N5 kanji: the list with readings and meanings
Seventy-nine characters, grouped by theme and put in the order worth learning them in: numbers, the calendar and position first, then people, study, nature and the basic verbs.
All you need to use the list is hiragana and katakana. If you prefer paper, there's a printable PDF at the end.
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Where this list comes from
Since 2010 there has been no official list, so every list is a reconstruction: what differs is whether the source is stated. The level of each character here comes from KANJIDIC, the reference database our readings come from too; the thematic order and the meanings are ours, the ones we use in the lessons. When another site gives you a different number, it is nearly always because it mixes the old JLPT scale with the current one without saying so.
The order is thematic, not by stroke count
日, 月, 年 and 時 sit together because they are used together, not because they look alike. Studying by theme means every character arrives inside a context you can use it in, and lets you build real words from the very first group: 日本, 今日, 一年.
On and kun: don't learn them all
A kanji can have five or six readings and nobody memorizes them in the abstract. You learn the character inside a word — 山 in 富士山 (さん) and 山 on its own (やま) — and the readings settle by themselves. The two shown here are the ones you'll meet first.
How far they actually take you
With these kanji you can read dates, prices, station signs, much of a menu and the most frequent words of any simple text. Not enough for a newspaper article, but they are the difference between looking at a sign and recognizing it.
The 79 kanji, in study order
On readings are in katakana and kun readings in hiragana: that is the standard convention and it lets you tell them apart at a glance. Where a character has many, you get the two most useful ones.
Numbers
Time & calendar
Position & measure
People & family
Study & language
Nature
City & transport
Basic verbs
Useful words
Readings from KANJIDIC2 (© EDRDG, CC BY-SA 4.0), via kanjiapi.dev. Meanings, grouping and study order are Yukigo's own.
Take the list with you
The PDF is made for printing: grouped by theme, with readings and meanings, to keep in sight while you study.
Learn them, don't just look at them
A list takes two minutes to read and two days to forget. With Yukigo these kanji arrive in lessons of seven, inside real words, with handwriting, audio and spaced repetition that brings each one back just before it slips. Free and ad-free.
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Frequently asked questions
No. Since 2010 the JLPT no longer publishes kanji or vocabulary lists, so every list in circulation — this one included — is a reconstruction. We follow KANJIDIC's classification and say so plainly, so you can compare it with others knowing what you are comparing.
At five a day you see them all in a little over three weeks. Seeing isn't keeping, though: without spaced repetition half of them are gone within a month, and that is where most study time is lost.
Not for the exam, which is entirely multiple choice. But writing remains the most effective way not to confuse similar characters — 未 and 末, 土 and 士 — because it forces you to look at stroke order instead of overall shape.
Another 166, bringing the total to 245. The real jump isn't the number though: at N4 two-character compounds start, where the reading depends on the combination.