Common Kanji Vocabular

The Jōyō Kanji 常用漢字表

The jōyō kanji is the guide to kanji characters announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current jōyō kanji are those on a list of 1,945 characters issued on October 10, 1981. It is a slightly modified version of the tōyō kanji, which was the initial list of secondary school-level kanji standardized after World War II. (source: Wikipedia)

• Jōyō Kanji 1st Grade (80)
• Jōyō Kanji 2nd Grade (160)
• Jōyō Kanji 3rd Grade (200)
• Jōyō Kanji 4th Grade (200)
• Jōyō Kanji 5th Grade (185)
• Jōyō Kanji 6th Grade (181)
• Jōyō Kanji Junior High-school (939)

JLPT Kanji 日本語能力試験漢字

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test, or JLPT, is a standardized criterion-referenced test to evaluate and certify the Japanese language proficiency of non-native speakers. It is held twice a year in East Asia and once a year in other regions. The JLPT has five levels, with Level N5 being the most basic and Level N1 the most difficult. The Japan Foundation estimates that approximately 150 hours of study are necessary to pass the Level N5 exam and 900 hours of study are required to pass the Level N1 test, although the figures may be significantly higher for native English speakers. In 2008, the Japanese government announced a plan under consideration to use the JLPT to screen applicants for long-term and permanent resident visas. (source: Wikipedia)

The JLPT Kanji are basically Jōyō Kanji divided into four levels of the JLPT. Each set consists of kanji required to pass each level of the JLPT.

• JLPT Level N5 Kanji (79)
• JLPT Level N4 Kanji (166)
• JLPT Level N3 Kanji (367)
• JLPT Level N2 Kanji (367)
• JLPT Level N1 Kanji (1232)

2,500 most frequently used kanji in newspapers

2,500 kanji ordered in a list that expresses the relative frequency of occurence of a character in the modern Japanese. The survey is based on newspaper articles.

• 1-500 of 2500 Kanji (500)
• 501-1000 of 2500 Kanji (500)
• 1001-1500 of 2500 Kanji (500)
• 1501-2000 of 2500 Kanji (500)
• 2001-2500 of 2500 Kanji (500)

The Jinmeiyō Kanji 人名用漢字

The Jinmeiyō Kanji (Chinese characters for use in personal names) are a set of 983 Chinese characters known as the "name kanji" in English. They are a supplementary set of characters which can be legally used in registered personal names in Japan, despite not being in that country's set of "commonly used characters". As a rule, registered personal names may contain only jōyō kanji, jinmeiyō kanji, katakana and hiragana. Jinmeiyō Kanji is sometimes used to mean only the 983 characters, or to mean the 2928 characters in both the Jinmeiyō and Jōyō sets. (source: Wikipedia)

• Jinmeiyō Kanji (983)