Fresh off kana, N5 looks like a wall: about a hundred kanji, hundreds of words, and no official list from the people who actually write the test. The scary part is the wrong part. What decides your N5 is whether you can read those characters inside a sentence you have never seen before, and that is a different skill from recognizing them on a card.
So before you memorize anything, find out where you are standing. Read this without decoding it piece by piece: 今日は晴れです. If it arrived as one sentence, you are further along than the list makes you feel. If it arrived as a row of shapes you had to assemble, that is fine, and it tells you exactly what this page is for.
Going from flashcards to sentences is the hardest adjustment a beginner makes, and almost nobody warns you it is coming. That is why this page ends in a tracker rather than a list you scroll past. Every N5 word here is spelled in kana, so if your hiragana or katakana recognition is not yet instant, warm up with our free kana trainer. A few rounds there makes the reading tracker below far easier to work through.
Below, you can explore our Interactive N5 Study List. Mark the Kanji and Vocabulary words you already know, click them to view full dictionary definitions and grammar rules, and watch your N5 Mastery Gauge grow!
What is tested in the JLPT N5?
N5 is three timed sections in a single sitting, and the shape of it tells you more than any word count does.
| Section | Time | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | 20 min | Kana spelling and meaning of basic words |
| Grammar & Reading | 40 min | Particles (は, が, に, を, で), verb forms (ます, て, た), short passages |
| Listening | 30 min | Slow, everyday spoken conversations |
That structure is published and current. The kanji and vocabulary counts everywhere online are not. jlpt.jp hasn't released an official N5 list since the 2010 restructure, and its own FAQ says so. "N5 = 100 kanji" is a widely-cited estimate traced to the old four-level test, not a requirement: roughly 100 cumulative kanji (80 to just over 100), about 800 cumulative vocabulary, with grammar counts disagreeing even more. Planning targets, not pass/fail lines. What jlpt.jp does commit to in writing is the ability N5 certifies, "the ability to understand some basic Japanese," the kind mainly learned in class. Textbook familiarity over real-world fluency, which is permission to stop chasing kanji you don't need yet.
Since 2010 there has been no official N5 kanji list, so every count you meet online is somebody's estimate of somebody else's estimate. Track a number nobody has to guess at instead: how many sentences you got through today without stopping.
Which is what the last stretch of N5 really is. The same list, met again inside sentences, until the words stop being entries you recognize and start being reading you can do.
How long does N5 really take?
Ask five people how long N5 took and you will get five answers. jlpt.jp has never published a study-hours figure, and the honest answer depends on where you start. Already read Chinese or Korean characters? N5's hundred-ish kanji barely register. Starting from zero, kana included? Budget real time for that first. With that caveat: test-prep communities commonly cite a few hundred hours for a consistent beginner, a loose planning number rather than a deadline.
Roughly in order, what that time tends to look like:
- Hiragana and katakana until you read both without translating in your head. A couple of weeks, not months. Our free trainer is built for exactly this stretch, and the beginner's guide to hiragana and katakana covers why the two scripts behave so differently.
- Core vocabulary and grammar, with one real sentence read for every new word, on the day you meet the word. Not once the list is "done."
- Short passages with furigana as a safety net, even while your tracker below is half-checked. This is the step where memorized words turn into reading ability.
- Timed, past-exam-style sections in the final weeks, so pacing is not a surprise on test day.
Here's the kind of sentence step three means:
今日は晴れです。
直訳 Word by word
Today, [topic], sunny, is.
です is the polite copula, and here it is carrying the entire verb slot. Nothing else in this sentence conjugates.
That is most of N5 reading: short, complete sentences built from simple pieces. If you met that same sentence bare at the top of this page and it landed, that is what your N5 looks like from the inside. Skip step three and you end up where this page started, with a hundred kanji you can name, and no sentence you can read.
Common N5 mistakes (and how to avoid them)
Some N5 mistakes have nothing to do with how many words you know. They are habits, and they quietly cap how much of what you memorized you can actually use. Four worth catching early:
Treating katakana as optional. N5 listening and reading lean on it harder than beginners expect (スーパー, コーヒー, テレビ), and if hiragana got five times the drilling katakana did, that is the gap that shows up first.
Confusing は and が because English glosses both as "is/are." は marks what the sentence is about. が marks what specifically answers the question. 私は学生です states a topic; 誰が学生ですか asks which person fits. They are doing different jobs, not competing for the same one.
Dropping だ or です, because English has no spoken "to be" you consciously reach for. 今日、休み is not a sentence yet. 今日は休みです is. For N5 purposes, the copula is the verb.
Learning a kanji's shape without attaching a sound to it. A character you can only recognize does nothing for you in Listening, and half the work in Reading. Reading real sentences, out loud when you can stand it, forces the sound to stick alongside the shape.
Interactive N5 kanji & vocabulary tracker
One rule keeps this tracker honest instead of flattering. Tick a card only when you could meet it cold, inside a sentence, with nothing printed above it. Anything looser and you are marking "I have seen this before" as learned, and the exam does not test that.
水を飲みます。
直訳 Word by word
Water, [object], drink.
Three moving parts: a noun, the particle を marking it as the thing being acted on, and a polite verb. Most of N5 reading is this shape with more words poured into it.
Use the interactive widget below to mark the N5 characters and words you can read. Tap any card to open the Yomimaru Popover Dictionary, which displays Hiragana readings, pitch accents, grammatical parts of speech, English meanings, and contextual example sentences.
If the gauge fills up faster than you expected, take the hint: you are shopping at the wrong level, and the N4 kanji and vocabulary index is where your next thousand words live.
Keep Learning: Your Next Steps After N5
Finished your N5 review? Here is where to go next.
- Advance to JLPT N4 Kanji & Vocabulary →
- Study hiragana and katakana first, and get the kana solid before you take on N4 kanji.
- Practice kana free in Yomikana: the interactive trainer with animated stroke order, quizzes, and a match game; no login required.
- What reading real Japanese actually looks like, for the day your N5 words start showing up in the wild.