N2 kanji: the 100 most frequent, with readings and meanings
N2 adds 367 kanji and takes the total close to a thousand: 979 by KANJIDIC's classification. It's the level where you start reading what Japanese adults read.
Here are the 100 that show up most often in newspapers, the ones worth starting with. Many are about politics, the economy and places: 党, 税, 輸, 県.
The 100 most frequent N2 kanji
Picked with KANJIDIC's newspaper frequency ranking, then put back in our study order and grouped by theme.
City & transport
Useful words
Nature
Study & language
Basic verbs
These are 100 of the 367 N2 kanji. The other 267, with handwriting, the words that use them and spaced review, are in the app.
Readings and newspaper frequency from KANJIDIC2 (© EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), via kanjiapi.dev. Meanings, grouping and study order are Yukigo's own.
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Why these 100
They aren't the easiest or the first in the course: they're the ones a reader meets most often. KANJIDIC ranks characters by frequency in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, and out of the 367 at N2 we took the top hundred. Learning them first means recognising a good share of what you read straight away.
The language of newspapers
At N2, kanji stop describing your day and start describing the world: parties (党), taxes (税), trade (輸, 貿), territory (県, 州, 領). They're the characters of headlines, forms and the news, which is why N2 is the level employers ask for.
Almost always in pairs
Hardly any of these kanji is used on its own: 協 lives in 協力 and 協会, 総 in 総合, 設 in 設備 and 設計. Learn them inside two or three words that really use them: the on reading sticks by itself, and new compounds come apart at a glance.
A thousand kanji need a system
At this point review weighs more than new study. Yukigo takes you through every N2 kanji in study order, inside real words, with handwriting and audio, and brings each one back just before it slips away. Free, no ads.
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Frequently asked questions
About a thousand in total: 979 by KANJIDIC's classification, that is the 612 up to N3 plus the 367 of this level. Since 2010 the JLPT has not published kanji lists, so every list out there is a reconstruction.
Because it's a guide to get you started, not the course. We picked the hundred most frequent in newspapers; the other 267 are in the app, in the same study order, with handwriting and review.
At five a day, the 367 N2 kanji take a little over ten weeks to see once each. The real time goes into review, though: at this level you have almost a thousand to keep alive.
N1 takes the total past two thousand: in practice every kanji in common use (jōyō) and a few more. The jump is big in numbers, but the new characters are rarer: you'll meet many of them only inside specific words.