Three systems, one language
Romanisation turns kana into the Latin alphabet, and there has never been a single agreed way to do it. The differences are not random: each system was designed for a different purpose.
Hepburn aims to help English speakers pronounce Japanese, so it spells sounds as they are heard. Kunrei-shiki aims to mirror the structure of the kana chart, so every row keeps the same consonant letter. Typed romaji aims to let you produce any kana on a keyboard, so it includes spellings that no one would use in a printed text.
| System | Designed for | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| Hepburn | Pronunciation for English speakers | Textbooks, dictionaries, most signs and maps |
| Kunrei-shiki | Consistency with the kana chart | Some Japanese education and official materials |
| Typed romaji | Entering kana on a keyboard | Every computer and phone keyboard set to Japanese |
The syllables where the systems disagree
Most syllables are spelled the same in every system: ka, mi, ro, ne. The disagreements cluster in the rows where the Japanese consonant changes sound partway along the row.
Hepburn follows the sound, so the s row contains shi and the t row contains chi and tsu. Kunrei-shiki keeps the row letter, so the same kana become si, ti and tu. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| し | shi | Hepburn shi; Kunrei-shiki si |
| ち | chi | Hepburn chi; Kunrei-shiki ti |
| つ | tsu | Hepburn tsu; Kunrei-shiki tu |
| ふ | fu | Hepburn fu; Kunrei-shiki hu |
| じ | ji | Hepburn ji; Kunrei-shiki zi |
| しゃ | sha | Hepburn sha; Kunrei-shiki sya |
| ちょ | cho | Hepburn cho; Kunrei-shiki tyo |
| じゅ | ju | Hepburn ju; Kunrei-shiki zyu |
Long vowels: macrons, circumflexes and doubled letters
Vowel length changes meaning in Japanese, and this is where romanised text is least reliable. Hepburn marks a long vowel with a macron, as in ō. Kunrei-shiki uses a circumflex, as in ô. Typed romaji spells out the kana, so a long o is typed ou or oo depending on how the word is written in kana.
Many signs, company names and English publications drop the mark entirely, which is how Tōkyō becomes Tokyo and Ōsaka becomes Osaka. The word has not changed; the spelling has simply lost information.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 東京 | Tōkyō | Tokyo: typed toukyou |
| 大阪 | Ōsaka | Osaka: typed oosaka |
| お母さん | okāsan | Mother: typed okaasan |
| 数学 | sūgaku | Mathematics: typed suugaku |
| 学校 | gakkō | School: typed gakkou |
| 大きい | ōkii | Big: typed ookii |
Notice that 東京 and 大きい both have a long ō in Hepburn but are typed differently, because the kana are different: とう in one and おお in the other. Kana tells you what romaji hides.
The syllabic n and the apostrophe
The kana ん is a full syllable of its own. When it comes before a vowel or before y, romaji needs a way to show that it is not the start of the next syllable, and Hepburn uses an apostrophe.
Older Hepburn also wrote m before b, m and p, which is why you still see Shimbun in some newspaper names. Modern Hepburn usually writes n everywhere.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 禁煙 | kin'en | No smoking: four syllables, ki-n-e-n |
| 記念 | kinen | Commemoration: three syllables, ki-ne-n |
| 原因 | gen'in | Cause |
| 本屋 | hon'ya | Bookshop, not ho-nya |
| 新聞 | shinbun | Newspaper, also seen as shimbun |
Where you will see each system
In daily life in Japan you mostly meet Hepburn, with inconsistent long vowels. Station names, road signs and maps generally follow it, though some add macrons and many do not.
Japanese children learn romaji at elementary school, and Kunrei-shiki has traditionally been part of that teaching, so some Japanese people write si or tu without thinking of it as a different system. Names on passports follow a Hepburn-based style with their own conventions for long vowels, which is why a family name with a long o can appear with no mark at all.
- Textbooks and learner dictionaries: Hepburn, usually with macrons.
- Station and road signs: Hepburn, macrons used on some and not others.
- English-language news and brand names: Hepburn with long vowels dropped.
- Some school materials and older official documents: Kunrei-shiki.
- Keyboards: typed romaji, which spells out every kana.
Typed romaji is a system of its own
When you type Japanese, you are not writing romaji; you are giving the keyboard instructions for kana. That is why typed romaji includes spellings such as wo and nn that look strange in print.
Learning these few conventions makes typing fast, and it also reinforces the kana spelling of each word, which is useful in its own right.
| Japanese | Romaji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| を | wo | Type wo for the particle を; it is said o |
| ん | nn | Type nn when the next letter could join the n |
| っ | kitte | Double the consonant for a small tsu: kitte gives きって |
| ぢ | di | Type di for ぢ, which Hepburn writes ji |
| づ | du | Type du for づ, which Hepburn writes zu |
| コーヒー | ko-hi- | Coffee: type a hyphen for each katakana long vowel mark |
| ゃ | xya | Type x or l before a kana to make it small |
When to stop leaning on romaji
Romaji is helpful for the first week of Japanese and harmful soon after. It encourages you to read words with English sounds, it hides long vowels whenever the marks are dropped, it shows nothing about pitch, and it keeps you from building reading speed in the script that Japanese is actually written in.
The practical plan is simple: learn hiragana and katakana early, move your notes into kana as soon as you can read them, and keep romaji only as the way you type. Unihongo's Kana Dash, one of its learn-by-playing games, builds the fast kana recognition that makes that switch comfortable, and the pronunciation lab's long vowels focus trains the length that romaji so often leaves out.
If a spelling ever confuses you, look at the kana. Every system on this page is just a different way of writing those same symbols.