{{Nihongo foot|English|Kanji|Rōmaji|extra|extra2|post=,|group=group|ref_name=name}}

<references group="group" />

Outputs:

English,

• <English>. Optional. The word as translated into English. Note that this will sometimes be the actual Japanese word due to it being adopted into English.
• <kanji/kana>. Required when <rōmaji> is empty or omitted. The word as written using Japanese script (kanji, kana).
• <rōmaji>. Required when <kanji/kana> is empty. Transliteration of the Japanese word, using Hepburn Romanization.
• <extra>. Optional. Can be used to add a gloss (particularly if there is no English form). Can also be expressed as a named parameter, extra=
• <extra2>. Optional. Can also be expressed as a named parameter, extra2=. It is only useful in ";" definitions (extra2 will be displayed without bold, whereas text following the template will get the bold).
• lead=yes. Optional. This should be used for the first instance of Japanese, usually in the lead. It gives the reader an idea what kind of non-English writing they are viewing.
• post=<postscript>. Optional. Additional characters, such as commas, added after the visible English name but before the reference.
• group<group name>. Optional. Can be used to define a custom references group. The group is then called by using <references group="group" /> instead of the normal <references />.
• ref_name<name>. Optional. Can be used to define a custom reference name. Use when the note is called multiple times with the same value on a page.
• lead=yes. Optional. This should be used for the first instance, usually a footnote in the lead. It gives the reader an idea what kind of non-English writing they are viewing.

{{Nihongo foot|English|英語|eigo}}

<references />

{{Nihongo foot|English|英語|eigo|group=nb}}

<references group="nb" />

User style can be set by adding code similar to

@media screen, tv {
	*[lang="ja"] {
		color: green;
	}
}

or

@media screen, tv {
	.t_nihongo_kanji {
		color: green;
	}
}

to your common.css.

This template emits one error message of its own:

error: {{nihongo foot}}: Japanese or romaji text required

One of the positional parameters <kanji/kana> ({{{2}}}), the 'Japanese' referred to in the error message or <rōmaji> ({{{3}}}) is required for proper operation of this template. Articles with these errors are collected in Category:Nihongo template errors (10).

This error often occurs because the template is malformed:

{{Nihongo foot|東京タワー}} instead of {{Nihongo foot||東京タワー}}; 東京タワー is in {{{1}}} (<English>) instead of {{{2}}} (<kanji/kana>). To resolve this error, add the missing pipe (|).

Because this template uses {{lang}} and {{transl}} which emit their own error messages, see the help text for those at:

Category:Lang and lang-xx template errors – for error messages emitted by {{lang}}

Category:Transliteration template errors – for error messages emitted by {{transl}}

• {{Nihongo}}, original: generates everything that is in a footnote inside parenthesis
• {{Nihongo3}}, essentially the same as {{Nihongo}}, but gives romaji first and English inside the parentheses
• {{Nihongo krt}}, essentially the same as {{Nihongo}}, but gives kanji first with rōmaji and English inside the parentheses
• {{Nihongo2}}, also displays the kanji properly, but without adding anything in parentheses, without romaji and without the extra parameters
• {{Nihongo-s}}, a simplified version of {{Nihongo}} without the extra spans or checks