What is furigana, and how to use it

Furigana are the small kana written above (or beside) kanji to show how they’re read. In 飯はん, the little はん over 飯 is furigana: it tells you this kanji is read “han” here.

Japanese readers see furigana in children’s books, in manga for younger readers, and over rare kanji, names and unusual readings in everyday writing. For learners, they’re a way to read words before you know their kanji.

Why kanji need furigana

Most kanji have more than one reading, and which one is used depends on the word. 飯 is read han in ご飯 (gohan, rice or a meal), and meshi on its own. 生 has more readings than most learners can list. Furigana take the guessing out: the reading is right there on the word.

What the research says

Furigana clearly help you read. Learners reading a passage with furigana understand more of it, and work out more of the meanings, than learners reading the same passage without (Palmer, 2012).

Whether they help you learn the kanji’s readings is less clear. Learners without a kanji background tend to read the furigana and skip the kanji (Kawashima, 2024), and in a study of 121 students at JLPT N4 level, the ones who used furigana more read kanji less well (a 2025 study in Hikari). That study measured a link, so it can’t say which causes which.

So use furigana as a support for new words, and step back from them as each word becomes familiar.

How to use furigana well

1. Use them on new words. Furigana let you read and say a word from the first time you meet it, so its sound goes in with its meaning.
2. Try the kanji first on words you know. Cover the furigana, read the kanji, then check. That small effort of recalling the reading is what fixes it (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).
3. Keep them on the answer side. On flashcards, show the kanji alone on the question side and the furigana on the answer side, once you’ve seen a word a few times.
4. Skip romaji where you can. Romaji (Latin letters) is handy for your first few days, but kana is what you’ll read everywhere else. Learn hiragana alongside your first words.

Furigana in Anki

Anki can show furigana with its built-in furigana filter. Write the reading in square brackets after the kanji, like 食[た]べる, and put {{furigana:Expression}} in your card template (using your field’s name). To show only the kanji, use {{kanji:Expression}}, and {{kana:Expression}} shows only the reading. The Japanese Support add-on can fill in the readings for you. You’ll need Anki on a computer to edit templates.

How Flashfriend does it

Flashfriend shows furigana over the kanji wherever a word is shown on its own: when you make its card, on review cards and in sentences. Short lists and headers show the kanji with the kana on a line underneath, to keep them tidy.

In Settings › Readings you choose how readings appear: kana and romaji, kana only, or no readings, and whether furigana show all the time or only on the answer. If you import an Anki deck that writes readings as 食[た]べる, Flashfriend reads them as they are.

Read more about Flashfriend for Japanese, or how to remember Japanese vocabulary.