N5 Kanji List

Almost every kanji has at least two kinds of reading. The on'yomi (音読み) is the reading borrowed from Chinese, usually used when a kanji is part of a compound word: for example 学 reads gaku in 学校 (がっこう, "school"). The kun'yomi (訓読み) is the native Japanese reading, usually used when the kanji stands alone or takes okurigana. 学 reads mana(bu) in 学ぶ ("to learn").

Do not try to memorize every reading in isolation. Learn the readings through the words that actually use them. When you study 人, learn it through 人 (ひと, "person") and 日本人 (にほんじん, "Japanese person") at the same time, and the words teach you both readings naturally.

Start with numbers (一 二 三 …), then days and time (日 月 火 水 木 金 土), then high-frequency everyday kanji (人 大 小 上 下 中 山 川). These appear constantly on the exam and in real text, so early mastery pays off immediately. Leave visually complex kanji until you are comfortable recognizing simpler shapes; your eye needs to learn the building blocks (radicals) first.

A large share of N5 kanji mistakes come from confusing similar shapes: 大 (big) vs 太 (fat), 日 (day/sun) vs 目 (eye), 土 (earth) vs 士 (samurai), 千 (thousand) vs 干 (dry). The exam deliberately offers these as wrong choices. When two kanji look alike, study them side by side and fix the one detail that separates them: the extra stroke, the longer line, rather than hoping to tell them apart later.

N5 kanji appears mainly in the Language Knowledge (Vocabulary) section: you read a kanji and choose its correct hiragana reading, or read a hiragana word and choose the correct kanji. You are never asked to handwrite kanji. This means recognition and reading are what count; passive recall is enough. Practising with the words above, then quizzing yourself on the reading, mirrors exactly what the test asks.