Japanese can be written entirely in hiragana. In a short sentence, the meaning can still be understood.
For example:
きょうはあめなのでえきまであるいていきました。
This is readable. But:
今日は雨なので駅まで歩いて行きました。
is much easier for a Japanese reader to process.
One reason is that Japanese normally does not put spaces between every word the way English does. When all the kanji disappear, the reader has to spend a little more time figuring out where one word ends and the next begins.
Kanji also act as visual markers within a sentence. Just seeing characters such as 今日, 雨, 駅, and 歩 makes it easier to grasp the structure and meaning of the sentence at a glance.
Another issue is homophones.
For example, こうしょう could represent words such as 交渉 (“negotiation”) or 校章 (“school emblem”). In hiragana alone, the reader may need to rely on the surrounding context. With kanji, the meaning can often be recognized immediately.
Kanji also carry more than pronunciation. The particular characters used can suggest meaning, background, and sometimes even a certain mood or nuance. Writing everything in hiragana removes some of those clues.
Of course, a text with a lot of hiragana is not always unnatural. Books and learning materials for young children often use mostly hiragana because the readers have not yet learned many kanji. Spaces may also be added between words to make the text easier to read.
So yes, Japanese can be written entirely in hiragana. But without kanji, the visual boundaries between words and many clues to meaning disappear, which makes reading slower.
Japanese does not become impossible to write without kanji. In ordinary writing, however, mixing hiragana with kanji and katakana is far more natural and much easier to read.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, “List of Joyo Kanji”
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, “Modern Kana Usage”
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, “Rules for Okurigana”
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, “Course of Study for Elementary Schools: Japanese Language”
