How to Prepare for JLPT N5 – Ultimate Study Guide

Whether you are studying Japanese for professional reasons or you are simply interested in learning the language, the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) is the worldwide standard for measuring the Japanese proficiency of non-native speakers.

But how do you prepare for the JLPT? The JLPT N5 is broken into reading and listening sections. For the reading section, you must memorize about 800 Japanese words and be able to read and understand hiragana, katakana, and about 100 kanji characters in context. For the listening portion, you should able to comprehend everyday conversations.

There is much more to preparing for the JLPT N5 than simply knowing what you are expected to understand to pass it. After reading this article, you will have all the resources, information, and guidance that you need to make a study plan, schedule a test, and feel confident about your ability to pass it.

Download JLPT N5 TEXT BOOK CHECK THIS LINK

How Long Does it Take to Study for JLPT N5?

There is no clear-cut answer to this question. The number of hours it will take you to prepare for the JLPT N5 depends on many variables. For example, a student with previous exposure to Chinese characters will need less time to memorize the 100 kanji characters needed to pass the JLPT N5.

Other factors include a student’s method of study, previous exposure to foreign language study, whether the student is living in Japan or has access to native speakers, and the consistency with which the student studies.

While required study hours will vary, we can determine an approximate amount of time that it will take to prepare for the JLPT N5. If a student studies and memorizes the grammar, vocabulary, and kanji, in the popular Japanese textbook Genki 1, they should be prepared for the JLPT N5. According to the Genki website it takes about 200 hours of class time to get through the textbook.

To learn more about the Genki textbook series, scroll down to the resources section.

While understanding all of the information provided by the Genki 1 textbook should be enough to pass the JLPT N5, according to the Japanese Language School Directory it take an average of 250 to 450 hours to study for the JLPT N5 for students with knowledge of Kanji and 325 to 600 hours to study for the test for students without knowledge of Kanji.

From this information we can determine it can take anywhere from 200 to 600 hours to study for the JLPT N5 depending on your background. However, Genki 1 is a tried and tested textbook, and as long as you are confident about the information in it, you should be prepared for the test.

How Difficult is it to Pass the JLPT N5?

To pass the JLPT N5, you must achieve a combined reading/vocabulary/grammar score of at least 120 out of 180 and a listening score of at least 60 of 80. In addition to these requirements, you must also get a score of at least 30 percent or greater on each section of the test.

Grading of tests is based on a test theory called Item Response Theory (IRT). This means that the scoring is scaled. According to the official Japanese Language Proficiency Test website:

“Perfectly maintaining the level of difficulty of questions among different tests is extremely difficult even if thorough analysis and discussion by experts are conducted during the question design phase. With raw scores, which are obtained simply by adding the allocated points of correctly answered questions, test scores are dependent on the difficulty of exams. When exam timing and difficulty of exam questions differ, test scores will vary for examinees with the same Japanese-language proficiency.”

From the JLPT website

To get an idea of how difficult it is to pass the JLPT N5, let’s take a look at past pass rates. In 2016 there were 91,839 test applicants. Of those applicants 76,969 actually took the exam, and 38,045 of those examines passed. That makes for a pass rate of 49.4 percent in 2016.

Looking at the years of 2014 and 2015 the pass rates were 51.2 percent and 52 percent respectively. Therefore, we can assume that overall pass rate for the JLPT N5 hovers around 50 to 51 percent.

For some perspective on that pass rate, the pass rate for the California State Bar Exam in July 2019 was about the same (50.1 percent). The overall pass rate for the popular Spanish language proficiency test DELE (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera) was 61 percent in 2012.

From this data we can see that passing the JLPT N5 is not easy. However, it is not necessarily difficult either. The primary concern of the student should be to familiarize themselves with the appropriate information. If this is done correctly, you should feel confident about your ability to pass the test.

What do I Need to Know for the JLPT N5?

As previously stated, you should know the following to pass the JLPT N5:

• About 800 Japanese words
• About 100 kanji characters
• Katakana
• Hiragana
• All Grammar in Genki 1

But which words? Which Kanji? What is the grammar in Genki 1? And how do you learn Katakana and Hiragana? Below I’ll break it down further and provide free online resources for study.

