Joyo and JLPT Kanji
You may find the massive number of kanji characters overwhelming, but remember
that native Japanese speakers aren’t born knowing how to read kanji, either!
They study the most frequently used kanji over a period of years, constantly
reviewing what they’ve learned and practicing writing and reading them over and
over. You can follow their example by starting at the elementary level of fluency.
Joyo
The Japanese Ministry of Education has decided that students must learn 1,945 kanji
characters by the time they graduate from secondary school. This list of kanji
characters—last updated in the 1980s—includes 1,006 kanji taught in elementary
school and 939 kanji taught during secondary school. The characters are organized
both by level of difficulty and the level of frequency with which the characters
appear in daily usage. The very first set of kanji that Japanese first graders
study includes the kanji for numbers. (Feel free to emulate their example
and head on over to our numbers lesson to get started.)
As you can tell from this system, Japanese students take up to twelve years to learn
the almost 2000 kanji characters in daily use in Japan. They move on to the
next lesson only when they’ve reviewed and memorized earlier lessons. Follow the
Japanese educational example and study kanji at a steady pace complete with
frequent sessions of review.
JLPT
Although following the Joyo system of learning kanji can prove beneficial
to you, you probably have a greater learning capacity than an elementary school
student and you may wish to learn kanji at a faster pace or with the kanji
characters that you’re most likely to encounter as a non-native speaker of Japanese.
Studying the kanji featured on the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test)
may help you achieve these goals.
The JLPT, given annually or biannually depending on the country you’re in, is an
official certification for your level of proficiency in Japanese as a non-native
speaker. The JLPT certification is essential to those who wish to pursue careers
as Japanese translators, interpreters, or teachers. Kanji is a large component
of the four levels of the exam. The Beginner Exam consists of around 100 kanji,
the Basic Exam tests speakers on around 300 kanji, the Intermediate Exam
contains questions on approximately 1000 kanji, and the Advanced Exam assumes
a near-native level of fluency and tests knowledge of around 2000 kanji.
Learn more about the kanji on the exam at www.jlpt.jp/e.
Conclusion
Although you can read a lot of Japanese writing after mastering both hiragana and
katakana, there’s simply no avoiding learning kanji if you wish to be truly fluent
in the language. Most signs, newspapers, periodicals, manuals, and other publications
in Japan assume that their readers have achieved an adult level of literacy, which
requires a basic knowledge of around 2000 kanji characters. Although learning this
many kanji may take you a long time, if you regularly practice and review, you can
gradually expand your kanji vocabulary bit by bit every day.
Frequent review is essential to learn kanji. Use our flash cards, quizzes, and resources
to practice. Teach yourself at least one new kanji every day and take the time to
review the ones you’ve already learned or you might forget them!