Free Hiragana & Katakana Anki Deck with Audio (N5)
If you want to learn hiragana and katakana with Anki, our deck is free on AnkiWeb: 443 cards that take you from zero to reading every kana, with stroke order, a picture for each one and audio on almost every card.
It's the first line of Japanese N5 Speedrun, our free beginner course, but it works on its own. Download it, study 20 new cards a day, and the kana stop being a wall in a few weeks.
What's inside
The deck is split into six small levels, in the order you need them:
- How Japanese works. Three scripts, why there are three, how a word is built from beats, and the five vowels.
- Hiragana, part 1 (あ to な).
- Hiragana, part 2 (は to ん).
- Dakuten, combos, small っ and long vowels. How か becomes が, how き and ゃ make きゃ, and why がっこう has a pause in it.
- Katakana, part 1 (ア to ノ).
- Katakana, part 2 (ハ to ン) and your name. The extra combos for foreign sounds, like ティ and ファ, so you can write your own name.
Along the way there are about 100 first words, each with a picture, its rhythm in beats and a short fun fact.
How a kana card works
Every kana gets the same treatment:
- The kana, big, with its romaji.
- Stroke order as small diagrams, so you write it the way Japanese people do.
- A memory hook: a picture that hides the shape. か is two crossed branches with a crow on one of them; ハ is a pair of chopsticks spread open.
- Audio of the sound, plus an example word to tie it to.
You don't only read the cards. Some ask you to recognise a kana, some play a sound and ask which kana it is, and some ask you to say the word out loud. There are also "trap" cards for the things everyone mixes up: look-alikes like さ and ち or シ and ツ, and sound pairs like びょういん (hospital) and びよういん (hair salon).
How to install it
- Install Anki. It's free on computers and Android (AnkiDroid). On iPhone, the official app is AnkiMobile.
- Open the deck page on AnkiWeb and press Download: Japanese for Beginners: Hiragana & Katakana + Audio (N5).
- Open the downloaded file with Anki, or use File → Import.
- Start with the "Start here" cards. They explain Anki in one minute.
The deck already comes set to 20 new cards a day.
How it fits the course
Each level of the deck matches a level of the free course on this site. If a card isn't enough, the level page explains the same kana with games and a mini test: start at Level 0. For quick lookups, the kana chart has every kana with its sound.
Who made it
We're a small team that loves Japanese and makes the Rin & Tadashi channel. The content, the memory hooks and the checking are ours. The illustrations and the voices are made with AI tools, and we listen to and check every card before it goes out. Stroke-order diagrams come from KanjiVG.
The deck is free to use and share for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). If you find a mistake, tell us through the "Contact Author" button on AnkiWeb and we'll fix it in the next update. And if it helps you, a rating on AnkiWeb helps other beginners find it.
FAQ
Is this hiragana and katakana Anki deck really free?
Yes. It's free on AnkiWeb, with no ads and no account needed beyond Anki itself.
How long does it take to learn hiragana and katakana with it?
At 20 new cards a day, you'll have seen every card in about three weeks. Most people can read both scripts slowly by then.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes. Import it into AnkiDroid on Android or AnkiMobile on iPhone, or study it on the computer and sync.
