✍️ Okurigana Helper (送り仮名 校正)

Okurigana (送り仮名, "sending kana") are the hiragana written after a kanji to show its inflection - the part of the word that changes with tense, politeness, or negativity. In a word like 食べる (taberu, "to eat"), 食 is the kanji stem and べる is the okurigana. Writing the okurigana correctly matters because the wrong ending can change the meaning entirely: 受け (uke, "receive") and 受る (uraru, a non-word) look similar but only the first is valid Japanese.

The rules for okurigana are set by the Japanese government in the Okurigana no tsukekata (送り仮名の付け方) guideline, which standardises where the kanji stem ends and the kana begins. This okurigana helper looks up a word you type and returns the officially correct okurigana spelling, so writers, learners, and localisers can proofread their text. For the reading of the kanji stem itself, use the furigana generator, and for the romaji of the whole word, the romaji converter handles the rest.

Refer to the table below for common words and their correct okurigana spellings:

Every Japanese verb and i-adjective has a stem written in kanji and an inflectional ending written in okurigana. The official rule is that the okurigana begins at the point where the inflection starts - so for a ichidan verb like 食べる, the stem 食 keeps one kana (べる) as okurigana, while for a godan verb like 分かる the stem 分 keeps two kana (かる) because the inflection shifts across multiple columns. Compound nouns often take no okurigana at all (e.g. 話, "talk" as a noun), while the same kanji as a verb takes okurigana (話す, hanasu, "to talk").

The table below shows how the okurigana boundary moves for different verb classes:

The helper matches your input against a dictionary of common words and returns the spelling the guideline recommends. For words with two accepted spellings (both are valid), it shows the preferred one. To convert the okurigana to katakana or romaji, run the result through the kana converter or romaji converter; to count characters, use the Japanese character counter.

1. Type a word by its kanji stem (for example 食, 分, or 美).
2. Click Check to look up the correct okurigana ending.
3. Read the officially recommended spelling and its reading.
4. Compare with the common wrong forms listed for each entry.
5. Apply the correct spelling back into your document.

What exactly is okurigana?

Okurigana are the hiragana endings attached to a kanji to show its inflection - tense, politeness, negativity, and so on. They mark where the kanji stem ends and the inflecting part of the word begins.

Why does the same kanji sometimes have okurigana and sometimes not?

When used as a noun, a kanji often takes no okurigana (話 as "talk"); as a verb it does (話す, "to talk"). The okurigana tells the reader which grammatical role the word is playing.

Are there words with two accepted okurigana spellings?

Yes. A few words have two valid spellings under the guideline, such as 届く vs 居る-style variants. The helper shows the preferred form and notes when an alternative is also acceptable.

Does it cover every Japanese word?

No. It covers common verbs, adjectives, and high-frequency nouns. Rare words, technical jargon, and recent coinages may not be in the dictionary and should be checked against a full reference.

Is the official guideline binding?

The guideline (送り仮名の付け方) is the official standard for government and legal documents, but newspapers and publishers sometimes use their own style. For everyday writing, following the guideline is the safest choice.

Can it fix a whole document at once?

This tool checks words one at a time so you can review each suggestion. For batch proofreading of long text, run it alongside the furigana generator to catch both spelling and reading issues.

Okurigana is one of the most common sources of writing mistakes even for native speakers, because the boundary between kanji stem and kana ending is not always intuitive. Compound verbs (e.g. 引き出す hikidasu) keep okurigana only on the second part (出す), not the first. Nouns derived from verbs (話 from 話す) usually drop the okurigana. When a word can be read two ways, the okurigana signals which reading applies - 下さい as "please give me" (kudasai) vs 下さい as part of 下さる. For formal or legal documents, follow the guideline strictly; for creative writing, slight deviations are tolerated. Always proofread okurigana after converting text between scripts.