Hiragana (平仮名, Hiragana) are a Japanese syllabary, one of the four Japanese writing systems, along with katakana, kanji and rōmaji. Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each symbol represents one mora. Each kana is either a vowel (such as a あ), a consonant followed by a vowel (such as ka か), or ん, a nasal sonorant which sounds like English "m", "n", or "ng".

Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, for example particles such as kara から and suffixes such as ~san さん. Hiragana are also used for words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer, is not expected to be known to the readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, for example in tabemashita (食べました, tabemashita), are written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana.