Kanji · 26 September 2026 · 3 min read
How to learn all 109 JLPT N5 kanji in 30 days
The JLPT N5 kanji come to about a hundred characters. That sounds like a lot until you split it up: three or four a day for 30 days. The kanji course on this site does exactly that, and this is how it is put together and why.
What is on the N5 kanji list?
N5 is the first level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. The test has not published an official kanji list since 2010, so study lists vary a little from one book to the next. The 109 characters in this course cover the common N5 lists.
They are the kanji you meet first in daily life: the numbers, plus 百 (hyaku, hundred), 千 (sen, thousand), 万 (man, ten thousand) and 円 (en, yen); sun, moon, fire and water, which are also the days of the week; up, down, big and small; left, right and the four points of the compass; family words; and common verbs such as 行 (go), 来 (come), 見 (see), 食 (eat) and 飲 (drink).
Why three or four a day
New characters are not the hard part. Reviews are. Every kanji you learn comes back for review over the following weeks, so ten new ones a day feels fine for a week and then the reviews pile up. Three or four a day keeps the daily total manageable and still finishes the list in a month.
How each kanji is taught
- Meet it. The meaning, and the parts it is built from.
- A memory hook. One sentence that joins the parts to the meaning. 休 (rest) is the person radical beside 木 (tree): someone leaning on a tree, taking a break.
- Stroke order, animated one stroke at a time.
- Write it twice. Once tracing the guide, once from memory, then compare your version with the model.
- Example words with readings and audio, which is where the readings stick.
Grouped by meaning, not by stroke count
The course runs in four weeks: numbers, money and time; time, place and direction; nature, people and school; and actions, places and the body. Characters that belong together are learned together, so 父 (father) and 母 (mother) arrive on the same day, and 東 (east) and 西 (west) arrive with 左 (left) and 右 (right).
Readings: on'yomi and kun'yomi
Most kanji have more than one reading. The on'yomi came from Chinese and is used mostly in compounds; the kun'yomi is the native Japanese word and is used mostly when the character stands alone. 日 is nichi in 毎日 (mainichi, every day) and hi when it stands alone as a word for sun or day. The course teaches readings through real words rather than as lists, because the word tells you which reading to use.
What to do alongside it
Learn hiragana first, since the readings and example words are written in it. Then run the kanji course next to the daily lessons rather than after them: the lessons give you the words, and the course gives you the characters those words are written with.
Common questions
How many kanji do I need for the JLPT N5? Around a hundred. The test has no official list, so study one of the common lists; this course covers 109.
Should I learn to write kanji, or only read them? Writing each one a couple of times helps fix the shape in memory, even if you will mostly type later. Typing still needs you to recognise the right character in a list.
What comes after N5? N4, which adds roughly another 170 kanji, depending on the list you follow.
A hundred characters in a month that stay is worth more than a hundred in a fortnight that are gone by the next one.