Romaji, and a converter both ways

What romaji is

ローマ字 (rōmaji) means Roman letters: Japanese written in the alphabet English uses. Japanese itself is written in hiragana, katakana and kanji; romaji spells it for people who can't read those yet.

In Japan you see it on station and road signs, passports and maps. Children learn it at primary school, and it's how most people type Japanese on a computer: they spell the sounds in romaji and the keyboard turns them into kana, as the Japanese keyboard here does.

Hepburn and Kunrei: two ways to spell it

Hepburn spells Japanese the way an English speaker would read it: shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji. It's the system on passports and station signs and in nearly every textbook and dictionary, and since December 2025 it's also the Japanese government's official standard.

Kunrei shiki follows the rows of the kana chart instead: si, ti, tu, hu, zi, each sound spelled from its row. It was the official system from 1954, and you may still meet it in Japanese school books. Keyboards accept both, so si and shi both type し.

Long vowels: ō, ou or oo

Japanese tells short vowels from long ones: おばさん (obasan) is an aunt, おばあさん (obāsan) a grandmother. Hepburn marks a long vowel with a line on top, a macron: Tōkyō, rāmen. When you type, you spell the kana instead: toukyou, ra-men.

Signs, names and passports often drop the mark (Tokyo, Osaka). That's fine on a map, and it's why romaji can't show you how a word really sounds.

え followed by い stays ei (せんせい, sensei, a teacher), and いい stays ii (かわいい, kawaii, cute).

Small っ and ん

A small っ doubles the consonant after it: きって is kitte (a stamp), and まっちゃ is matcha, with a t before the ch. To type it, double the letter.

ん is n. Before a vowel or y, Hepburn adds an apostrophe so the word can't be misread: きんえん is kin'en (no smoking), and without it you'd read きねん, kinen (a commemoration). Older Hepburn writes m before b, m and p, as in shimbun for しんぶん (a newspaper). To type ん, use nn, or n'.

Why to stop relying on romaji early

Romaji is a bridge for your first days, and a short one. Books, signs, menus and messages in Japan are written in kana and kanji, so romaji only helps where someone wrote it for you.

It also hides how words sound. The u in tsu isn't an English u, the r is a light tap of the tongue, and Tokyo hides both of its long vowels. In kana each sound is written as it is said.

Hiragana is 46 basic characters and katakana another 46, and a few weeks of short daily practice is enough to read them. Start with the hiragana chart, then the katakana chart, and type with the Japanese keyboard instead of writing romaji.