Hepburn vs Kunrei Romaji: Why Japanese Is Spelled Two Ways
OBARA Hiroki · DeveloperStudyX Japanese Letters TableHow-To
On 22 December 2025, the Japanese government replaced its official rules for writing Japanese in the Latin alphabet. The previous rules dated from 1954. The new ones are based on Hepburn romanization, the system most learners already know, and they are the first revision in about 70 years.
If you are learning Japanese, you have probably noticed that the same word can be spelled in several ways. Fuji or Huzi. Tōkyō, Tokyo or Toukyou. This post explains where those differences come from, what the two main systems are, and what the new rules actually say, based on the official documents from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.
Two systems, a handful of differences
There are several ways to romanize Japanese. Two have mattered most.
- Hepburn spells sounds so that an English speaker reads them roughly correctly. It is named after James Curtis Hepburn, an American missionary who used it in his Japanese-English dictionary in the 19th century.
- Kunrei follows the structure of the kana chart. Each row keeps the same consonant letter. The 1954 rules made it the main system, listed as “Table 1”.
For most syllables the two agree: か is ka, な is na and ま is ma in both. The differences are concentrated in a few sounds.
| Kana | Kunrei | Hepburn |
|---|---|---|
| し | si | shi |
| ち | ti | chi |
| つ | tu | tsu |
| ふ | hu | fu |
| じ | zi | ji |
| ぢ | zi | ji |
| しゃ・しゅ・しょ | sya, syu, syo | sha, shu, sho |
| ちゃ・ちゅ・ちょ | tya, tyu, tyo | cha, chu, cho |
| じゃ・じゅ・じょ | zya, zyu, zyo | ja, ju, jo |
Kunrei is tidy. The s-row is sa si su se so and the t-row is ta ti tu te to, so the kana chart is visible in the spelling. Hepburn is closer to how the sounds are actually pronounced. し sounds much more like “shi” than “si” to an English speaker, and ふ is nearer to “fu” than “hu”. The price is that the s-row gains an sh, and the t-row gains both ch and ts.
I think these four sounds, し, ち, つ and ふ, are what make romaji harder than it should be. In Hepburn you learn “the s-row uses s” and then immediately learn the exception. For learners there is a useful side effect, though: the Hepburn spelling is a reminder that these sounds really are different from their neighbours. Japanese し is not the English “see”.
What changed in 2025
The 1954 rules had two tables. Table 1 (Kunrei) was the main one. Table 2, which included shi, tsu and fu, was to be used only where international relations or established custom made change difficult. In practice, Hepburn spread everywhere: passports, road signs, station signs. The summary of the Council for Cultural Affairs report says that Table 1 “did not take root sufficiently in everyday social life”, while schools had mainly taught it (report summary, in Japanese).
The steps were:
- May 2024: the Minister of Education asked the Council for Cultural Affairs to review romanization.
- 20 August 2025: the Council submitted its report, “Revised Romanization of Japanese”.
- 22 December 2025: the new rules were issued as Cabinet Notice No. 4 of 2025, and the 1954 notice was abolished.
- February 2026: the Agency for Cultural Affairs published a Q&A on the new rules (in Japanese).
These are the main points of the new notice (in Japanese).
There is now a single table, and it uses Hepburn spellings. shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji, sha, cha, ja. ぢ is ji and づ is zu, the same as じ and ず. を is o.
It is not identical to every version of Hepburn. Some Hepburn styles write ん as m before b, m and p, as in Shimbashi. The new rules always use n: kanpai, shinbun. The small っ is always shown by doubling the consonant, so 日直 is nicchoku rather than nitchoku. The Q&A explains that native speakers find these distinctions hard to hear and apply consistently.
Long vowels can be written in two ways. A macron, as in Ōno or Tōhoku, remains the principle. Without a mark, you may now write the vowels out as they are spelled in kana: Oono, Touhoku. The reason given is that without either, おの and おおの both become Ono and cannot be told apart.
An apostrophe separates n from a following vowel or y. 単位 (unit) is tan’i, so it is not read as tani.
Established spellings do not have to change. Words like judo and matcha, place names like Ohtawara, and the names of people and organizations are left to the people concerned. Rules that individual fields have used for a long time, such as passports, are not required to change immediately.
Typing is a separate matter. The report summary says the rules have nothing to do with romaji keyboard input. You still type “wo” to get を.
Why the spellings around you still differ
Even after the change, you will keep seeing different spellings, because each one follows its own rules.
Japanese passports use Hepburn under the passport regulations, with their own conventions. Long vowels are normally not written, so 大野 is ONO and 佐藤 is SATO. ん before B, M or P becomes M, as in HOMMA, and っ before CH becomes T, as in HATCHO (Kanagawa Prefecture passport guide, in Japanese). Station signs vary too. The Q&A itself mentions Tokyo Metro signs that read Nihombashi and Shimbashi.
So when you see an unfamiliar spelling, it is more useful to ask “which convention is this?” than “which one is correct?”.
What this means for learners
My view is that Hepburn, now matching the official rules, is the one to learn. It is what you will read on signs and maps, and in many textbooks for learners.
That said, I would not rely on romaji for long. Romaji is a bridge, and the four sounds above show where it bends the kana chart to fit English habits. Once you can read kana, the question of shi or si stops mattering, because you just read し. Kunrei is still worth knowing, partly because you will meet it in older materials and partly because it shows the logic of the chart so clearly.
I also think the best way in is through things you are already curious about: the station names on your route, the words printed on a snack packet, the name of a place you want to visit. Reading those in both kana and romaji sticks far better than memorizing a table in order.
The romaji mode in StudyX Japanese Letters Table
StudyX Japanese Letters Table is a kana chart app for iPhone and iPad. Buttons at the bottom of the screen switch the chart between hiragana, katakana, uppercase romaji and lowercase romaji, and the dakuten, handakuten and contracted-sound charts work in romaji too. Tap any cell to hear its sound.
The romaji follows Hepburn: shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji, sha. ん is n. The one difference from the new official rules is を, which the app shows as wo. That is the spelling from the old Table 2 and the one you use when typing. Under the new rules を is written o, so it is worth keeping in mind. The chart has no long vowels or small っ, so their romanization is not covered.
The listening game, ききとりあそび, also works in romaji mode. The app plays a word one sound at a time and you tap the cells in order, so you can practise matching sounds to romaji, or to kana once you are ready.
The app runs in landscape on both iPhone and iPad. It is a one-time purchase with no ads and no in-app purchases. The on-screen labels are in Japanese.
For a first session, see Getting Started with StudyX Japanese Letters Table. For ways to use it day to day, see everyday ideas for the app.
