native pronunciation, so you can read aloud as you write. On the N5 kanji sheets, do not copy a character a hundred times on its own — write it inside two or three of the words that use it, the ones shown on its page.

No printer, no internet — still fine

No printer? Use the on-screen writing exercise instead: you draw the character with your finger, a stylus or the mouse, and the app compares your shape with the model and tells you whether it matches. It is not the same as paper, but it works on the bus. If you prefer an ordinary notebook, print just the alphabet chart and use it as a reference — any squared maths paper works just as well, because the grid keeps your proportions honest. The app also works offline, so the worksheets and lessons open without a connection, and if you practise on both a phone and a computer you can sync your progress between them with a code, no account needed.

Frequently asked questions

Are the sheets really free?

Yes, everything on Kanazora is free, including the printable sheets. You do not need an account to generate or print them.

Should I learn hiragana and katakana at the same time?

No. Finish hiragana first, then move on to katakana. Learning them in parallel makes the similar-looking characters blur together and you lose time undoing the confusion.

Does stroke order matter if the character looks right anyway?

Yes, it matters. Correct order gives you more balanced shapes, lets you write faster, and you need it to be able to read other people's handwriting.

Pen or marker?

Whatever you have. The sheets come with 8 mm or 15 mm boxes, so pick the size that matches your pen.

When can I start with kanji?

Once you read hiragana and katakana effortlessly. That is when the N5 kanji sheets start to make sense, because you can actually read the readings and the example words that come with each character.