Free Japanese Kanji Dictionary — JLPT N1-N5 with Stroke Order
Nepali Kanji is a free online Japanese kanji dictionary covering 2,211 kanji across all five JLPT levels (N5 to N1). Every kanji includes English meanings, on-readings (音読み), kun-readings (訓読み), animated stroke order, component radicals, and example words from a 22,589-word dictionary. No account required.
JLPT Kanji Levels — How Many Kanji Do You Need?
The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) has five levels. Here is a complete breakdown of kanji required at each level:
JLPT Kanji Requirements by Level
| JLPT Level | Kanji Count | Difficulty | Who It's For | Example Kanji |
|---|
| JLPT N5 | ~100 kanji | Beginner | Complete beginners, first 3–6 months of study | 日, 月, 火, 水, 木, 金, 土, 人, 口, 手 |
| JLPT N4 | ~300 kanji | Elementary | Basic Japanese speakers, 6–12 months of study | 食, 飲, 行, 来, 見, 聞, 話, 読, 書, 買 |
| JLPT N3 | ~650 kanji | Intermediate | Conversational Japanese, 1–2 years of study | 働, 経, 験, 集, 合, 社, 会, 国, 家, 事 |
| JLPT N2 | ~1,000 kanji | Upper-Intermediate | Newspaper reading, 2–3 years of study | 環, 境, 政, 治, 経, 済, 文, 化, 科, 学 |
| JLPT N1 | 2,000+ kanji | Advanced | Native-level reading, 4+ years of study | 憧, 憬, 懸, 念, 躊, 躇, 逡, 巡, 崇, 拝 |
What is On-Reading vs Kun-Reading in Kanji?
Every Japanese kanji has two types of readings. On-reading (音読み, onyomi) is the Chinese-derived pronunciation, used mainly in compound words. Kun-reading (訓読み, kunyomi) is the native Japanese pronunciation, used when kanji appear alone or with hiragana. For example, the kanji 水 (water) has on-reading スイ (sui) as in 水曜日 (Wednesday) and kun-reading みず (mizu) when used alone.
What Are Kanji Radicals (部首)?
Kanji radicals (部首, bushu) are the fundamental components that kanji are built from. There are 214 traditional Kangxi radicals. Learning radicals allows you to guess the meaning of unfamiliar kanji, memorize characters more efficiently, and look up kanji in dictionaries. For example, the radical 氵 (water) appears in 海 (sea), 川 (river), and 泳 (swim). This dictionary includes all 321 radicals with English meanings.
How to Learn Kanji Stroke Order
Kanji stroke order (書き順, kakijun) is the prescribed sequence for drawing each stroke of a kanji character. General rules: (1) top to bottom, (2) left to right, (3) horizontal before vertical strokes. Learning correct stroke order improves handwriting legibility and aids character memorization. This dictionary provides animated stroke-by-stroke demonstrations for all 2,211 kanji, powered by the KanjiVG open dataset.
JLPT N5 Kanji List — 100 Essential Beginner Kanji
The following kanji are required for JLPT N5: 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 百, 千, 万, 円, 年, 月, 日, 時, 分, 半, 何, 今, 午, 前, 後, 毎, 週, 曜, 上, 下, 右, 左, 中, 外, 東, 西, 南, 北, 口, 目, 耳, 手, 足, 人, 女, 男, 子, 父, 母, 友, 先, 生, 学, 校, 語, 本, 読, 書, 話, 聞, 見, 食, 飲, 買, 来, 行, 帰, 出, 入, 休, 起, 寝, 山, 川, 田, 花, 木, 犬, 猫, 魚, 車, 電, 気, 駅, 国, 語, 何, 誰, どこ, いつ, 大, 小, 新, 古, 高, 安, 白, 黒, 赤, 青
About This Dictionary
Nepali Kanji is developed by Tech Bato Pvt. Ltd., the creators of JFT Guru — Nepal's leading JFT Basic exam preparation platform. The kanji data is sourced from KANJIDIC2 (© James William Breen), dictionary data from JMdict (© Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group), stroke order from KanjiVG (© Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0), and radical decomposition from KRADFILE (© Ulrich Apel & Jim Breen).
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