About kanji
Japanese has three characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji represents sounds and meanings. It is used for nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
For information on katakana, click here
Kanji can be read in two ways: 訓読み(kun yomi) and 音読み(on yomi). 訓読み(kun yomi) are Japanese readings, and 音読み(on yomi) are Chinese readings.
Number of kanji
There are about 2000 kanji used in Japan, known as 常用漢字(jooyoo kanji). Japanese people learn about 1000 kanji called 教育漢字(kyooiku kanji) in elementary school, and another 1000 in junior high school.
日本語能力試験(Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, JLPT) requires about 100 kanji for N5, 300 for N4, 600 for N3, 1000 for N2, and 2000 for N1.
For information on N5 level kanji, click here
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