Hope in Japanese is 希望, said kibou. It is a two-character compound rather than a single kanji, and that is the first thing to understand about it. 希 is seven strokes, 望 is eleven. The word is written in hiragana as きぼう, and in katakana as キボウ.
Hope in Japanese
Hope in Japanese is 希望 (kibou). If you want the everyday noun, the one that appears in a news report, a job application, or an ordinary sentence, that is the word, and it takes both characters.
This matters because people looking for a single kanji meaning hope usually land on 希 by itself, and 希 alone does not mean hope. It means rare, scarce, few. 希少 (kishou) is scarce, 希薄 (kihaku) is dilute. The sense of wishing exists in classical usage and in the verb こいねがう (koinegau, to beseech), but a Japanese reader meeting 希 on its own reads rarity first.
The character that does carry hope on its own is 望 (bou, mou, and as a verb 望む, nozomu). It means to hope for, to desire, to look toward, and it also means a full moon. 望み (nozomi) is a wish or a hope, and it works as a standalone word in a way 希 does not.
So the honest picture is this: 希望 is the word, 望 is the character, and 希 is the one to be careful with.
The Kanji for Hope: 望
- Character: 望
- On’yomi: ボウ (bou), モウ (mou)
- Kun’yomi: のぞ(む) (nozomu, “to hope for”), もち (mochi)
- Stroke count: 11
- General meaning: hope, desire, aspiration, ambition, and a full moon
- Radical: 月 (moon), Kangxi radical 74
And the first half of the compound:
- Character: 希
- On’yomi: キ (ki), ケ (ke)
- Kun’yomi: まれ (mare, “rare”), こいねが(う) (koinegau, “to beseech”)
- Stroke count: 7
- General meaning: rare, scarce, and in compounds a wish or request
- Radical: 巾 (cloth), Kangxi radical 50
Japanese Symbol for Hope
望 has one of the better origin stories in this library, and it is a looking story rather than a wishing one.
The oldest forms combine 臣, an eye drawn upright, with 𡈼, a person standing on the ground. A figure standing and looking into the distance. That is what hope was: not a feeling in the chest but a posture, someone up on their feet with their eyes on the horizon.
The moon, 月, was added later, and the eye element 臣 eroded into the 亡 you see at the top left of the modern character. So 望 today is 亡 over 月 beside 王, and underneath that arrangement is a person watching the moon rise. That is also why the same character means a full moon: 望月 (mochizuki) is the full moon, and it survives as a common Japanese surname.
希 is a different kind of build, an ideogrammic compound of 爻, crossed lines, over 巾, cloth. Loosely woven fabric, cloth with gaps in it, which is where the sense of sparse and rare comes from. Nothing about it points to hope. The wishing sense is a later borrowing, and it is why 希 needs 望 beside it to do the job.
How to Write 望 in Japanese
Eleven strokes, and the character divides into a two-part top and a single base.
The top left is 亡 in three strokes: a short mark, a horizontal, then the stroke that turns down and hooks. The top right is 月 in four, its two verticals framing the shape and the two short horizontals inside written before the frame closes. Keep both elements compact, because they are sharing one line and neither gets full width.
The base is 王 in four strokes, three horizontals with a vertical through them, the bottom horizontal written last and longest. That final stroke is the foundation of the whole character and it should run wider than anything above it.
The failure mode is crowding at the top. Two elements side by side over a base is a lot to fit, and the interior lines of 月 are the first thing to close up.
How to Say Hope in Japanese
Kibou is three beats with a long o: “kee-boh-oh.” The final vowel is held for two beats rather than one, which is what the u in the romanisation is doing. Say “kee-BOH” and hold the end. The verb 望む is nozomu, “noh-zoh-moo,” three even beats.
Real sentences:
- 希望を持っています。(Kibou o motte imasu.) I have hope.
- まだ希望はあります。(Mada kibou wa arimasu.) There is still hope.
- 平和を望みます。(Heiwa o nozomimasu.) I hope for peace.
- 将来に希望を感じる。(Shourai ni kibou o kanjiru.) I feel hopeful about the future.
- 彼は希望に満ちている。(Kare wa kibou ni michite iru.) He is full of hope.
Words and Compounds With 望
- 希望 (kibou): hope, wish, aspiration. The everyday word.
- 願望 (ganbou): a desire, a longing.
- 志望 (shibou): an ambition or stated preference, as in the course you apply for.
- 絶望 (zetsubou): despair. Literally cut-off hope, and the exact opposite of 希望.
- 展望 (tenbou): a view, an outlook, a prospect, in both the scenic and the strategic sense.
- 有望 (yuubou): promising, full of promise.
