If you want to read manga in Japanese, you need to learn hiragana and katakana. There's no shortcut. There's no workaround. Every method that tries to skip this step will slow you down later.
The good news? This is the fastest part of the entire process. You can knock it out in two to four weeks.
What Are Hiragana and Katakana?
Japanese has three writing systems. Hiragana and katakana are two of them. The third — kanji — comes later.
If you've never studied Japanese, you've been reading Japanese words written in the English alphabet: "sushi," "miso," "samurai." But Japanese speakers don't write these words with Roman characters. They write すし, みそ, さむらい.
Hiragana and katakana are phonetic. Once you learn them, you can pronounce any word written in either system. English doesn't work this way — think about how "cough," "through," and "dough" all end in the same letters but sound completely different. Japanese doesn't do that. What you see is what you say.
You need both systems because they serve different purposes. Hiragana is the default. Katakana shows up in manga mostly as sound effects and stylistic emphasis. Together, they're the foundation for everything else.
Why This Is the Key to Actually Reading Manga
Here's the thing most people don't tell you about learning Japanese: you can't just absorb the language by being around it. You don't learn by osmosis. You learn by understanding — by reading and hearing Japanese that you can actually make sense of.
Hiragana and katakana are the keys that unlock that process. Without them, you can't use a textbook. You can't read example sentences. You can't even begin to process real Japanese. With them, you can start learning grammar. And once you have grammar, you can start reading manga with tools like the Ashiba App to learn vocabulary directly from the stories you actually want to read.
But none of that works if you're still relying on romaji — Japanese words written with English letters. If that's what you're doing right now, stop. I know romaji feels easier. It's familiar. You don't have to learn anything new. But every minute you spend reading Japanese in romaji is a minute you're not practicing reading actual Japanese. The longer you wait to make the switch, the harder it gets. And the farther behind you fall.
So let's make the switch. Here's how.
Learn Hiragana First
Start with hiragana. It's the most common of the three writing systems and forms the foundation for everything else.
Hiragana has 46 characters. That sounds like a lot, but each one represents a single sound. Compare that to English, where two letters can make dozens of different sounds depending on the word.
The best free resource for learning hiragana is Tofugu's Learn Hiragana guide. It's free, effective, and requires zero setup. Tofugu uses mnemonics — visual stories to help you associate each character with its sound. Some people find these incredibly helpful. Others don't need them. Either way, the guide walks you through everything.
A note on mnemonics: if they help you remember a character, great. Use them. But don't spend hours crafting the perfect mnemonic for each one. If a character won't stick, just practice writing it by hand while saying its sound out loud. Do that over a few days and it'll click.
Practice Until You Can Read Them Cold
After you work through the Tofugu guide, test yourself with Tofugu's free kana quiz. Select "All Kana" under "Practice Hiragana."
One quiz per day. That's it. If you miss a few characters, practice those individually later in the day. When you can read every hiragana character in a single sitting without getting any wrong, you're ready for the next step.
Then Learn Katakana
Katakana has 46 characters that map directly onto hiragana. Same sounds, different shapes. Think of it like how English has uppercase and lowercase letters — same sounds, different look.
Use Tofugu's Learn Katakana guide. Same method, same approach. When you're done, quiz yourself with the same kana quiz tool, this time selecting "All Kana" under "Practice Katakana."
When you can nail every katakana character in one sitting, you're done with this step.
What About Kanji?
At this point you might be wondering about kanji — the third writing system. You don't need it yet. Most manga include furigana — tiny hiragana characters printed above kanji that tell you how to pronounce them. As long as you know hiragana, you can read those.
Kanji becomes important later, but right now it would only slow you down. Get the kana solid first.
Two to Four Weeks
That's all this takes. Two to four weeks of consistent practice and you'll have the foundation for everything that follows.
Once you've learned hiragana and katakana, the next step is learning basic grammar. That's where you start putting sentences together — and where the language starts to make sense. Read the next article: How to Teach Yourself Japanese Grammar.