JLPT N5 Kanji: All 79 With Stroke Order
These are the 79 kanji of JLPT N5, the first level of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. Each one shows its on and kun readings and a short English meaning. Tap a kanji to watch it written, stroke by stroke.
The JLPT has not published an official kanji list since 2010, so study lists vary, from about 80 to more than 100 kanji. This page follows the common 79-kanji N5 list, the same set GlyphLink deals for JLPT N5, grouped by topic so related kanji sit together.
The 79 N5 kanji, by topic
On readings are in katakana, kun readings in hiragana. A dot marks okurigana, the kana written after the kanji: ひと.つ is written 一つ. A dash marks a reading used only inside a word.
Numbers and money 14
Days of the week 7
Time 10
Directions and places 11
People 9
Nature and weather 5
Actions 11
School and everyday words 7
Describing words 5
How to learn the N5 kanji
- Learn kana first. Readings and example words are written in kana. If you are not there yet, start with the hiragana chart and the katakana chart.
- Learn each kanji inside a word. 日 alone tells you little; 日本 (にほん, Japan), 毎日 (まいにち, every day) and 日曜日 (にちようび, Sunday) show how it is read and used. Kun readings tend to appear when a kanji stands alone or takes okurigana, as in 大きい; on readings in compounds, as in 大学.
- Follow the stroke-order rules. Top before bottom (三), left before right (川), a horizontal before the vertical that crosses it (十), the centre before small side strokes (小), and a frame before what goes inside, closed last (国, 日). Kanji written in the usual order are faster to write and easier to recognise.
- Watch for look-alikes. 人 and 入, 右 and 左, 木 and 本, 大 and 天, 日 and 白. Compare them side by side until the difference jumps out.
- Review little and often. Ten minutes a day beats an hour once a week. Come back to a kanji just as you are about to forget it, and look for it in new places: signs, menus, a sentence, a game.
Practice them in a tile puzzle
GlyphLink is a free tile-matching puzzle for iPhone and iPad played with real kanji, and the JLPT N5 set is free. Spotting the same shapes again and again trains your eye for them. It is a puzzle, not a course: it builds recognition, not readings.
Try a small board right here: tap two identical tiles and link them with a line that turns twice or less.
Board cleared
A small, gentle demo with no clock. In the app, boards have 52, 80 or 114 tiles and about four minutes on the clock.
Opens the GlyphLink App Clip: a real board of kanji in seconds, right here on your iPhone or iPad.
Free to play, with ads.
No account needed.
Sources and licence
- Readings and meanings: KANJIDIC2 by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Stroke order: KanjiVG by Ulrich Apel and contributors, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- The 79-kanji N5 set: GlyphLink's character data. The topic groups are this page's own.
You may reuse the readings and meanings on this page under CC BY-SA 4.0, with credit to GlyphLink and KANJIDIC2; the KanjiVG strokes keep their CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. The stroke file this page plays is jlpt-n5-kanji.json.