- 本望 (honmou): a long-cherished desire, and what you say when something you wanted for years finally happens.
- 望遠鏡 (bouenkyou): a telescope, literally a hope-far glass.
- 望郷 (boukyou): homesickness, longing for home.
- 野望 (yabou): ambition, usually the unscrupulous kind.
That last pair shows the range. 望 is not a warm character by nature. It is a character about wanting something at a distance, and depending on what you put in front of it the result is aspiration, nostalgia, or naked ambition.
Hope in Japanese Culture
Japanese does not lean on hope as heavily as English does, and it is worth understanding why before choosing the word.
The virtues that carry the most weight in daily life are about persistence rather than optimism. Ganbaru is to hold on and keep going, and 頑張って (ganbatte) is what people actually say to someone facing something hard, where an English speaker might say they hope it goes well. Gaman is enduring what cannot be changed with dignity. Neither one asks you to expect a good outcome. Both ask you to keep standing.
That is also the shape of ikigai, a reason to get up in the morning, which is a more grounded and more daily idea than hope. It does not point at the future so much as at the present.
Where 希望 does live in full strength is in public and institutional language: post-war reconstruction, disaster recovery, political speech, school mottoes. 希望の星 (kibou no hoshi), the star of hope, is a set phrase for a person everyone is counting on.
Both characters are common in given names, and this is where most people meet them. 望 is read Nozomi for a girl or Nozomu for a boy, and 希 is read Nozomi, Ki, or Mare, with 希望 itself occasionally used as a name. In a name the rarity sense of 希 falls away entirely and it reads as wish, which is the one context where 希 alone does mean something close to hope.
As a Tattoo
If you want hope in Japanese on your skin, 希望 is the correct answer, and it needs both characters. This is the most important thing on this page.
希 alone does not say hope. It says rare or scarce, and a Japanese reader seeing it by itself will read 希少 (kishou, scarce) before anything else. It is one of the most common single-character mistakes in Western kanji tattoos, and it comes straight from character-meaning lists that give 希 as hope without saying it only works in compound.
望 alone is defensible, and is the better single-character choice by a wide margin. It reads as hope, desire, aspiration, and it carries the full moon sense underneath. The risk is the neighbouring words: 野望 (yabou) is unscrupulous ambition and 絶望 (zetsubou) is despair, so anything added beside 望 changes the reading completely. Do not extend it.
On script: both characters are written identically in Japanese and traditional Chinese. 望 is the same in simplified Chinese too. 希 is the same shape in simplified Chinese, but there it also does duty as the simplified form of 稀, which shifts its associations further toward sparse. For Japanese, both forms as shown here are correct.
Eleven strokes plus seven is a lot of ink for two characters, and the interiors of 月 and 巾 both close up as the ink settles. Set vertically, 希 above 望, the pair reads cleanly on a forearm or down a spine. Avoid small placements.
Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview both characters in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.
Related Kanji
FAQ
How do you say hope in Japanese?
You say kibou, written 希望. Three beats with a long final vowel, “kee-BOH-oh.” The verb is 望む (nozomu), to hope for or desire, as in 平和を望みます (heiwa o nozomimasu), I hope for peace. 希望 is the ordinary noun and works in speech and writing alike.
What is the kanji for hope?
There is no single kanji for everyday hope; the word 希望 (kibou) uses two. The one that carries the meaning on its own is 望, eleven strokes, radical 月, Kangxi number 74, read bou, mou, or nozomu. 希 is seven strokes and means rare or scarce by itself.
What is the Japanese symbol for hope?
希望 is the written symbol for hope as a word, and 望 is the character that holds the meaning alone. Its oldest form showed an eye above a standing figure, someone looking into the distance, with the moon added later. That is why 望 also means a full moon, as in 望月 (mochizuki).
How do you write kibou in Japanese?
希望 is the kanji form and the standard way to write it. きぼう is hiragana, used in children’s writing and where the kanji would be too formal. キボウ is katakana, seen occasionally in branding. Our guide to hiragana vs katakana explains when each script fits.
Is 望 the same character in Chinese?
Yes. 望 is written identically in Japanese, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, with only minor regional stroke variations. The reading changes to wàng in Mandarin. 希 is also the same shape across all three, though in simplified Chinese it doubles as the simplified form of 稀, meaning sparse.
Can I use 希 on its own to mean hope?
Not safely. On its own 希 reads as rare or scarce, which is how it works in 希少 (kishou, scarce) and 希薄 (kihaku, dilute). It only means wish inside a compound such as 希望, or inside a given name, where it is read Nozomi or Mare. For a single character meaning hope, use 望.