Vocabulary

Again, if you complete a popular Japanese textbook like Genki 1 or Minna no Nihongo you will have enough Japanese words in your repertoire to pass the JLPT N5.

The words on the JLPT N5 will cover basic, daily vocabulary groups: actions, family, numbers, directions, school, going to the store, buying things, etc.

Free online resources

• Memrise JLPT N5 deck: If you haven’t heard of memrise.com, it is a website were individual can upload virtual flashcard decks that used spaced repetition software to help you memorize new information. It is a great resource for learning Japanese vocabulary, but also kanji and grammar.
• Genki 1 vocabulary app: This is an excellent ancillary resource to the Genki 1 textbook. It contains flashcards of all the vocabulary featured in Genki 1. The great thing about this app is that the words are shown in context with sentences from the textbook and the workbook.
• Nihongoichiban.com N5 vocabulary list: This is a list of all the Kanji you might see on the JLPT N5. The website caters to Japanese learners and is a great general resource for those wishing to learn Japanese.

Kanji

The 100 Japanese kanji that appear on the JLPT N5 cover kanji that are extremely common: numbers, simple verbs, times, places, people, basic adjectives, and directions.

You will run into these kanji again and again, especially if you are living in Japan. One important thing to understand about kanji characters is that they are made up of smaller parts called radicals. If you can get a good handle of these radicals, it will make learning kanji in the future much easier.

In Chinese, each kanji has one meaning and one sound. The difficult thing about Japanese kanji is that each one may have multiple meanings and even multiple pronunciations. This is due to the fact that kanji is actually the Chinese alphabet which was grafted onto the Japanese language during the 5^th century.

Japanese kanji have different readings: onyomi (Chinese reading) and kunyomi (Japanese readings). At this point, don’t worry about learning every different reading and pronunciation for each kanji. Rather, focus on learning their most common readings and pronunciation for the test. As you get further into your Japanese studies, you can expand your knowledge of each Kanji.

Some Japanese kanji are pictographic and intuitive. Take 木 (ki) for example. 木 is the kanji for tree, and it happens to look like a tree. The kanji for 1 is 一 (ichi), 二 (ni) for 2, and三 (san) for three. However, most kanji are less straight forward. For example, 円 can be pronounced en or maru and can mean round, circle and yen (the Japanese currency).

For most students of the Japanese language, kanji is the most intimidating and difficult aspect. Elementary school children in Japan learn 1,000 Japanese kanji in six years. Yet, they have the advantage of being completely immersed in the language. The kanji are all around them.

While it may seem intimidating, the need to write kanji is becoming less and less necessary because of the prevalence of electronic communication. Unless you need to learn kanji for reading official documents, you can get by in Japan just knowing the basics.

Free online resources

• Jisho.org: Jisho means dictionary in Japanese. Jisho.org is a free online English-Japanese dictionary. You can search kanji by typing their pronunciation into the search bar in romanji, katakana or hiragana. You can also search by selecting the radicals that make up the kanji you are looking for. Each kanji has its own page with various pronunciations, definitions, stroke order, radicals, and example sentences.
• Genki 1 kanji app: Like the Genki 1 vocabulary app mentioned before, this app is an ancillary product to the Genki 1 and 2 textbooks. It contains 317 basic kanji flashcards. Each flashcard contains common readings in romanji, hiragana and/or katakana, and the kanji used in sentences from the textbook.
• Nihongoichiban.com JLPT N5 kanji list: Another list provided by nihongoichiban.com. This list provides all of the kanji that may appear on the JLPT N5.
• Wanikani app: This is an app created by Koichi, the Japanese language and culture blogger at tofugu.com. The app has all the kanji you will ever need to learn and uses spaced repetition to help you memorize it effectively. Each card uses mnemonic devices to help you learn and remember the kanji. Example sentences are provided, and each new batch of kanji is designed to build on the last.

Grammar

Basic grammar is covered on the JLPT N5. To make sure that you have all of your bases covered it is important that you use a textbook like Genki 1 or Minna no Nihongo, which contain all of the basic grammar like the simple past, directions, comparisons, etc. that will be on the test.

