JLPT N5 Vocabulary List — Grouped the Way You'll Actually Learn It

By the Wabi-Sabi Japanese team · Last updated: July 28, 2026 · 219 entries

This is the working vocabulary for JLPT N5, laid out the way it is actually taught rather than the way it is usually listed. Most N5 word lists you will find are alphabetical by romaji, which is convenient for a computer and almost useless for a person: it puts ashita (tomorrow) next to atsui (hot) and separates the days of the week across four screens. Words do not live in your head alphabetically. They live in clumps.

So this list is grouped by theme — verbs you do every day, verbs for going out, い-adjectives and な-adjectives kept apart because they conjugate differently, family, food, transport, time, colours, weather. Each entry gives you the kana form you will hear, the reading in romaji, the meaning, the kanji form where one is commonly used, and a short example sentence for the verbs. There is a filter box at the top: type an English word, a kana string or romaji and the table narrows as you type.

How to actually use a list like this

Do not read it top to bottom. A vocabulary list is a reference and a checklist, not a lesson. Three ways to use it that work:

• As a gap check. Skim a group you think you know — say, Time words — and mark the three or four you hesitated on. Those are your next study session. The ones you knew instantly cost you nothing to skip.
• As sentence fuel. Pick five words from one group and write five sentences using them. Not translations of the examples here — your own sentences, about your own day. This is the step nearly everyone skips, and it is the one that moves a word from "I recognise that" to "I can use that".
• As pronunciation practice. Every word has a 🔊 button that reads it aloud in Japanese. Say it back. Beginners systematically under-practise saying words out loud, then discover in a real conversation that they can read a word fine and cannot produce it.

A note on what "N5 vocabulary" means: the JLPT does not publish an official word list, so every list you see — including this one — is a reconstruction from past papers, standard textbooks and the level descriptors. Roughly 800 words is the usual estimate for N5. The 219 here are the ones our N5 course teaches inside sentences, which is a deliberately smaller and higher-frequency set: the words you will meet in the first month, not everything that could conceivably appear. Treat the number as a floor, not a syllabus.