Hi Folks,
Which kanji do learners actually struggle with? Not the ones that look scary, but the ones people really get wrong in reviews.
We dug into OniKanji's review data to find out. Here's what we found for JLPT N5.
How we measured "hard"
Raw accuracy is misleading. Strong learners get further into the curriculum, so later kanji can look easier than they are. To even that out, we compared each learner's accuracy on a kanji with that same learner's average across all their kanji. A kanji that's "11 points below average" is one that learners get wrong noticeably more often than they get wrong anything else.
A few more ground rules:
- Reviews are in context: you answer the meaning or reading of real vocabulary words, not a bare kanji.
- A learner only counts toward a kanji once they've reviewed it at least 5 times.
- A kanji is only ranked if enough learners have reviewed it.
The hardest and easiest JLPT N5 kanji
The pattern: the hardest N5 kanji aren't complicated, they have a lot of readings.
- 生 is the clear #1. It's one of the most reading-heavy kanji in Japanese: せい in 学生, しょう in 一生, い in 生きる, う in 生まれる, なま in 生ビール, and more.
- 出, 上 and 日 follow the same pattern. They're simple to write, but which reading you need changes from word to word.
- The easiest kanji mostly have one dominant reading. 校 is almost always こう, and 山 is almost always さん or やま.
Easy to understand, hard to read
For some kanji, learners almost always know what the word means but stumble on how to say it. Four of the six biggest gaps are numbers:
- 十 shifts between じゅう (十分), じっ or じゅっ (十回) and とお (十日).
- 九 is きゅう or く depending on the word, and ここの in 九つ.
- 四 is よん, し or よ, and it's notoriously inconsistent: 四時 is よじ, 四月 is しがつ.
- 六 turns into ろっ before some sounds, like 六本 (ろっぽん).
If numbers keep tripping you up, you're in good company.
Same kanji, very different words
Knowing a kanji isn't the same as knowing every word it appears in. For each of the six hardest N5 kanji, we compared the vocabulary words learners review:
The gaps are huge. Learners get 生きる right 79% of the time, but 一生 only 29%. 雨 is right 91% of the time on its own, but 雨戸 only 49%.
The hardest word almost always uses the kanji's rare reading:
- 一生 (いっしょう): しょう instead of the more common せい.
- 出場する (しゅつじょうする): two on'yomi in a row, nothing like the で in 出る.
- 上下 (じょうげ): じょう instead of the うえ everyone learns first.
- 十回 (じゅっかい): the sound change before か. Learners get the reading right only 20% of the time.
- 元日 (がんじつ): じつ is one of 日's least common readings.
- 雨戸 (あまど): あめ becomes あま at the start of the compound.
Meanwhile, the easiest word is usually the kanji on its own or with its basic kun'yomi: 上 (うえ), 雨 (あめ), 出る (でる).
That's also part of why kanji like 校 and 千 rank as the easiest: the words learners meet them in at N5, like 学校 and 千, use one simple reading.
What this means for your study
- Don't judge a kanji by its stroke count. 生 has 5 strokes and is the hardest N5 kanji in our data.
- Learn kanji through vocabulary. The hard kanji are hard because their readings change from word to word. Knowing 生きる doesn't mean you know 一生, and you only learn which reading goes where by seeing real words.
- Give multi-reading kanji extra reviews. If 生, 出 or 日 keep coming back in your reviews, that's normal. They're the hardest kanji in N5.
Want to see how you do on these? Browse the full JLPT N5 kanji list, or start learning with OniKanji for free.
We'll cover N4 next
Happy studying!