Japanese grammar is very different from English grammar. English has a basic sentence structure of SVO (subject + verb + object). Take this sentence for example, “Jane eats rice”. Jane (the subject) eats (the verb) rice (the object). In Japanese this sentence would look very different.

ジャンはご飯を食べる (Jane wa gohan wo taberu)

Notice that in written Japanese there are no spaces between the characters. Rather, words or different parts of speech are usually separated by particles which identify the relationship between words. In this sentence, those are the common particles are は andを. Let’s break down this sentence to see how it differs from English.

• ジャン is written in katana and means Jane. Notice that like English, the subject comes first.
• は (wa) is a Japanese particle which doesn’t have an exact equivalent in English. In this case, this particle shows the relationship between the subject and the object.
• ご飯 (gohan) means rice (although it has other meanings as well). This is the object of the sentence.
• を(wo) this is another particle which shows the relationship between the object of the sentence and the verb.
• 食べる(taberu) is the verb for ‘to eat’.

Notice that if we were to directly translate the Japanese sentence into English it would produce something like the following, “Jane rice eats”. Therefore, the basic structure of Japanese is SOV (subject + object + verb).

One caveat to this is that Japanese often omits the subject, especially when speaking. Japanese is very contextual. It would not be uncommon to hear someone simply say “ご飯を食べる “(rice eat). However, a native Japanese speaker would understand given the correct context.

Free online resources

• Tim Kae’s guide to Japanese grammar is an excellent online Japanese grammar resource. You can even download the guide as pdf so that you can study offline! Understanding that our philosophy of grammar is centered on English, Tim Kae uses a more Japanese-centric way of explaining grammar. The website states:

“This guide was created as a resource for those who want to learn Japanese grammar in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view.”

• jlptsensei.com grammar list provides a straightforward list of grammar points that you will encounter when taking the JLPT N5.
• Memrise.com in addition to having the great JLPT N5 vocabulary list I mentioned before, also has grammar flashcards specifically designed for the JLPT N5.
• Genki grammar app like its vocabulary and kanji app, the Genki grammar app is great ancillary resource for those using the Genki 1 textbook to study for the JLPT N5. The textbook uses sentences you encounter in the textbook to teach you the grammar in context.

Reading

The reading portion of the JLPT N5 is taken separately the grammar and vocabulary sections. This section is not tricky in the sense that it makes you read between the lines, however, it is important to know your vocabulary, which is the main skill being measured in this section.

The three types of questions in the reading section are short passages, medium passages, and information retrieval. Below I break apart what each section entails:

• Short passage: These questions involve passages of about 80 characters in length. They do not carry too much detail and are pretty straight forward. These questions are meant to mainly test your vocabulary comprehension. Be sure to familiarize yourself with question words and past tense.
• Medium passage: These questions involve passages of about 250 characters and contain 2 questions. To give you an idea of what 250 characters in Japanese looks like, it’s about half a page. These questions are looking for grammar comprehension. You will have to pay more attention to detail here, so be sure to take notes as you read.
• Information retrieval: The questions on this section also involve passages of about 250 characters. They are usually train or class schedules, notices, advertisements, and other basic and important informative materials one might encounter living in Japan. Don’t spend all of your time examining every detail, rather search for the information you need and move on.

All of the N5 kanji will appear on the test with furigana (phonetic alphabet) above. All other words will be written in katakana or hiragana.

Free online resources

• You can access the official JLPT reading workbook on jlptbootcamp.com. This book is produced by JEES (Japanese Educational Exchanges and Services), which is the organization which administers and produces the JLPT tests. The workbooks provide a collection of questions that have appeared on previous JLPT tests.
• White rabbit is not free; however, it is a great company that makes Japanese graded readers. The reading levels range from 0-3. Each story repeats key words often to help the reader understand the vocabulary in various contexts. Every page has drawings which help the reader understand the meaning of the text. There are no English translations. The goal of these texts to learn the language as a child would. You can download the  app or buy the physical books. Here are instructions on how to purchase them.
• NHK Web Easy is news in Japanese graded for Japanese learners. It is produced by the NHK, Japans public broadcasting service. The update their page with several easy articles everyday. The news is written in simple kanji, hiragana and katakana. Another great thing about NHK Web Easy is that it provides audio as well.

