Furigana are the small hiragana printed above or beside kanji to show how to read them. They are widely used in materials for learners and children, and on the web they are rendered with the HTML ruby element.

Does it read every kanji correctly?

It uses a built-in table of common kanji and frequent compound words. Many kanji have multiple readings that depend on the word and context, so rare kanji may be left unannotated and ambiguous ones may show the most common reading. Always proofread important text.

How are compound words handled?

The annotator first tries to match multi-kanji words from its dictionary, such as 日本 reading にほん, before falling back to single-kanji readings. This produces correct readings for common compounds that a character-by-character lookup would get wrong.

What markup does it produce?

It produces standard HTML ruby: each annotated kanji or word is wrapped in a ruby element with an rt holding the hiragana reading. Browsers render the hiragana above the base text, and you can paste the markup straight into a page.

No. Annotation runs locally in your browser using a built-in table. Nothing you paste is sent to a server.

Japanese Furigana Annotator

Email me this result

Get this tool's output sent to your inbox, plus one useful tool a week. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

Add furigana above Japanese kanji

Learners and editors often need hiragana readings above kanji. This annotator wraps your text in standard HTML ruby markup, placing furigana above each recognized kanji or compound so the preview reads like a graded reader.

How it works

The text is scanned for the longest dictionary match first, then single kanji:

日本語  →  <ruby>日本<rt>にほん</rt></ruby><ruby>語<rt>ご</rt></ruby>

Multi-kanji compound words in the table are matched before single kanji, so common words get their correct combined reading.
Recognized kanji are wrapped in a ruby element with an rt reading.
Hiragana, katakana, punctuation, and unknown kanji pass through unchanged.

Notes and limitations

Japanese kanji are highly polyphonic — 生 alone has many readings (せい, しょう, い, う, なま, き) chosen by the surrounding word — so a lookup table cannot be perfect. The annotator prefers compound-word matches to reduce errors and shows the most common reading otherwise. Treat the output as a strong draft and proofread anything important. All processing happens in your browser.