What’s Your Kanji Level?
Daily kanji practice, a JLPT N5 and N4 placement quiz, and a calmer rhythm for learning Japanese.
Are You at N5 or N4?
Twelve kanji, sixty seconds. Calibrated against the JLPT N5 and N4 syllabi.
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One curated kanji a week
Stroke order, vocabulary, and the cultural context behind each character. Sent once a week. Unsubscribe in one click.
Today’s Kanji
Each day reveals five characters with readings, meaning, and memory cues. Practice feels lighter when it stays small.
Daily, not dauntingFive kanji a day, reviewed weekly
JLPT-alignedN5 syllabus, calibrated against official lists
Stroke order built inReadings, radicals, and writing direction
Pairs with the workbookSame characters, by hand, on guided paper
The Daily Kanji Practice That Actually Sticks
Kanji practice rewards rhythm more than intensity. A short session every morning, repeated week after week, beats a marathon weekend almost every time. The brain encodes meaning through spaced exposure, and five well-chosen characters a day fits the way memory actually works.
That is the rhythm this tool is built around. Open it with coffee. Recognise the day’s set. Trace the strokes mentally, or on paper if you want. Close the tab. The kanji will show up again, in context, sooner than you expect.
Beneath the recognition layer sits something quieter. Each character carries a meaning, a sound, and a small cultural footprint. Learning kanji becomes, in time, a way of reading Japan itself — its menus, its signs, its poetry, its patient love of the brushstroke.
Why Daily Repetition Beats Cramming
Cramming feels productive because it generates output. Hours pass, characters stack up, the page fills. Within a week, however, most of those characters have left. The brain treats short-term loading the same way it treats noise: it discards what was not retrieved later.
Spaced repetition reverses the trade. Instead of front-loading a hundred kanji in one sitting, you encounter five today, see those same five again tomorrow, then a week later, then a month. Each retrieval strengthens the memory trace. By the third or fourth pass, recognition becomes automatic.
The N5 to N4 Path
JLPT N5 covers roughly 100 kanji — the foundation. Numbers, days of the week, simple verbs, family, body parts, the basic vocabulary that lets you read a menu, a station sign, a children’s book. Most learners reach N5 recognition in three to six months of daily practice.
N4 doubles that vocabulary, adding 200 more characters. The new ground covers daily life, work, travel, weather, feelings — the kanji you need to read manga, follow a news headline, or write a postcard. The jump from N5 to N4 takes roughly six to nine months when daily practice is steady.
Both levels share the same underlying habit: small, regular, attentive. The placement quiz at the top of this page tells you where you actually stand. From there, the daily flashcards keep you moving.
More Tools for Japan Learners
Calligraphy Practice
Trace 100 essential kanji with stroke-by-stroke animated guides.
Open the Tool →
Japanese Name Generator
Authentic kanji names with meaning, reading, and cultural context.
Generate a Name →
Calligraphy Workbook
100 essential JLPT N5 kanji on guided practice paper, by hand.
View the Workbook →
Anime in Japan
Anime quiz, names, and adult-coded fan guides for design-conscious viewers.
Take the Quiz →Take the Practice Off-Screen
Two MJ-published companions to the daily flashcards. Built for the same patient, considered approach to learning.
100 Essential Kanji — Calligraphy Practice Workbook
The same N5 kanji you study here, on guided practice paper. Stroke order, traced characters, and room to write your own. Pairs directly with the daily flashcards above.
View the Workbook →
Magnificent Japan Journals
Cream-paper journals for the quieter parts of language learning — vocabulary lists, reflection, the stories behind characters that stay with you. A small library of editorial designs.
Browse the Journals →Books and Tools for Practice
A small, contextual selection — calligraphy supplies, kanji study books, and Japanese stationery worth the desk space.