Listening

The listening section of the JLPT N5 consists of 6 types of question. The listenings will be in spoken Japanese, they will not be audio of written Japanese. Here are the 6 types you can expect to encounter:

• Task-based comprehension: This question type involves a dialogue between two people trying to solve an issue. You will get some context before the dialogue begins, and when it is finished you will be asked a question concerning the issue.
• Point comprehension: Once again, you will receive some context before the listening. Luckily, you can read the questions before the listening begins. A lot of information will be given, and you are expected to be able to pull out specific points to answer the questions.
• Summary comprehension: These questions are looking for you to understand the gist of a 1-minute dialogue. Be sure to take notes.
• Utterance Expressions: Similar to quick response questions. You will be provided with a picture with an arrow pointing to the speaker. After a short explanation of a situation you must choose one of three phrases that the selected person might say.
• Quick response: Again, here you must choose one of three possible answers. A sentence or question will be provided, and you choose the correct response.
• Integrated comprehension: This is the longest listening type (1-3 minutes each). You will be given context before the listening. The questions and answers are at the end of the dialogue.

The listening portion of the JLPT N5 can be intimidating, especially for students who are not living in Japan. However, there are Japanese shows like Terrace House on Netflix, which can give you some native listening experience. Below are some free Japanese listening resources.

Free online resources

• News in Slow Japanese is a free podcast. Each week, the hosts discuss a newsworthy topic in simple Japanese. The stories are read slowly to help with comprehension. There is also a paid version available on the provided website.
• Learn Japanese Pod is another great free podcast to help improve your listening comprehension. The podcasts feature natural conversations with breakdowns of the grammar points, vocabulary and slang. Some examples of past podcasts are, “Japanese verbs for daily life” and “How to book a table at a Japanese restaurant”.
• Japanesepod101 Is a full-on Japanese listening school online. There are both free and paid versions. Each lesson is 3-15 minutes long and include native Japanese speakers talking about everyday topics. There are transcripts and translations provided, and of course, more perks for the paid version.

Hiragana and Katakana

Japanese has two phonetic alphabets. Hiragana is the standard form of Japanese writing. You will see it used for particles, verb endings, and words without a kanji character.

Katakana looks similar to hiragana but is a little simpler. It is used mainly for foreign loan words likeコンピュタ(computer). Both alphabets consist of 46 basic characters and can be learned in a day or two.

Learning Hiragana and Katakana is as straightforward as learning your ABC’s. Here are some great free resources.

Free online resources

• Tofugu has an excellent guide for learning hiragana and katakana using mnemonics.
• Tofugu also put together a great list of 27 different Katakana and Hiragana charts.

Test registration and cost

In the United States the test is given in the following cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Honolulu, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Fayetteville (Arkansas), Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Ann Arbor, Boulder, Columbus, Miami, Portland and Newark.

The JLPT is administered in the US annually on December 6^th and costs $60. For more information about taking the JLPT in the United States you can visit the American Association of Teachers of Japanese here.

If you are planning on taking the test in Japan, then you can plan to take the test in July or December. You can find out the details for taking the test in Japan from the official JLPT website and details for taking the JLPT in other countries here.

Is JLPT N5 certification worth it?

The JLPT N5 probably won’t help you land a job, certainly not one that requires you to communicate in Japanese. However, the JLPT N1 is the standard for getting work in Japan as a foreigner (unless you are teaching English).

If you are short on cash, study a bit more and wait to take the N3. At that level, people will start to take your Japanese ability seriously. In any case, taking the JLPT N5 is a great way to set a realistic and tangible goal that will motive and guide your studying.

Beyond the JLPT N5

For English speakers, Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn. According to the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) it takes about 2200 hours to learn Japanese. This puts it in the most difficult language category, along with Chinese, Korean and Arabic.

For a comparison, the State Department says that it takes about 300 hours of focused study to learn Spanish, and about 600 hours to learn German.

Learning Japanese is a lifelong process that requires passion and determination. However, the benefits to learning a foreign language, particularly Japanese, are numerous.

Not only will it open your mind to new ideas and new ways of looking at the world, it will enable you to do business in Japan, get a deeper experience if you choose to travel to Japan, and give you the chance to speak with the nearly 130 million native Japanese speakers.