Levels

The JLPT, the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, has five levels, N5 the easiest and N1 the hardest. It has published no lists of words since its levels changed in 2010, so these lists are community-made: Jonathan Waller's, from his site tanos.co.uk, each word matched to its dictionary entry by the yomitan-jlpt-vocab project. They are a good guide to each level's words, not the test's own.

• N5 663 words

  The first of the JLPT's five levels: the most basic words.

• N4 628 words

  The second level: basic words of everyday life.

• N3 1,615 words

  The middle level: the words between the basics and the advanced.

• N2 1,732 words

  The fourth level: the words of the news, of work, of general reading.

• N1 2,989 words

  The hardest level: the words of a wide range of reading.