Faith in Japanese

Faith in Japanese is 信念, romanised as shinnen and written in hiragana as しんねん. Japanese distinguishes secular conviction (信念) from religious faith (信仰) more sharply than English does. The single character 信 covers trust, belief, and sincerity broadly.

信 means "trust, belief, faith" (9 strokes; on'yomi: shin; kun'yomi: —). 念 means "thought, sense, idea" (8 strokes; on'yomi: nen; kun'yomi: —). Together the word reads as shinnen.

信念 (shinnen) is the standard form: Japanese distinguishes secular conviction (信念) from religious faith (信仰) more sharply than English does. The single character 信 covers trust, belief, and sincerity broadly.. 信仰 (shinkou) is different — religious faith, devotion to a belief system or deity. Pick based on the exact nuance you want to convey.

信念 means faith in the sense of conviction or strongly held belief — the secular meaning. 信仰 specifically means religious faith. Choose carefully: a tattoo of 信仰 reads as religious devotion to native speakers, while 信念 reads as personal conviction. 信 alone is a clean single-character option meaning trust or belief.

In hiragana, faith is written as しんねん, which represents the sound shinnen. The kanji form 信念 is used in everyday writing; hiragana is used when the kanji is too difficult, for emphasis, or in children's text.